Attract, Engage, Convert - The Web3 Podcast

We review the best Wordpress plugins across every area of functionality, saving you the time! Over the years working with WordPress every single day, we have tried and tested thousands of different plugins for all different needs so that our clients don’t have to.

In Part I of our series on content marketing and SEO, we explored how SEO and content marketing got to where they are today.

For Part II, we’ll show you why SEO keyword research should be an integral part of your content marketing efforts, and how to do it.

Introduction to SEO Keyword Research

One of the most valuable techniques that come from search engine optimisation is keyword research. Researching, identifying and analysing keywords and key phrases that are relevant to your business can give you an invaluable insight into what solutions your audience is searching for.

Since a search engine’s intention is to match the user with the most relevant content to their search query, it makes complete sense that you should first research the keywords and phrases that your audience is using to search for answers before writing another blog post.

If you’ve done little or no work towards defining who your ideal audience is, then I recommend that you have a listen to our introduction to attracting, engaging & converting more customers on your website podcast and complete the accompanying worksheet.

To give more context around the subject of keyword research, let’s pretend that your business provides home loans to Australian families.

Your overall objective is to get your website in front of more people who are looking for a home loan to generate more sales leads.

How to identify keyword volume

Before proceeding, I recommend that you check if there is enough search volume for phrases relevant to your industry by using the free Google Keyword Planner tool.

We use Market Samurai and SEMRush to conduct more detailed keyword research at Web3, however these tools are not free.

If you are just getting started with keyword research, Google's Keyword Planner tool is the perfect free tool to start out with.

Once you have logged into Google’s Keyword Planner tool using your Google Account, complete the following steps:

Hit the save button to progress to the keyword data screen. Follow the steps in the image below to get the average search volume for your keyword:

From here your decision is pretty straightforward.

You want to target keywords that have search volume.

Targeting keywords that no one is searching for is pointless. As as a general guideline, we recommend targeting keywords that have over 900 average searches per month. The caveat to this guideline is keyword competition, which we’ll cover next.

In this example, we can see the keyword ‘home loans’ is searched over 8,000 times per month in Australia. This is great, however it would be very unwise to target this keyword phrase in our content marketing efforts because it is too competitive.

Understanding keyword competition

Keyword competition plays a very important part in deciding which keywords you should target. Overall, there are two important areas you need to know when understanding keyword competition:

Strength of Competition: Using our example above, the phrase ‘home loans’ has a large amount of monthly search volume. However, plugging the term ‘home loans’ into Google Australia, we can see the first page organic (non-paid) search results are dominated by Australia’s biggest banks and publicly traded home loan corporations.

It would be insanely difficult, if not impossible, for a young upstart Australian home loan company to get onto the first page of Google as the search position listing competition is simply too strong.The key outcome here is that you should target the keyword phrases that have low levels of competition strength as you'll have a much better chance of achieving a first page search results ranking.The best way to do this is by targeting long-tail keyw...

What is SEO?

Are you confused or struggling to answer the question with absolute certainty?

Well, you’re not alone. The SEO industry is in a state of flux, which is leaving many people confused about what it actually is.

Here’s our definition:

"Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the art of improving your website’s search engine ranking positions (SERPs) by increasing the volume of relevant and commercially viable traffic to your website."

Now that we are on the same page as to what search engine optimisation is, how do we go about doing it?

The answer to that loaded question is incredibly vast, however let’s get one thing clear:

At the core of any successful website search engine optimisation strategy is content.

This leads us on to our first key point…

Content marketing combined with SEO

Many people treat websites, content marketing and SEO as entirely separate things.

Why Content Marketing & SEO should be seen as one with your website

Online search engines were invented to solve one big problem: to find and display web content that answer the internet user’s questions.

Plain. Simple. Straightforward.

That’s it.

Historically, it has always been the objective of online search engines such as Google to match its users with relevant, high-quality content that provides answers to questions and solves problems.

The point in history were SEO lost its way was when internet marketers realised they could trick Google Search into displaying their website higher up in the search engine page results.

These ‘tricks’ lead to the rise of ‘Black Hat SEO’, including such tactics as:

Spamming a website with search keywords to improve its search position ranking for people using those keywords in their searches e.g. "SEO Brisbane"

Linking multiple websites that only exist for the sake of improving another website’s search engine rankings to the main website

Using text that is hidden on web page to trick the search engines into ranking that page, when the context of the page is completely different to the keyword it is ranked for.

Using doorway pages that are designed to rank highly, only to redirect the search engine user to another non-relevant page when clicked on.

Directly copying content from other websites to increase the website’s overall size and volume of information.

Between the early 2000s to around 2012 Internet Marketers made millions by deploying these and many more black hat SEO techniques to their own businesses, and businesses which they sold these services to.

It wasn’t until the search algorithm update in 2012 dubbed ‘Panda’ that Google Search finally had enough.

Google Search began its own war against black hat SEO by penalizing websites which were guilty of displaying black hat SEO techniques.

