A major factor in online success is a presence in search engine results. When Australians are looking to buy online, 97% of the time they start by using a search engine. Ranking highly offers a significant opportunity to capture visitors ready & willing to inquire, book or purchase.

So it is concerning to discover that the majority of Australian websites are not up to scratch when it comes to search engine optimization.

We’ve just completed a study of 6000 Australian websites and their SEO and the results indicate Australian businesses are failing to be found online due to poor optimization.

• 87% of the sites had substandard SEO

• 29% had no SEO at all

• just 6% were properly optimized

This means that businesses are missing out on valuable web traffic by motivated customers.

We claim the first and most essential challenge for any business wanting to compete online is to be easily found in search for relevant search terms. This alone can make an incredible difference to most businesses.

In order to help we have created NLYZR, a website optimization system that makes SEO and being found online simple, quick and cost-effective.

NLYZR members are able to run rapid reports to optimize any page of their website for any search term using industry best-practice advice. They can also run competitor reports to learn why somebody is wining a search and what they must do to beat them.

The NLYZR Members Knowledge Base provides inbound marketing and website optimization information and advice that is easy to understand even for the less technically inclined. It goes a long way to demystifying what has been typically been a very confusing field for business owners and marketers. It offers peace of mind for small business owners and marketers who have previously relied on others to implement their SEO and been frustrated with the results.

The results from our Alpha and Beta Testing of NLYZR this year have been outstanding. Now its time to offer it to the world.

You can test your website’s SEO for FREE first and then decide whether you’d like to join and optimize you’re whole website.

Either way, we’d love to hear from you.

Websites and web design has changed dramatically since the 1990′s. Well, at least for most savvy marketers it has. Unfortunately for many, their website’s look as if they were set up in the 90′s and haven’t kept up with the rapid pace of change, even though they’re much, much newer than that.

Your website sucks if....

Here are a few ways you can tell if your website sucks:

• Its really, really cool. In fact its so cool people don’t know what to do when they get there. The buttons are hidden. There’s lots of bells and whistles. Its probably built in Flash. This is not an effective marketing tool, its an indulgent waste of time and money.

• Its forces visitors to endure some autoplay music or video or pop-up. These are just annoying and unnecessary. They’re certainly not designed with the end-user in mind.

• It’s rarely found on the major search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo. If your website doesn’t turn up high in search for multiple relevant search terms, ie not just your name, then it probably not optimised correctly, if at all. You will be missing tons of valuable traffic and potential leads. This is madness in an era when most people “Google” everything they need.

• Your site only talks about yourself. Once upon a time websites were just digital brochure and everyone thought this was exciting. In 2010 you website should be an information laden resource for potential customers. Your prospects are mildly interested in how cool you think you are, but they’re extremely interested in how you can help them, your thinking and solutions. Unless you are addressing this, your site sucks.

• It doesn’t have an effective contact or inquiry conversion system. What? You’ve spent all this time and money trying to get people to visit your site and you forgot give them an easy way to take the next step in order to do business with you?! That sucks.

The answer, of course, is to design a site as your inbound marketing resource. It should have plenty of prospect friendly content, it should be properly optimised for search, it should offer solutions to the visitor, it should be easy to navigate and understand and it should have professional conversion strategies.

Well qualified traffic and leads from a modern, customer-friendly site? That doesn’t suck at all.

This week NLYZR assesses the websites of 25 Australian Printing Companies, a list originally published in BRW.

We have used the all new NLYZR for this list. NLYZR assesses a website’s Search Engine Optimisation using criteria such as On-page SEO, Off-page SEO and a Keyword search result. These are crucial aspects of Inbound Marketing and Internet Marketing Strategies.

Check out how they rate…

Top 25 Printing Websites

90/100 for Discount Printing

89/100 for Printroom

89/100 for Ready Steady Print

79/100 for Kanga Print

76/100 for The Printing Hub

71/100 for We Print It

69/100 for The Online Printer

68/100 for Scott Print

63/100 for CMYK Colour Online

63/100 for Select Print

63/100 for Dark Horse Print & Design

60/100 for Saltprint

59/100 for BullPrint

55/100 for Snap Printing

51/100 for Offset Alpine Printing

47/100 for Hannanprint

45/100 for Printhouse

42/100 for Appealing Signs & Graphics

36/100 for State Wide Design & Print

29/100 for Dynamite Express Printing

28/100 for ADExperts

26/100 for Environmental Printing

25/100 for Alted Printing

25/100 for Statewide Print & Graphics

25/100 for Australian Trade Printers

31 Top Consulting Engineer Companies were published in BRW Magazine recently. Then Sticky put their websites to the online performance test with NLYZR.

