SEO, Social Media News & Domains
Australian SEO
12 Top Picks for SMX Sydney are you attending?
Mar 28th
Last year I was lucky enough to speak at SMX Sydney on the main stage to talk about the subject of Effective In-House SEO where I talked about my time working for Virgin Mobile as a lead SEO. This year I have decided to attend as a general guest. It is going to be interesting seeing the conference from a speakers point of view and then from an attendants point of view.
* For those who do not know I have also decided to set up my own consulting business and also work direct with a few select businesses and start ups via http://professionalseo.com.au
Now I have looked over the agenda for next Wednesday and Thursday and have picked out the speakers I will be seeing.
Day 1 – 3rd April
1. Optimising Humans! The Art of Data-Driven Social Marketing – Marty Weintraub (I have seen Marty present before in videos he is great, so this will be an interesting presentation.)
2. SEO Tools of the Trade – Andre Weyher (I know Andre quite well, I have actually interviewed him here on my blog and shared many beers with him over the last year, lets see what he has to say.)
3. eCommerce SEO, How to Avoid Common Pitfalls – Jon Quinton (I have read some of Jon’s SEO posts in the past, he seems to be quite decent, have never met the guy so we will see what he has on offer.)
4. Successful In-House SEO – Motoko Hunt (I presented on in-house SEO last year, so lets see what is on offer in 2013 from Motoko Hunt)
5. Google Webspam – What are they looking for? – Brian White (It will be interesting too see what Brian White has to say in his session, may have to ask a few questions)
Day 2 – 4th April
6. Behavioral Psychology Meets Web Marketing – Rand Fishkin (Been using SEOmoz for years, know Rand is capable of some great ideas so hope he pulls out the goodies for this presentation)
7. Conversion Rate Optimisation for SEOs – Richard Baxter (Have seen Richards posts on numerous sites in the past so it will be good too see what he has on offer.)
8. Advanced WordPress Optimisation & Security – Bastian Grimm (Have been told by a few European contacts at Bastian is the man to see in regards to WordPress optimisation, as I run like 30 sites on WordPress it will be worth seeing. So lets see what he has on offer.)
9. Programmatic Optimisation – Bill Hunt (Have been told that Bill Hunt is worth seeing as he has a wealth of knowledge on SEO so will be worth checking out from an in-house SEO point of view)
10. Ten Link Building Tools, How to use them to get links – Paddy Moogan (Paddy Moogan is well known for link building, and as I have been doing link building for 8+ years it will be good too see what he has to say.)
11. Link Building Post Penguin – Richard Baxter (Will be good too see what Richard has too say about link building.)
12. SEM + CRM = ROI Heaven – Mark Vozzo (Have seen mark present in the past, he knows his stuff. If you want to see a data driven and informative presentation, I advise you check out Mark Vozzo)
Two other speakrs I will try and see if time allows are also: Dejan Petrovic (Day 1) & Akiva Ben-ezra (Day 2) (both worth seeing in my eyes as they are very experienced SEO’s)
I will also be attending the following networking events:
* Pre-SMX Meet up – 2nd April – Sign up here: http://www.meetup.com/Sydney-SEO/events/104204182/
* SMX Sydney Networking Cruise – 3rd April
So yeah if you are at any of the above events, feel free to come up and have a chat about any thing SEO related or random things like what is good to do in Sydney.
Starting a new venture, a new chapter in my Career.
Mar 18th
Career-Change
I have have been doing SEO for over 7 years, and for the last 3 years and 6 month I was working as an Enterprise SEO at Aegis Media. When I first started at the company it was called Mitchell Communications Group, it was Australia’s largest media buyer so naturally we have the largest brands in Australia. Coming from a SME SEO consulting area and running my own web properties it was defiantly a change moving into the corporate area and I learned a lot of fantastic skills a long the way.
I was the first SEO employee in Columbus Search (a division within Aegis Media) for any one who does not know Columbus Search is Australia’s largest PPC company by spend. So naturally all the clients were spending multi-millions on SEM each month but the SEO spend was limited so my task was to help grow a world leading SEO team. Now when I started at the business in 2009 the perception in the wider business was some what negative towards SEO, people didn’t get it. So my job was to change that perception and then assist with growing a team and making SEO sales within the wider business. Further to this I helped set up the SEO team for Aegis and grow the team from having 1 staff member in SEO to over 15 bringing in great amounts of revenue for the business and also driving results for numerous clients.
Now after 3 and a half years working on the Enterprise Agency world I have decided to take a career change and work direct as a consultant for SME’s and start up businesses. The main driver behind this was that each month many people contact me asking me to work direct with them, usually I have been very busy and unable to take on all these contacts/business. I also felt as things were changing in the business it was time for a change and was time to do something new. Taking a leap of faith from a very stable job which was well paid and had great benefits to do your own thing is a huge risk on itself but I can mitigate this by already having numerous income sources.
What this means is that I will be offering my *SEO *Link Building *SEO Strategy *Social Media *Content Marketing services direct to your business. I have already taken on a few clients direct from a consulting of view with room for more. Further to this I will also be working on several other projects which have been on going for a while and I can see fantastic opportunity from, So exciting times ahead feel free to contact me if you are looking for help with your SEO & Online Strategy today!
Advice on Running a Monthly Meetup – learning’s from Online Marketing Sydney Meetup
Mar 12th
Online Marketing Sydney
Last year in November I decided to team up with a good friend of mine in the digital space to run a monthly Online Marketing focused event in Sydney. The event is called “Online Marketing Sydney” which can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/Online-Marketing-Sydney/
Currently we have run 3 different events see below:
I have decided to put together some tips and advice for people who are looking to potentially set up their own meetup:
Benefits and Tips of running a meetup:
1. Networking with like minded online marketing professionals: Their is nothing better then having discussions with people who work in the same field as you.