Since the Panda update, Google has continued to put nails into the black hat SEO coffin by continual improvements to its search algorithm with the core intention of improving the search engine experience by penalising websites that conduct black hat SEO.

The most worrying thing about the SEO industry is there are still many SEO companies selling black hat SEO services to uneducated companies. Many proclaim that these black hat techniques still work as they are unwilling to re-engineer their business to stay relevant.

This is why so many people are confused about SEO, and continue to get burnt by these backwards SEO companies selling services that do not work anymore.

Those who are uneducated about search engine optmisation do not know who to believe or what to think.

If you are confused about what to think,

Website conversion rate optimisation is daunting to many people. If you ask any website conversion rate optimisation guru how to improve your website conversion rate, you’ll be met with a barrage of jargon, scientific analogies and numbers that probably make no sense to you.

Don’t get me wrong – conversion rate optimisation is arguably the most important thing you could invest time and resources towards improving your website’s ability to grow your business.

However, conversion rate optimisation doesn’t have to be impossible for business owners to understand if you know where to start, what you should do to improve your website’s conversions and why.

Have Google Analytics Correctly Installed

Before we can start the conversion on improving your website’s conversions, it’s fundamentally important that your website is setup to track and measure how people are getting to it, and what they are doing when they get there.

As the old accounting saying goes, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” – the same goes for your website and its conversions.

There’s a thousand and one ways you can measure this data, however the undisputed standard in website analytics is Google Analytics.

If your website has been set up by a web designer that is worth their 2 cents, then Google Analytics should be already installed.

If you don’t know if your website has Google Analytics installed or not, here’s the quick and easy way to find out.

* Install the BuiltWith Chrome or Firefox browser extension.* Go to your website, and click the green ‘BW’ button in your browser bar* Scroll through all the content that is displayed in the window. If you website has Google Analytics, it will show up. If it doesn’t, follow this guide to set it up.

BuiltWith will help you quickly understand what you have installed on your website, and what you don’t.

TIP: If you’re running a WordPress website, we recommend installing Google Analytics to your website via the Google Analytics by Yoast plugin. Installation is relatively straightforward.

Use Google Analytics to Make Data-Driven Decisions on Improving Your Conversions

A trap that I see all too many people fall into is making assumptions on how they can improve their website. Let’s get one thing clear before we move on:

Your assumptions and opinions about your website do not matter.

In this day and age of content overload we live in, it’s all too easy to read a case study or download a template that promises for an “XYZ” increase in your website conversion rate, which leads you to think “Hey! I can achieve the same results on my website if I do the same thing”.

The reality is, there are too many variables, too many different scenarios that influence a website’s conversion rate.

The only practical way that you can continually improve your website is through consistent testing and measuring of ideas grounded by a solid understand...

Most business owners want to be equipped with a winning website strategy, however very few know where to start.

The subject of website strategy is massive, and often overwhelming to most business owners.

Having a nice website for your business is great, however if there is no underlying strategy that ties your business goals to your website's goals, you won't be able to reach your full potential online.

Think of your website strategy as the foundations to building a skyscraper.

With the right foundations put in place at the start, you can build up your business to be the online leaders in your industry.

In this podcast episode, I cover the six essential ingredients that go into building the foundations of a successful website strategy.

Those six areas are:

1. Defining your brand vision, mission and story

2. Your overall business objectives, sales & marketing goals

3. Your products/services, and what makes them unique

4. Your ideal customer - who they are, what they do, and where do they hangout

5. Who are the current benchmarks to beat in your industry

6. Your bottom-line business metrics, and your desired improvements

Getting a quote for your web design project is often daunting and confusing. However, it doesn’t have to be if you know how the process works upfront.

Successful web design is complex.

Truly effective and successful website design projects are ones that are tailored to the unique wants and needs of your business.

No two website design projects are the same, which is the reason quotes vary from project to project so greatly.

Web designers often struggle to effectively quote on projects due to this huge variance, which ends up confusing them and you.

Fortunately, the quoting process that most good web designers and agencies follow is relatively similar.

In this episode, I clarify the web design quoting process, covering three key areas:

* How the cost of a web project is calculated* Why web design quotes vary so greatly* An example of a real website project quote, and where the cost all goes

Our 39-point web design process that we follow for most web design projects.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT BELOW

This is the Web3 podcast about attracting, engaging and converting more customers on your website.

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the second episode of attract, engage, and convert. Today we’re going to talk about what you should expect to pay for web design services in Australia. Alright let’s start the show.

So here’s the thing pricing for web design services comes in a huge variety, businesses often struggle to understand why websites cost what they do. More importantly, web designers as an agency typically struggle to effectively price for their web design services, which just adds to the confusion.

So in this episode we’re going to cover three key things.

Number one: how is the cost of the web project calculated,

Number two: why web design quotes vary so greatly and

Number three: an example of a real web design agency quote that we have created for a recent project of ours.

So how is the cost of web projects calculated? Well there is two core frameworks or two different ways that web designers and agencies typically take when it comes to pricing for project.

Number one is value-based pricing, which is something that personally we do not do at web3 nor is very common play for most agencies.