NLYZR assesses a website using criteria such as On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, Keyword search results, Competitor scores, Social media and traffic conversion. These are crucial aspects of Inbound Marketing and Internet Marketing Strategies.

How do Australia’s Top Engineer Consulting Companies score…..

TOP ENGINEER CONSULTING COMPANY WEBSITES

Ranked 1st
88.3/100 for Coffey International

Ranked 2nd
75.3/100 for KBR

Ranked 3rd
74.4/100 for GHD

Ranked 4th
72/100 for Hyder Consulting

Ranked 5th
71.2/100 for Cardno

Ranked 6th
67.2/100 for Hughes Trueman

Ranked 7th
67/100 for Pitt & Sherry

Ranked 8th
64.8/100 for Hatch

Ranked 9th
64/100 for BMT WBM

Ranked 10th
59.2/100 for Golder Associates

Ranked 11th
59.2/100 for Arup

Ranked 12th
59/100 for Norman Disney & Young

Ranked 13th
52.8/100 for Parsons Brinkerhoff

Ranked 14th
48.8/100 for Robert Bird Group

Ranked 15th
45.6/100 for Ashburner Francis

Ranked 16th
43.2/100 for Taylor Thomson Whitting

Ranked 17th
42.4/100 for Douglas Partners

Ranked 18th
41.6/100 for Masson Wilson Twiney

Ranked 19th
40/100 for Wood & Grieve Engineers

Ranked 20th
39.2/100 for MWH

Ranked 21st
39.1/100 for Waterman AHW

Ranked 22nd
34.4/100 for Gilmore Engineers

Ranked 23rd
27.2/100 for Simpson Kotzman

Ranked 24th
24/100 for MPA Williams and Associates

Ranked 25th
23.2/100 for Brown Consulting

Ranked 26th
18.4/100 for Bell Engineering Group

Ranked 27th
16.8/100 for John Mullen and Partners

Ranked 28th
16.7/100 for SCP Consulting

Ranked 29th
14.4/100 for Masson Wilson Twiney

Ranked 30th
12/100 for Kneebone and Beretta

Ranked 31st
8/100 for Glynn Tucker

Usually you call on the professionals to help your company with finding it’s target market.

They do all the research for you, that is what Market Research Providers are for.

But what if the Market Researchers haven’t quite got it right, in regards to their actual target market finding them?

We have collected 25 of BRW Magazines “Top Market Research Companies” and run their websites through NLYZR.

NLYZR assesses a website using criteria such as On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, Keyword search results, Competitor scores, Social media and traffic conversion. These are crucial aspects of Inbound Marketing.

Note: Scores can vary from month to month and depending upon search terms.

How do Australia’s leading Market Researcher’s score…

Top 25 Market Research Providers

Ranked 1st
91.88/100 for Roy Morgan

Ranked 2nd
72/100 for BIS Schrapnel

Ranked 3rd
69.6/100 for Creative Intersection

Ranked 4th
68/100 for Marketing Is Us

Ranked 5th
49/100 for AMR Interactive

Ranked 6th
41.6/100 for Beaton Consulting

Ranked 7th
40.8/100 for Woolcott Research

Ranked 8th
35/100 for GfK Blue Moon

Ranked 9th
32/100 for Marketing Outsourcing

Ranked 10th
29.6/100 for Sense Marketing

Ranked 11th
27.2/100 for ACA Research

Ranked 12th
26.4/100 for Jigsaw Strategic Research

Ranked 13th
26/100 for Australian Fieldwork Solutions

Ranked 14th
25.6/100 for Axiom Consulting Australia

Ranked 15th
25/100 for Footprints Market Research

Ranked 16th
22.4/100 for www.nft.com.au

Ranked 17th
20/100 for Next Marketing

Ranked 18th
18.4/100 for Shopworks Science

Ranked 19th
17.6/100 for Auspoll

Ranked 20th
16.8/100 for YellowSquares

Ranked 21st
16/100 for Streetscope

Ranked = 22nd
6.4/100 for Dimensional Data

Ranked = 22nd
6.4/100 for Horizon Research

Ranked =22nd
6.4/100 for Omincom Research

Ranked 23rd
5.6/100 for Perspective Research

Australia’s leading Finance Brokers. Do you know who they are?

