Global Thoughtz Australia: Online Marketing Tips & Strategies

Results of the Australia and New Zealand SEO SEM Survey

Alban Guillemot — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:03:15 +0000

The results of the Australian & New Zealand SEO SEM Salary Survey are finally available. The survey started in February 2008 and lasted a month and a half. The data collected helped to have a better picture of the Australian and New Zealand search industry.

65 SEO/SEM professionals from Australia and New Zealand (84.6% of all respondents) have participated in the survey and here are the key findings:

- The SEO SEM industry in Australia and New Zealand is dominated by Male under 30 years old

- Australian and New Zealand SEO SEM professionals are experienced, but do not always come from a IT background.

- Search Agencies are the main employers and salaries are reasonable

For more information, you can download a comprehensive report of the SEO SEM survey

Link buying - is Google going to kill you for it?

Andreas Andersen — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:33:48 +0000

As I am sure you all know Google clearly states, by virtue of their actions if nothing else, that bartering for links is fine as long as no money changes hands (and if there are no editorial discrimination issues etc). Using the data that Google has the ability to collect using Webmaster Central and Google Analytics they would quite easily I imagine be able to sniff out what links a site has purchased and take whatever action they please to that site be it drop the pagerank (shutters) or drop your paid words X positions per infringement which I imagine would be sufficient to stop a lot of link buying/selling.

Problem is then how do you get someone with a decent pagerank - or two million people with a less decent pagerank - to actually want to link to your website, publish your media release or your fascinating article on how global warming has affected the hibernation in the local squirrel community?

If you can’t add any value to that person’s website like value to their visitors or just to make them look smart by linking to your site, and honestly how many of us own one of those domains is your only option to pay up and risk the ultimate punishment from the mighty G or be left behind?

There are options if you must buy/sell links - for example you can have the links disguised as AdSense Ads as shown in this SEO Blog or you can request that the link purchase is wrapped within a guest blog post or that fascinating article about the hibernation in the local squirrel community.

Whichever option you go with I would recommend that you watch your step - especially if you use Webmaster Central and Google Analytics. Things will change in the near future, just make sure your SEO efforts are not relying to heavily on these purchased links, it might even be an idea to leave the link building (not buying) to a BDM to whom I think that job belongs anyway.

Best regards from the cradle of Google,
Andreas

Sydney Search Marketing Expo

Andreas Andersen — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:37:05 +0000

Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Sydney destined to be this year’s ‘must attend’ interactive and search engine marketing event of 2008 is taking place this April in Sydney. The SMX is replacing the highly acclaimed Australian Search Summit and is a partnership between Search Strategies and US based Third Door Media, the team that created the world’s first search marketing conference in ‘99 and has since produced more than 50 major events.

The SMX Sydney program features two keynotes from Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President for Search Products & User Experience who will be discussing the dramatic changes we have experienced in relation to Google’s Universal Search, Google Maps and Google Streetview in a keynote discussion with SearchEngineLand.com editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan and Barry Smyth, Principal of Search Strategies.

The second day of the event will see Danny Sullivan take the stage once more to discuss “Search 3.0, Search 4.0 and Beyond” where he will touch on the implications of blended search (search 3.0), personalized search (search 4.0) and what’s next for search and search marketing technology.

The event takes place at the Luna Park on April 10-11. Click here to register or to learn more about the event.

Australian Online Display Market is Changing

Alban Guillemot — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:27:28 +0000

According to an article in the Australian marketing magazine AdNews , the Australian online display advertising market is changing. ABN Amro estimate that NineMSN’s share of revenue has decreased from 32% in 2005 to 24% in 2007. However, the challengers such as Fairfax Digital and News Digital Media has seen their share of revenue to increase respectively from 14% to 17% and 8% to 13% over the same period of time.

Lee Stephen, CEO of Aegis Media attributes this loss to a slow move toward more innovative ad units and a delayed start with social media networks., which resulted in NineMSN to miss out on ‘mass community’ such as MySpace and Facebook.

