Success,.. sorta

Just a raw plug for my first SEO clients:
Short Cut Computers belongs to Steve Trim, a friend who actually paid me to learn this stuff and put it to work for him.
And Steve Trim's other business, Barcode Solutions., which will be my second project.

I use the excerpt above as part of my signature on this experimental blog to help generate temporal links to Steve's company sites. It's an experiment to see how the rankings are affected.

Steve's main site, Shortcut Computers, had been designed to be easily modified by him and his staff using FrontPage(tm). It had been up for nearly a year when he became interested in what was happening there. -- Nothing.
The site registered about 35 visitors in a year; most of which were probably Steve himself. It was there for him to say he had a website.

After reading a few books on SEO/SEM, we redid the site.
First, it needed to be more dynamic and easier to use. Still experimenting with options, we mistakenly chose PostNuke for the CMS. PostNuke made some things easier, but overall is a programmers' CMS.
Then the overall appearance was reconfigured. The present homepage reflects this step.
It is at least dynamic, but too many of the pages are lost behind long URLs.
Small problems.

During this process, I began researching SEO/SEM.
First step: Wade through a few books.
Second step: Find the resources needed in Australia.
Third step: Apply those resources to accomplish the goals of the business.

I began "internet marketing" back when AltaVista and Lycos were the search engine paradigms. Google and Yahoo in those days didn't exist. The key to internet marketing was, and still is, LINKS!
Step two was an eye-opener. There simply weren't that many directories and search engines. Two industries, tourism and mining, were well represented. Business listings were made on government or telecom sites. The Yellow Pages in Australia had spawned three different access sites; all of whom charged for listings.

Step three was the real challenge though.
The small company's service area was a number of suburbs on the southeast side of Melbourne. Although this area comprised over 1 million residents, it sat on the bleeding edge of broadband availability. Most of his customers were condemned to dial up Internet access.
(Click the 'Melbourne' tab on the iBurst availability map. There are other similar maps - and more timely - but this one tracks very closely and illustrate the point. Then enter 'Dandenong' to see the availability in the company's service area.)

This company, like 90% of small business in Australia, didn't want to market nationally or even citywide.
Links from search engines were good for natural rankings -- "roamers" in SEM-speak -- but to increase business, we needed visitors -- "convertibles" SEM-speak -- who could take use the services. For that, we needed to target a region not commonly defined: PPC advertising.
For Melbournians, the "southeast suburbs" is easily understood. For Google-Aus and Yahoo7, it means nothing.

We established a blog for the company to demonstrate expertise in depth, and to keep up with changes in the business climate of the service area. Fortunately, the changes came fast and furious in the media. Rupert Murdoch announced on a visit that "Internet service in Australia is abysmal." Optus went public with plans to form G-9, excluding Telstra. Then the bubble-heads in Parliament passed archaic copyright law amendments.
Nothing drives Internet traffic like other media.

Avoiding any more of the details, we managed to get 70-90 visitors per day to the site within 3 months. Page ranks from Google (2), and Alexa(about 260,000) gained over 6 months or so. The site rose quickly to SERP positions 1-4 in most of the service area. The blog is cited regularly on other blogs. We even saw visits on the blog from Canberra.

While I was away in Hawaii, things were neglected. The number of visitors held pretty solid because of the natural search. PPC campaigns were abandoned though, and 'convertibles' waned.

Overall, a success. With the caveat that it can only improve with more attention
What was found and learned about SEO/SEM in Australia was to be applied to another of Steve's enterprises: Barcode Solutions. This has to be easier. Its market is national and international. (Hope springs eternal. It wasn't...) Sphere: Related Content

Latest figures just like the first...

Hitwise reiterates the search figures for Australia. These numbers seem to hardly change.
Yes, Google-Aus and Google dominate the search engine traffic with more than 84%. (Google-Aus: 68.45%, Google: 14.81%). If anything, Google has increased its dominance in the last year.

Yahoo7 (Yahoo-Aus and TV channel 7) are really pulling out all the stops to try to gain more interest in their offerings, but for the highly profitable SERP numbers (Yahoo-Aus: 3.03%); they've only managed to fall behind their pricey competitors at NineMSN (8.20%).
For anyone looking to market a website to Australia, Google is pretty much the whole ball game - Or is it?
The sophistication of Google's search algorithm is lost in the shallow Australian market (more on this later), but the power of being the icon of Internet search is overwhelming to the raw Australian user. Ever heard anyone say: "I Yahoo'd it."?

MSN has taken the perspective of becoming the high priced spread to maximize profits from its marginal position. Makes sense. This is really Microsoft, after all.
I don't hate Microsoft. They've made too many smart moves not to respect them. I just wish more people would learn about Linux, and make the whole software marketplace more reasonable.
But pricing an ad on MSN at $20,000 a month is ridiculous in Australia. It limits MSN to only big business in a country where 96.4% of registered businesses are small (under $2M gross with less than 5 employees, as defined by the Finance Minister.)

Lead by an Internet-phobic government, you have to wonder when the Australian public will suss this stuff out. The entrepreneurial search engine industry is already beginning to diminish. No one knows how to interpret the regressive copyright laws, and that has scared many out of the market.
Even some university projects have changed their focus from setting up a search engine to producing the software.

Just a raw plug for some SEO/SEM clients:
Short Cut Computers belongs to Steve Trim, a friend who actually paid me to learn this stuff and put it to work for him.
And Steve Trim's other business, Barcode Solutions., which will be my second project. Sphere: Related Content

Fresh SEM in OZ

Fresh SEM in Oz
by Paul Donley

When I started looking into SEO and SEM, I roamed the Net a little to see what the buzz was all about, then - after realizing that I was lost in acronyms and neologisms again - checked out a couple of books from my online reference library and settled down in front of the computer with a strong cup of coffee for some reading.
It didn't take a long time before I realized that I was looking at some grreeeat stuff -- but it didn't pertain to the Land of OZ.