BRW recently published the Top 27 Finance Broker Companies. Here, we put them to the online performance test with NLYZR. The results ran the full spectrum of great to very poor.

NLYZR assess a website using criteria such as On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, Keyword search results, Competitor scores, Social media and traffic conversion. These are crucial aspects of Inbound Marketing.

Note: some of these sites have been listed previously by NLYZR. Scores can vary from month to month and depending upon search terms.

How do Australia’s leading Finance Brokers rate….

NLYZR Top 27 Finance Broker Websites:

Ranked 1st
99.2/100 for Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Ranked 2nd
96.48/100 for Macquarie Group

Ranked 3rd
94.72/100 for Bank of Western Australia (Bankwest)

Ranked 4th
94.08/100 for Westpac Banking Corporation

Ranked 6th
94/100 for Savings & Loans Credit Union (SA)

Ranked 7th
92.64/100 for Bank of Queensland

Ranked 8th
92.4/100 for St George Bank

Ranked 9th
91.48/100 for HSBC Bank Australia

Ranked 10th
83.2/100 for AMP

Ranked 11th
77.6/100 for Arab Bank Australia

Ranked 12th
76.88/100 for Credit Union Australia

Ranked 13th
76.2/100 for Capital Finance Australia

Ranked 14th
76.08/100 for National Australia Bank

Ranked 15th
76/100 for BankSA

Ranked 16th
72/100 for Bananacoast Community Credit Union

Ranked 17th
71.8/100 for Liberty Financial

Ranked 18th
70.4/100 for Community CPS Australia

Ranked 19th
69.7/100 for Sydney Credit Union

Ranked 20th
68.8/100 for WHK

Ranked 21st
68.7/100 for Rural Finance Corporation of Victoria

Ranked 22nd
61.6/100 for Cuscal

Ranked 23rd
50.4/100 for WAW Credit Union

Ranked 24th
43.2/100 for Moore Stephens International

Ranked 25th
42.4/100 for Davies Knox Maynards

Ranked 26th
24/100 for MPR Finance

Ranked 27th
8/100 for Citigroup

The market for advertising agencies and web designers here in Newcastle is very competitive. Very rarely do you see agencies or designers co-operating for the greater good of their clients. I’m sure its the same elsewhere in Australia too.

When we developed NLYZR our aim was to create something that could be of genuine service to anybody looking to improve websites. That means advertising agencies, web designers and other marketers.

• If you are working on sites for your clients we invite you to test it with Web NLYZR.

• If you wish to optimise them for more successful search results, please use SEO and Competitor NLYZR.

• If you aren’t sure which are the best keyword searches to target, we can assist you with Keyword NLYZR.

Already several Sydney and Melbourne advertising and digital agencies have used NLYZR to improve client sites, while many others have received free Web NLYZR reports. Please keep them coming.

I invite advertising agencies, web designers and marketers to take advantage of the tool NLYZR offers.  We’d rather assist than compete.

All submissions to NLYZR and Sticky will be kept in the strictest confidence. We can also discuss special rates for agencies, designers and marketers who wish to utilise NLYZR on a regular basis.

If you would like to discuss this in more detail please call me on 02 49695022.

International interactive agency Razorfish have just released a survey which illustrates the growing reliance upon online by consumers when making purchasing decisions.

• 71% of the 1000 respondents to the Razorfish survey indicated they share product and service recommendations in the social mediasphere at least once every few months.

• 29% of the surveyed said they share product views online at least every few weeks and 10% do so at least every few days.

The report went on to say that “Conversations about brands, products and services are increasingly woven into the interactions of social networks as a means to connect with others, and these conversations have great influence even though people aren’t consciously asking about brand opinions.”

The message for marketers here is clear. Increasingly consumers are searching, comparing and sharing online. Bloggers and influencers in online social networks have become a crucial part of the marketing process.

If your business doesn’t have an inbound marketing strategy incorporating social media then you are likely missing out on significant opportunities.

Here are our 6 steps to an effective internet marketing strategy

1. Discover whether your website is a capable marketing tool. Our free Web ANLYZR report will show you the strengths and weaknesses of your site.

2. Make the appropriate adjustments to create an effective inbound marketing site. In some cases this could mean walking away from your current site if its inadequate, or making some recommended improvements.

3. Set revenue goals. Any good marketing campaign should be geared towards reaching a revenue target. These goals will help determine your strategy.