On the other hand, Fairfax Digital and News Digital Media have made a quicker move by providing premium ad units and capturing more revenues from agencies.

Top SEO Firms in Australia - March 2008

Jody Nimetz — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 06:08:00 +0000

Here is a look at the Top SEO firms based on organic optimization services in Australia for March 2008. Rankings are from topseos.com.

Rankings Australia (March, 2008)

Organic Optimization

1. trainSEM

2. Hot Chilli Media

3. PositionMEonline.

4. ineedhits.com Pty Ltd

5. Glass Onion

6. Net Starter

7. Cogentis Pty Ltd

8. SEO Sydney

9. Sydney FX Pty Ltd

10. Core Digital Media

AdTech Sydney is Approaching

Alban Guillemot — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:35:55 +0000

Ad Tech is Australia’s number 1 interactive event. It takes place every year in Sydney and gathers all the leading players in the Australian digital industry under one roof.

Ad Tech Sydney also host some interesting conferences on topics related to online marketing. This year key speakers include Tony Faure (head of MSN ), Jack Matthew (CEO Faifax Digital) and many more.

In 2008 AdTech takes place on the 12th and 13th of March at the Hilton in Sydney CBD. Click here to register for the event or get more information

Advertising on You Tube Australia

Alban Guillemot — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 08:52:01 +0000

Last week, Google hosted its second Google Geek Night in Sydney, which was a great occasion to review some of their products and especially You Tube.

In Australia You Tube is:

Over 3 milion unique monthly visitors.
Number 1 Entertainment site on the Internet in Australia.
Average user spends 35 minutes on site each month.

You Tube is used and monetized as a brand channel. You Tube is the one stop to build brands online. Helwett Packard has been one of the first company to use You Tube to promote their brand by customizing the You Tube homepage for a couple of weeks. The advertsing solution is appealing, but it is mostly targeted at big companies as the advertsing package start at AU$30,000/ day.

Another interesting thing about You Tube is its audience. There is a common misconception that You Tube’s audience is only comprised of teens and uni students. While 53% of the website audience is represented by visitors below 34 years old ( including 27% of 18 -34 years old), 47% of the visitors are 35 and older, including 27% between 35 -49 years old. In fact You Tube audience is actually really similar to the Australian online population.

Australian and New Zealand SEO/SEM Salary Survey

Alban Guillemot — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:37:25 +0000

The Australian and New Zealand search marketing industry is growing, but there is a lack of information on the industry. There are plenty of SEO/SEM industry surveys on the internet (SEMPO and SEOMOZ), however these surveys have strong focus on North America.

At SEO Sydney Blog I wanted to tackle this issue and therefore I released a survey dedicated to Australia and New Zealand. The survey has 10 questions and will take about 5 mins to complete. The survey is anonymous and the results will be published on the second week of March.

If you are a SEO/SEM professional in Australia and New Zealand, feel free to take the survey.

News Digital invest in travel search engine Bezurk.com

Alban Guillemot — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:46:11 +0000

According to B&T, News Digital, one of the leading online player in Australia, has made strong investment in Asia by investing in the Singapore-based travel search engine Bezurk.com. Bezurk.com is a travel meta-search engine providing information to 80 major travel websites and also provides price conmparisons on travel products. The price paid by News Digital has not been revealed by Bezurk.com is valued at more than $22 M.

For more information, click here

Top 10 Shopping & Classified Websites in Australia

Alban Guillemot — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 07:54:13 +0000

According to September 2007 data from Hitwise, the Australia shopping and classified websites landscape is dominated by the auction website Ebay with an overall market share of 33.57% (including Ebay.com.au and Ebay.com).

The second biggest player is Amazon with only 2.06% of market share. Trading Post Online, the online platform of the classified newspaper Trading Post is in third place with 1.63% of the market.

IT hardware providers Dell and HP are capturing repsectively 1.07% and 0.92% of the market, while online ticket shopping websites (Ticketek and Ticketmaster) end- the Top 10 ranking.