2. Setting a monthly event where you can meet up with old work mates: running a meetup is a good chance to re connect with old work mates who have moved on to new jobs. You can set a monthly date to invite them all down for a few drinks and have a chat about how their new job is progressing.
3. Helping others with Online Marketing questions and giving back to the community: I have done a whole bunch of presentations at other Meet ups over the last four years so its a great chance to give back to the community.
4. Meeting people with different skill sets so potentially learning something yourself.
5. Try to run it on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday: I have found from experience that people do not want to be at work related events on Friday and on Weekends as that is more a time for relaxing and catching up with friends outside of work.
7. Get a co-organizer: If you are sick or away on business the meetup can still run with the other organizer of the event taking control.
8. Build social properties connected to your meet up: It is a good idea to build properties on social networks like Google+, Twitter and Facebook to drive people to your meetup.
9. Promote your meetup in the weeks before it runs: It is a good idea to run some promotion on sites like linkedin and on industry specific sites before your meetup is run.
10. Send out an email blast in the days leading up to the meetup: and also one the day before to remind people the meetup is on tomorrow.
11. Get to the meetup early: if your meetup starts at 6 pm always try to arrive 10 minutes early as people will always turn up to events early.
Out next meetup for Online Marketing Sydney is on Thursday 21st of March, I hope you can make it =)
My SMX Sydney Presentation featured on Slide Share’s homepage.
May 21st
Today I received an email from Slide Share notifying me that my presentation had been featured on the home page of Slide Share, one of the largest websites around in the B2B space, recently acquired by LinkedIn for around 100+ million.
slide share homepage
To view the presentation, view it below here:
Effective In-House SEO – SMX Sydney 2012
View more presentations from James Norquay
SMX Sydney May 2nd, I will be presenting + recent presentations news.
Apr 27th
Hi All,
I have been speaking at a few events recently including Sydney SEO Meetups and other local Search based events.
Example of a recent presentation on: SEO and Social Media.
SEO-Meetup
SEO presentation
We had a decent crowd at this event with around 50+ people turning up for the presentation.
SEO Event
Next on the speaking agenda I will be at SMX Sydney on the 2nd of May,
SMX-logo
SMX Sydney
SMX Agenda time
I hope to see every one at the event.
What is the most competitive SEO Keyword in Australia?
Feb 5th
So I have recently conducted a keyword difficulty Analysis on some of the most competitive keywords in the Australian market (Google.com.au) to determine what is the most competitive keyword?
I took analysis on over 28 terms which I worked on in the past, I personally know how competitive some of these keywords are. I am also willing to take on analysis of more keywords if you feel something is missing.
A key for the study:
A score of 70% = Very High Competition.
A score of 50% = Competitive.
A score of 30% = Medium to lower.
The keyword list is as follows (The Top 30)
1. Poker 85%
2. holidays 81%
3. money 78%
4. hotels 75%
5. Real Estate 75%
6. flights 74%
7. sydney hotels 72%
8. SEO 72%
9. hosting 72%
10. Life Insurance 71%
11. Car Insurance 71%
12. Insurance 71%
13. cheap flights 69%
14. cheap holidays 69%
15. web design 69%
16. loans 69%
17. web development 69%
18. Accommodation 68%
19. car rentals 68%
20. Home Loan 67%
21. Melbourne cup 67%
22. Superannuation 66%
23. Credit Cards 65%
24. Tax 65%
25. Travel Insurance 64%
26. Online Education 62%
27. payday loans 62%
28. Sports betting 62%
29. dedicated hosting 62%
30. MBA 61%
Revenue SEO/SEM companies in Australia 2010-2011 tax period
Oct 5th
So recently I saw some revenue data for companies in the Australian Market, this was from Smart Company data. I have added a bit of extra information to the data such as revenue per employee and also key focus for each business, sure enough these businesses probably all do SEO/SEM/Social ect.
I have decided to also round the numbers to the nearest 100k. Also numbers can get thrown out very quickly when you have a client who does SEM because revenue could include billings by Google for an SEM campaign? But any way some interesting data I thought:
Switched on Media – Sydney
Revenue: $5,500,000
Staff: 25
Focus: SEO, Social
Reload Media – Brisbane/ Sydney
Revenue: $2,200,000
Staff: 40
Focus: SEM, SEO
The Website Marketing Group – Sydney
Revenue: $3,000,000
Staff: 12
Focus: Design, SEO
FirstClick Consulting – Melbourne/Sydney
Revenue: $13,800,000
Staff: 23
Focus: SEO, SEM
eChannel Online – Adelaide/Sydney
Revenue: $3,100,000
Staff: 18
Focus: SEO, SEM
E-Web Marketing – Sydney
Revenue: $6,500,000
Staff: 42 (Sydney office only)
Focus: SEO
The Web Showroom – Sydney
Revenue: $3,200,000
Staff: 38
Focus: Design, SEM, SEO
Revenue by employee:
Switched on Media – Sydney
$218,536.92
Reload Media – Brisbane/ Sydney
$55,410.45
The Website Marketing Group – Sydney
$250,000.00
FirstClick Consulting – Melbourne/Sydney
$598,478.26
eChannel Online – Adelaide/Sydney
$174,789.50
E-Web Marketing – Sydney
$154,175.17
The Web Showroom – Sydney
$83,338.11
Finally people may ask where is the statistics from your company, well the thing with working at an global advertising agency is you have various holding companies who own parts of the business. The prior company I worked at art of Mitchell Communications Group had billings around 1 billion+ a tax period, yet it was recently acquired by Aegis Media.
