Craig the team at Sticky met recently with the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF), who were selected by the agency to take part in a comprehensive search engine optimisation (SEO) case study.

The case study involves bench-marking the ACRF website’s current online search capabilities and then providing strategies and recommendations to improve results.

The rest of the story is here….

Are you mystified about search engine optimisation? Do you wonder whether professional search engine optimisation is really important? Do you think merely having a website is enough?

Consider this:

• The Internet is now the most consumed media in Australia. The average Australian spends 16.1 hours per week online according to the 2009 Nielsen Annual Internet & Technology report. (You can see the other media here).

• 97% of people begin their online search for a product or service using a search engine. (source: Tourism NSW)

• Google accounts for 90.45% of all searches in Australia according to Hitwise Online research.

• First place in organic search receives around 42% click-through rate. This is compared to around 11% click-through for 2nd place and 3% for 10th place.

So……. if most people in Australia spend more time online than with any other media, use search engines for research, massively favour Google as that search engine, then click through to the first result……..how much is first place in Google search results worth to your business?

Probably a lot more than you think. In fact, achieving first place for relevant Google searches might be the most profitable thing you could do for your business in 2009.

Combined with a professional Inbound Marketing strategy it could change the way you do business.

Source: RAYMUND FLANDEZ, online.wsj.com

These days, the tech-savvy small business is using search engine optimization to steer customers to its home page. But once those online visitors land, how do you get them to buy? Sure, you can pay a lot for site analytics that give you insights into those potential customers’ shopping habits. But small-business owners now have a variety of simple yet effective tools to tempt visitors into opening their wallets.

Here are the three best ways to convert Web traffic into sales:

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