Why is search engine optimisation important?

 As explained in the "Being Found" section of our ABCs of Internet Success, ensuring customers can easily find your website when they're looking for it is a critical consideration not to be overlooked. According to VeriSign, over 1 million new Web addresses are registered every month - that's over 40,000 per day. How do consumers find their way through all these sites? The answer is search engines.

You've probably heard of Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others. These are the big players in the search engine business and millions upon millions of people use them every day to find everything from stock tips to sports cars. Google alone boasts over 200 million searches every day, and that number keeps on growing. Even if you've never thought about search engines before, these statistics illustrate how important it is for your website to be listed in them. But being listed isn't enough; you also need to achieve a high ranking in the search results to benefit from the considerable amount of traffic they can send to your website.

Have you ever wondered why some sites turn up at the top of any given search result while others are buried 10, 20 or 100 pages down?

There are specific techniques used when building a website that can determine whether or not a search engine can actually find the website to begin with, and then where it ranks that site in its database. These techniques are referred to as search engine optimization (often abbreviated as SEO) and are really quite complex. That's because searchers demand only the most relevant results from their searches, so the search engines are constantly changing and refining the way they capture and categorize content. It takes an expert to understand this constantly evolving process and to implement the techniques that ensure a top ranking. Your Internet Consultant can offer these expert SEO services as part of your new Internet Solution, or as an upgrade to your existing website. Either way, this essential service will deliver more targeted traffic to your website, unlocking the full potential of your online presence.

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Our SEO Program

Our SEO program has been used to optimise more web sites than any other service in Australia. With search engine positions now crucial to a web sites success, it is more important than ever to optimise your site for top positions.

We offer a high quality solution to SEO that is both affordable and successful.

We don't

• Use suspect techniques for quick results like cloaking, redirects, hidden text or site duplication
• Use link farms or automated link acquisition systems
• Use automated search engine submission software to submit your site to 10,000's of search engines

We do

• Use solid techniques to ensure long-term performance
• Work within the guidelines set by major search engines, for example http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
• Provide an Admin Panel that allows you to view and change your details, view and modify your link building campaign and access your Hitslink^TM tracking account (view demo)
• Provide a quality link building service to establish links with sites that are relevant to your client's industry

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SEO Service Summary

MONTH ONE

Keyword Request
Once you are signed up on our SEO program, you will be sent a email requesting keywords. Keywords are the words entered as searches on search engines like Google. For example, the following searches - 'Leather Boots', 'Leather Boots Australia' are using the keywords 'Leather', 'Boots' and 'Australia'.

SEO Assessment
Once our team has received your keywords we will then assess your web site for SEO. One of our team will compile a list of changes that need to take place in order for your site to achieve top search engine positions. The changes that need to take place can then be either carried out by your web developer or the  WSI Internet Consulting design team. The cost for implementing changes in your assessment is a separate cost to your monthly fee.

The changes that need to take place are (in most cases) not going to impair the current look and feel of your web site. Web sites that use frames, layers or Flash / Image layouts will require more drastic changes and therefore should expect a higher initial cost for implementation.

Link Networking
One of the changes usually requested in the SEO Assessment is the addition of a resource links page. This page will be used by our team to help network your site with other quality web sites in your industry. This type of networking plays a crucial role in achieving stronger search engine results.

To locate good sites for your network, our team will first analyse our extensive database to locate suitable candidates. In addition, our link building team will also crawl the search engines to locate web sites that are specific to your site. Our target is from 15-20 sites per month. Once a list of good sites to contact has been compiled, our support team will take over by contacting the target sites. Contacts are followed up weekly for a period of 1 month. Once a link to your site has been added, regular checks are carried out to ensure that it remains in place.

ONGOING MONTHS

Link Networking
The  WSi Internet Consulting SEO team will continue to increase your network as outlined above.

Reporting
On a regular basis, emails from  WSi Internet Consulting will be sent outlining the following:

• A list of web sites that have met our link criteria and have been approached for a link, remote web sites confirmed as linking to yours, links to be added on your own web site and overall reciprocation rate.
  
• Reminders which advise of status of the program and anything pending completion from your end in order to advance onward with the program.

In addition to these emails, a Hitslink^TM program (view demo) will be set up for your site. This program has been designed to meet the needs of the SEO industry and is currently one of the best available visitor tracking programs worldwide.

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SEO Success Stories

With over 1,200 sites now optimised, our extensive experience helps us to achieve the best results for our clients.