Fresh in Oz
Australia took to the Internet faster, person by person (per capita), than any other country in the world. In 2000-2001, fewer than 10% of Australian households had access to the Net. Last year, 2005, 35% of all Australian households had access; and slightly more, 41%, of Australian businesses - mostly small businesses.
Of those, 65% were using broadband access of one form or the other.
It's been predicted in 2010 that 70% of small businesses in Australia will be on the Net. The Internet will be the most important advertising resource for small business. And Australia has a lot of small, regional and local businesses.

Googled
At this point, however, Australia is new to the Net - and computers.
There have already been a few marketing surges as Australians moved first to replace their older P1 and P2 systems with P4's in order to run XP, then Celeron made a splash, and the next surge is already underway with the dual-core hardware. Households no longer have just one computer. There is usually a desktop and a couple of laptops in most households these days.

All those new computers need access to the Internet, so .. wireless networking is popular. For most households, the first network they'll see will be wireless - at the home or office.

But all this hardware doesn't mean everyone has instantly acquired computer skills. Far from it.
Driven by their children, who see the latest hardware and software in the schools - because both Victoria and NSW are constantly upgrading the school to fulfill campaign promises - households have spent thousands over the past 5 years to acquire computers that no one seems to really know what to do with.
Even the teachers who are running around with those hot new laptops are a little confused. But they sure look impressive!

Let me use the major search engines to illustrate what I mean.
Internationally, Google and Yahoo are neck and neck when it comes to searches. The last figures I saw put Google at 40% and Yahoo! at 43% of all searches. Google, because its name has become synonymous with "search on the Net"; and Yahoo! because they are the best established portal to the Net.
The International figures look something like this. (I made this chart using an online service for school children called Create a Graph from the National Institute for Educational Statistics. It's a free online service.)



Australia is a little different. Since the aussies are new to the Net, they're more susceptible to the buzzwords. They "google" for things.
While Yahoo! and Google pretty much split the International pie; in Australia, Google-Australia has 65% of the searches.
Since the aussies are new kids on the block, many don't realize there is a Google-Australia. About 13% use the original Google site. -- In Australia, Google commands nearly 80% of all online searches.
That is a commanding position.

If, for example, I want to build Internet presence and recognition for a website - based on keywords - by putting their services before 70% of the web, all I need is Google. They command nearly 80%. I can accomplish my goal easily with a Google PPC (point per click) campaign.

Aussies suss it out
As the aussies suss out the Internet, that will change.



Australians follow the trends from America, especially on the Net. It's reasonable to assume that they'll be moving more towards the International market split for searches soon.

Local Directories
Australian governments have spent to provide every large town and region with its own Community Guide - a local directory of business and events. Even local townships and suburbs have their own Community Guides.
Telstra (with vast government subsidies) has developed the Yellow and White pages, then linked both to a national advertising campaign for Sensis.

There are also a number of entrepreneurial search engines and directories that have sprung up.
Although all this activity will not supplant the dominance of Google Australia and Yahoo! Australia, it will serve to nudge the aussies along to suss out the way to search the Net.
Aussies are pretty clewy.
eBay is going to help, too, over the Christmas shopping season. Australians go to eBay for things almost as much as they do to the search engines. A shopper can have a bit of fun with eBay. If they find something on eBay, but want to see the (approximate) price in Australian dollars, all they have to do is add ".au" to the URL - and the price in Australian dollars appears!

How long is it??
This long!
Aussies are moving fast on the Net. But the question for any Internet Marketing campaign is: How long will it be before they are searching like the rest of the world?
A number of factors come into play here quickly. Aussies are notoriously brand loyal. It takes a tsunami or a good hit of dynamite to make them move from something. Then again, there is that pressure to be like the US and UK, which sorta balances it all out.

We can have a bit of a play with another figure, the loyalty numbers, and fuzzy logic to make a good guess.
Google commands a 74% loyalty. Yahoo! gets only about 47%. Neither bad numbers really.
And remember, MSN already has 13% of the searches within Australia through its affiliation with NineMSN.

Let's see what happens to Google.
We start with 65% - the portion of searches Google had in 2005 - and estimate their portion in 2006 to be 74% of 65%, or -- 48%. That leaves a bigger slice of the pie for Yahoo! Australia and NineMSN, along with all those local and regional directories.
If people know what kind of business or service they want, they will learn to turn to local directories because it's quicker. Aussies are very community minded.
Now, if you assume that the searches done on Google US are gonna stay about the same because those folks are looking for something outside Australia, then Google will enjoy about a (48 + 13) 61% share of the searches in 2006. (I gotta wonder how close I'm gonna be. The figures will be out soon.)

Do the same thing for 2007, and the number doesn't track. 74% of 48 plus 13 is .. 35 percent. In order to track with the 2005 International figures, Google will have to pick up a few from somewhere - probably Yahoo!, which can only keep the loyalty of less than half (47%) of its searches.
But the guesstimate still works. It'll take the aussies about two years to suss out the search options on the Net, which sounds about right.
By the end of 2007, aussies will be searching along like the rest of the world.
Where the community directories and entrepreneurs will come into the mix, we'll have to look into in another article.




If the stuff in this blog makes sense to you, visit my website at AEmeritus Relevant Training
because that's where it's all gonna be put in motion.
Just a raw plug for my first SEO clients:
Short Cut Computers belongs to Steve Trim, a friend who actually paid me to learn this stuff and put it to work for him.
And Steve Trim's other business, Barcode Solutions., which will be my second project. Sphere: Related Content