4. Identify your best potential targets. Many businesses make the mistake of chasing broad, unqualified keyword searches that are too competitive and deliver poor results. Traffic ANLYZR can show you which searches to chase and which to ignore.

5. Provide an easy, obvious method for visitors to reach your goal conversion objective.

6. Measure your results. Determine which sources are delivering the best traffic-to-conversion results and which are failing. Adjust and improve accordingly.

Don’t just have a website sitting there doing nothing. Make it work for you. Turn it into a 24/7 marketing machine. If you’d like to find out more please download our free Internet Marketing e-Book or give us a call.

Leading Sydney marine trimming specialists Quality Covers have launched a new website as part of their inbound marketing strategy with Sticky.

Based at the impressive new Sydney City Marine facility in Rozelle, Quality Covers is an excellent example of a small business looking to more measurable and cost-effective marketing techniques to grow their business.

Finding that traditional marketing options were either unaffordable or ineffective, Quality Covers have decided to make their website their primary marketing tool, incorporating strategic search engine optimisation, quality content and measurable conversion tools.

The whole team here welcome Quality Covers to the fold and are very proud they decided to GetSticky.

Quality Covers Website

Based upon Craig Wilson’s notes from a presentation at Web 2.0 in San Francisco by Heather Lutze, 2 April 2009

Who’s your best salesperson? Are they working 24/7 when customers are ready? The right online presence can be like the ultimate sales team working around the clock.

The web and dominance of Google requires a new understanding of how your customers are searching for you. Customers aren’t waiting for information to be broadcast to them. They are scouring the Internet for information, searching Google and other search engines, and reading blogs for tips and recommendations. They are spending an increasing amount of time on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, where their “friends” are sharing links and recommendations.

Your business needs to ensure that it can be found in this dynamic online environment.

Heather Lutze’s Find-ability formula
1. Connect with the right search keywords
2. Edit your social media profiles & elements with keywords
3. Track the results correctly

Its important that you know how users search:

• They are beginning to use longer and longer keyword searches. One word searches aren’t as good as they produce generic and non-relevant results.

• Stay away from ego keywords, waste of time. Users aren’t searching for your name, they are searching for answers to a problem.

• Look at 4,5,6 keyword phrases. The more specific the phrase the higher quality your results. You’ll produce less volume but they results will be more relevant and qualified for your services.

Customer Online Buying Cycle:

1. Information (the customer uses a basic 1-word keyword Ie hosting)
2. Shopping (the customer becomes more specific with 2-word searches, Ie Website hosting)
3. Purchasing (the customer now looks for exactly what they want with a 3 or 4-word search, Ie Dedicated IP hosting)

You need to make sure that potential customers find the appropriate info when they do that their Purchasing search. This means that your keywords must be set up correctly on your sites.

By using some of the free keyword search tools available from Google you can discover what users are really searching for around your industry. Heather Lutze suggests that you should aim for the longest search term possible that receives over 100 searches per month. This isn’t a missive volume, but the quality of visitors will be very high and most relevant to your business.

By picking the correct keywords and then doing effective Social Media Optimisation you will receive better results faster.

Integration
Once you have your best keywords for search, you must adopt an integrated approach to ensure that the keywords are found in as many places as possible and you receive as many search listings as possible.

• A blog post with the correct search terms written into it should be easily shared amongst readers. Use the sharethis.com facility to give readers the best way of passing the information on.

• Facebook – Heather Lutze’s Facebook page ranks in search and yours could too if you use it strategically  by including keywords into titles and descriptions (Ie. Heather Internet Marketing Speaker etc)

• LinkedIn profile: likewise a LinkedIn profile can deliver search results. Ie. Heather Lutze – Marketing Speaker (ranks on Google)

• Twitter: Lutze makes sure that every communication on Twitter reflects her “Internet Marketing Speaker” status

• YouTube profile: Lutze puts her keywords in profile. She posts regular videos and includes the Keywords in them too.

Track Your Results
Constantly check how you are performing on various search engines. Your goal should be to make sure you own all TEN spots for your name & company name to prevent others hi-jacking your name and brand.

Where you are not achieving first page ranking, continue to refine your approach. Look at each tool (blog, Facebook etc) and make subtle changes to improve results. Post more information with your keywords included.

Finally, ensure that the keyword search is actually delivering worthwhile traffic. If it isn’t there may be better keywords to adopt.