Results current as of 1st of September, 2005

Accommodation / Hospitality

• Bluemountainsonline.com.au
  #1 for 'blue mountains restaurants' on Google.com
  #3 for 'blue mountains accommodation' on Google.com
  
  
• Hotelaugusta.com.au
  #1 for 'port augusta accommodation' on Google.com
  #1 for 'port augusta hotels' on Google.com
  #2 for 'port augusta' on Google.com
  
  
• Newportarms.com.au
  #1 for 'liquor outlet' on Google.com
  #1 for 'liquor specials' on Google.com
  #12 for 'sydney restaurants' on Google.com
  
  
• Newportmirage.com.au
  #1 for 'outdoor weddings' on Google.com
  #5 for 'wedding reception' on Google.com.au
  #8 for 'conference venues' on Google.com.au
  
  
• Promisedlandcottages.com.au
  #1 for 'bellingen accommodation'
  #1 for 'bellingen luxury accommodation'
  #1 for 'holiday accommodation bellingen'

Business

• Crisismanagement.com.au
  #1 for 'crisis management plans' on Google.com.au #4 on google.com
  #1 for 'business crisis management' on Google.com.au #3 on google.com
  #1 for 'crisis management' on Google.com.au
  
  
• Equitypartners.com.au
  #1 for 'buyout management' on Google.com.au
  #1 for 'buyin management' on Google.com.au
  #3 for 'mbo' on Google.com.au Computers
  
  
• I-tech.com.au
  #1 for 'computer hardware' on Google.com.au
  #2 for 'computer hardware' on Google.com
  #1 for 'computer products' on Google.com.au
  
  "The SEO service is great, professional and they do what they promised - achieving your site to the top 10 positions." Simon Chan, I-Tech

Education

• Primaryschool.com.au
  #7 for 'primary schools' on Google.com
  #1 for 'primary school' on Google.com
  #1 for 'primary school lessons' on Google.com
  
  "I run web sites representing a diverse range of enterprises. This SEO service has been an efficient, cost-effective and individualised service that has helped me to boost traffic to my sites in an extraordinary way - it leaves Google Adwords for dead". Charlie O'Sullivan, Primaryschool.com.au

Drug Testing

• Breathalyzer.net
  #1 for 'breathalyzer' on Google.com
  #3 for 'breathalyzers' on Google.com
  #1 for 'portable breathalyzer' on Google.com

Finance

• 1stdirectmortgages.co.uk
  #4 for 'mortgages uk' on Google.com
  #5 for 'mortgages' on Google.co.uk
  #18 for 'mortgages' on Google.com

Gambling

• Nevadajacks.net
  #4 for 'custom poker chips' on Google.com
  #6 for 'clay poker chips' on Google.com
  #9 for 'poker chips' on Google.com

Hobbies

• Woodprojects.com
  #1 for 'woodworking plans' on Google.com
  #1 for 'wood projects' on Google.com
  #4 for 'furniture plans' on Google.com
  
  "After the first month of holding my top positions, I experienced a whopping 30% increase above my best month in 4 years!" Anthony Moris, Woodprojects.com
  
  
• Shiremodels.com.au
  #2 for 'diecast model cars' on Google.com.au
  #5 for 'model cars' on Google.com.au
  
  "The friendly, courteous and helpful staff offered suggestions and achieved rankings within a few months. For our small outlay they have kept us in the top positions with no effort at all on our part." Debbie Leach, Shiremodels.com.au

Home

• Natalieengdahl.com.au
  #1 for 'luxury bed linen' on Google.com.au
  #2 in google.com

Music

• Flutterby.com.au
  #1 and #2 for 'personalised childrens music' on Google.com.au
  #1 & #2 in google.com #8 for 'childrens music' on Google.com.au
  #3 & #4 for 'childrens poetry' in Google.com.au
  #1 & #2 for 'rhyming stories' in Google.com.au

Specialty Stores

• Andersonlefthandside.com.au
  #1 for 'lefthanded' on Google.com.au
  #1 for 'left handed' on Google.com.au
  #1 for 'left handed products' on Google.com.au

Storage

• Satellitestorage.com.au
  #1 for 'self storage facilities' on Google.com
  #1 for 'self storage sydney' on Google.com
  #3 for 'self storage' on Google.com.au

Travel

• Austspiritsailingco.com.au
  #1 and #2 for 'sydney whale watching' on Google.com
  #1 and #2 for 'sydney christmas parties' on Google.com
  
  
• Visitfrance.com.au
  #1 and #2 for 'visit france' on Google.com.au
  #1 for 'travel holidays france' on Google.com.au