The second way is the good old money for time, that is you want something done here’s how long it takes, here’s our hourly rates, this is the cost and this is the type of pricing formula that we apply to the mass majority of projects that we do here at Web3 has with many other agencies in and around Australia.

There is a couple other areas that factor in when it comes to pricing for website projects, for example, additional expenses such as domain names and website hosting.

So overall it seems pretty straightforward but why then is there such a huge variance when it comes to price?

Well, let’s dig a bit deeper here. So why is it that Web design quotes vary so greatly? There is really for key areas that define the price of a web design quote.

The first area is the quality of work, now you can type into Google cheap web design, affordable web design and you will be met with no sh...

In more than eight-years working in the web design industry, the most common complaint I hear from business owners is their web designer sucks.

When I dig a little deeper as to why they suck, the typical responses are:

* They don’t understand my business* They created something that isn’t aligned to what my business actually does* Their design doesn’t fit my audience* I can’t even get in contact with them to fix all these problems* They are just too painful for me to work with

There are hundreds of things that could have happened over time for these responses to become a reality.

However, the bottom line is there are too many crappy web designers and WordPress web design companies out there who consistently get these kinds of complaints from their customers.

If you’re looking for a great web designer to work with on your next project, don’t let this be you.

The good news is this does not have to happen at all if you ask the right questions to make the right decisions when searching for the right web designer for you and your business.

Myself and my business partner, Joseph, have described the four key steps in detail in our very first episode of the Web3 Podcast, which you can listen to below.

Download the how to choose a web designer checklist

Podcast Transcript

This is the Web3 Podcast about attracting, engaging, and converting more customers on your website.

Hello and welcome to the first episode of Attract, Engage, Convert. The Web3 Podcast.

This podcast is designed for entrepreneurs with early stage businesses or even established businesses who are wanting to create a professional online presence and really to transform your website into a platform to grow your business.

So here’s the problem, most people that have never had a website built or have worked with a web designer to have website created before have got any idea what is or how to find out about choosing the right web designer for your project.

Also, for people that have worked with web designers before and have had bad experiences and have turned them off, working with web designers, then this episode really will help you understand about what are the things, what are the steps you needed to do to be able to choose a good web designer to see the goals of your project reached and fulfilled.

On the flip-side, you maybe wanting a web designer that creates a professional, beautiful website for your company that drives profit to your business – a web designer that is reliable, that you can trust and that is your digital adviser for all things online.

You want a trusted digital adviser who is willing to work with you to adapt to your business as it grows and evolves online.

So the very first thing you need to know before you even start jumping into Google or working through your contact list is you really got to get clear on what is it that you actually want.

Do you even actually need a website?

What is it that you want to do?

Do you want to get more leads, do you want to make your website look more professional perhaps but make it load faster?

If you’re really looking and you know that you need a comprehen...

So WordPress 3.9 has just been released. The release has brought with it a number of fantastic new features that any web designer will be happy about. The main focus for WordPress 3.9 was improvements to the editor among a handful of other features.

Here are the best new features of WordPress 3.9

The media editor

The editor as a whole has been updated to the most up to date version of 4.0. This means that the WordPress editor was able to drop old code and make way for a faster more streamlined user experience.

The visual editor has been significantly improved as well.

It is much faster, more accessible and supports a mobile layout through responsive design. It is great to see simple improvements that further make WordPress so great.

Some of these improvements include being able to drag media elements such as images directly into the editor and pasting text from your word processor without having to waste time with the formatting or messy styling incompatibilities.

Edit images easily

The new editor in WordPress allows you to edit images quicker and easier with the new crop and rotation tools. There are now little resize boxes on the images that allow you to make the image the exact size that you wish.

I know alot of web designers will like this feature.

Drag and drop your images

Along with resizing and scaling images is the ability to drag them directly into the editor instead of having to import via the add media button. Simply drag the image from your desktop or other folder into the editor that you are working in.

The WordPress editor will automatically upload them and allow you to choose which images to add in. It is features like these that are so very simple yet more than welcoming in WordPress to create a fast workflow for users.

Gallery previews

Another great feature of WordPress 3.9 is now the galleries will display previews of the images that are in that gallery. By having the gallery images in the editor, you can see quickly what images are in there and allow you to edit if needed without having to open the gallery editor.

Audio and video playlists

Both audio and video files can be turned into playlists without the need for any additional plugins or code.

This makes this whole process so straightforward for users and it is great that these galleries can use modern HTML5 features.

Live widget and header previews

The theme customiser has also had an upgrade which allows you to live rearrange your site’s widgets right from the theme customiser.

Once you have edited the widget, you just have to hit the save button and the changes will be made. Gone are the days where you might edit a widget and then visit your website to see everything has been broken.

There are no more surprises with the live widgets feature.

Stunning new theme browser

The new theme browser lets you preview existing and new WordPress themes in a nice and new visual way.

Under the Hood

There have been a number of great features that have been updated “under the hood” of WordPress. Some of these features include: