by Aaron | Feb 9, 2006 | General
I am a big fan of search engine optimisation – SEO.
But it can be so frustrating at times.
Let me outline for you the keywords that I’m trying to crack and have been since March 2005.
Brisbane Web Hosting and Australian Web Hosting
These are big players in the keyword marketplace. They fetch a high price on Google Awords and Yahoo Search Marketing (the old Overture)
I have advertising in both and it costs me, but it without it I would have no targeted traffic generation at all. Notice the bolded word targeted. It’s the best kind to push for.
Over the last few months I now have a good ranking i.e position 1 and 2 for Brisbane Web Hosting, and 2 and 11 for Australian Web Hosting, MSN and Yahoo respectively. But I’m still not showing in Google.
Now why is that. The Google web crawler visits my site up to 3 times a day, yet I still don’t show for my main keywords that I’ve optimised for.
I do show for other obscure terms that I never would have guessed people would be entering.
Aparantly Google has a sandbox (a trap they keep you in) for high profile keywords that you can only get out of over time. Supposedly up to 18months. How ridiculous that I have a number 1 postition in Yahoo but don’t even show in Google. My content is fresh, I am a legitimate business, but I’m still shut out.
The worst part is that there are listings in the first 10 pages that are just rubbish. I’m not talking about taking a front page spot here, I just would like to at least be in the first 10 pages and work it up from there, like I did with the other engines.
I have yet to work out what to do about this. I’ve been told by experts that I still need more links to my site. But when I do a check on the competition even on the first page of Google, I actually have better links and more of them than they do.
Will update the blog once I find a solution. If anyone has any ideas for me to try, I’m all ears.
Aaron
by Aaron | Feb 9, 2006 | General
I see it again and again with businesses not taking ownership of their web presence. They are leaving money on the table in the bucket loads.
If you don’t take control then no one else will.
Just talking with people that I come into contact with about their sites, it’s truly amazing to here what they have to say.
Some don’t even know how much their website is costing them in actual dollars per year to run, domain fees, hosting fees, useless editing fees from consulting firms that they pay and no edits ever take place. This astounds me, when they are small businesses that are usually solo operators.
When I talk with them just in general conversation (no sales pitching going on at all) about enhancing their website to generate more business for them, I’m met with blank stares. You can give people all the information in the world, but if they aren’t ready to take it on board, it’s a useless battle.
Does anyone else have this problem? Getting a point of passion across to someone that just isn’t as passionate about it as you are.
That reminds of what a founding hosting customer of mine once said to me. “You care more about my website than I do”. I remember laughing at the time, because it was so very true.
Aaron
by Aaron | Feb 7, 2006 | General
I need to have a party now. The Web Smart Central Business Blog (or Aaron’s Business Blog) is finally here. The title is not set in stone yet.
I’ve ummed and ahhed about putting the blog live since November 2005, for several reasons.
The main reason is that blogs are personal by their very nature and you can’t escape that, and I had reservations with the fine line between keeping it business and not getting to personal.
We’ll over the last few months my thinking has slowly changed, and over the last 2 weeks, I’ve done a complete backflip on business blogs and for a business throughly recommend them, and I’ll go into why I think so.
I’ve stumbled across (isn’t that always the best way to find something) a great site through another great site. Flying Solo by Robert Gerrish is a site dedicated to the Solo Entrepreneur, which I frequent regularly, and that led me to Entrepreneurs Journey by Yaro Starak dedicated also to you guessed it Entrepreneur content.
I’ve also had the pleasure of following Ed Dale a very successfull internet marketer from Underachieving Mastery for a long time.
Yaro Starak just did a blog post and Ed Dale has just done a blog for a large multinational IPO and has espoused the virtue of blogs for ages, which has combined convinced me that blogging for any business is a good thing.
Let’s face my facts. I own and operate a small business. My target market is other small businesses that are looking to or already have an internet presence.
Why hide it? as many internet businesses do. They think just because the internet is anonymous they can get away without putting contact details and not disclosing who’s involved with the business.
We are in business with each other. People do business and want to do business with people, not faceless websites.
Offering a blog that is business based but also my own is a fantastic way to build rapport with my online family. Both existing and those still deciding.
I’m not alone in my business, I do have helpers that also now how to operate the business, but I do run the show and as such can stand up and say that I am proud to own and operate a small business that I truely get enjoyment out of. Sure it has it moments but what in life doesn’t.
Aaron
by Aaron | Nov 23, 2005 | General
Hi all
It’s been a long time coming but I’ve finally found some time to get a blog together.
This blog’s purpose is to allow me (Aaron Dwyer) founder / director of Web Smart Central a place to talk about the topics that revolve around our company’s daily business.
More importantly as well, you can comment on the posts or just learn from what we discuss here.
I’ll warn you upfront, it will be no holds barred blog, as I call it as I see it.
Enjoy
Aaron
