If you’re a business owner with just a little SEO knowledge, it’s easy to find some help via Google. And there are some excellent professionals out there, but if they’re only focused on a keyword strategy, then beware. You could burn up your budget with only short-term results.
SEO for Small Business Australia has been working with Australian company Shade Sails Online for the past two years. As with all new clients, the SEO for Small Business Australia Managing Director is hands-on in initial meetings to ensure the client’s goals are clearly articulated so that a long-term strategy can be planned with KPIs.
Typically this will include some time spent on keywords, that is, the words and terms web users are most likely to type into a search engine to find your business, but it’s not always the sole focus.
Keywords can deliver quick wins in a brief timeframe, and it’s often why some ‘SEO experts’ like to pitch them up front and heavily, but concentrating on them solely is a mistake without a longer-term strategy that considers other, broader aspects of SEO.
SEO Goals
From the outset, after understanding the challenges Shade Sails Online was facing, and what it wanted to achieve, the SEO for Small Business Australia team focused the SEO strategy around two main areas:
- Optimising the site for its custom and DIY offering and an ‘all of Australia’ customer base.
- Creating clear and concise messaging around a quality Australian Made product and an Australian-owned business.
SEO Strategy
“As a priority, we conducted a technical site audit to identify any issues. The audit included ensuring the site had a good information architecture, URL structure, speed, and core web vitals. This is a critical step and can be costly, but it’s a worthwhile investment in a solid online presence,” says SEO for Small Business Australia Managing Director Bill Vasiliadis.
“Google is still the preferred web-user search engine by a long shot. It has fairly strict criteria and tends to set the standard for all other search engines, so if you’re not adhering to Google criteria and paying attention only to your keyword strategy, then you’re throwing good money after bad. You won’t get the same results long term,” he says.
Site audits should be done on a fairly regular basis. They’re increasingly crucial for businesses where I’ve had their websites for a long time and for start-ups that had no budgets and built a DIY site by following a template.
The SEO space changes quickly – it’s crucial to stay abreast of those changes and keep your website updated and in good ‘technical shape.’
The SEO for Small Business Australia team also added a comprehensive FAQs section for Shade Sails Australia. It expanded the image gallery onsite to include shade sails installed across various projects.
“This was a quick and easy way to showcase the product’s versatility, and reinvigorate the look of the site, explains Bill.
“A picture says 1000 words, as the old saying goes, and in the digital era, it couldn’t be more accurate… But we also wanted to focus on regular content production to keep the site fresh and, to that end, produce regular blogs. Content remains King in the SEO space,” Bill explains, but it needs to be high quality and aimed at the target audience. It’s no good producing content just for the sake of producing content; it must be based on topics and questions/answers your audience is seeking.
The results
The results for Shade Sails Online have been steady and consistent: After one year of implementing the SEO strategy, organic traffic more than doubled per month. After two years, it has more than tripled.
“Overall, this represents a 585% increase in organic traffic from the point at which we started. For an online business, it’s essential to have this traffic so that the site can maximise visitor time spent on the site and ultimately convert visitors into buyers.
The business has also seen an upswing in inquiries, purchases, and satisfied customers.
What the client says
“There’s a reasonable amount of competition in the Shade Sails market, so we were concerned about how that would play out. We felt we also faced a hurdle when it came to educating and empowering customers to take the DIY route rather than needing a professional install, says John Condon, owner of Shade Sails Online.
“I’m satisfied that we’re making great strides in both areas.”
“Bill and the team are easy to work with, easy to understand – it’s a hassle-free, high-quality SEO service,” says John.
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By SEO for Small Business Australia
SEO for Small Business Australia is Australia's leading SEO agency for small and medium-sized businesses.
