Article by Zac Grace, SEO Strategist and link building team leader at Dejan SEO company.

Google Places is one of the main ways that consumers find businesses online. That is especially true for local based businesses as local search is always on the constant rise and has been for the past few years. Besides being indexed in Google search you need to cover as many verticals as possible and local search is one you should not miss at any cost, which is why we create Google Places listings in the first place.

Some websites still make the mistake of not creating simple Google Places listings, and just a simple listing like this can triple your visits from local search. Having a listing in Google Places is not enough, you need to tweak it a bit, in other words you need to optimise Google Places and this can be achieved in just 15-20 minutes.

Create a complete profile

Creating a complete profile is the most important part of the process. Many businesses already have listings, but their listings are usually incomplete and missing vital information. A complete profile will include pictures, videos, and accurate contact information such as email, phone, fax, website, and physical address. Always update the contact information because the listing is no good if people cannot reach you due to inaccurate information. Pinpoint the exact location of your business and do not include a service area because it negates your score and it is very vague and confusing for consumers because it does not tell them exactly where you are located. Google will actually give a higher rank to businesses that offer pictures, descriptions, and hours on their profiles. This also makes customers see your business as more credible and legitimate.

Get positive reviews

Reviews are another aspect of a high ranking and optimised profile because people like to know what they can expect from the business. The problem is that most people do not usually report positive experiences that they have had with businesses and instead only leave reviews and feedback when they have had some sort of problem.

If there are negative reviews on your page, then you can try to respond or resolve the issues, but otherwise you must displace the negative reviews by getting positive reviews to show up on the first page of your profile. Google does not allow businesses to coax people into leaving reviews by paying people or offering discounts to leave reviews and the like.

If they find out that you have been doing that they will pull your listing. However, there are some subtle ways you can request that people leave positive reviews. It is perfectly fine to ask website visitors or followers from other sites like Twitter and Facebook to leave positive reviews.

Use keywords

Use the right keywords in your profile so that your profile will rank higher and attract more views. Keywords are just the words used to describe your goods and services, but they are the exact terms that people put into search engines. It is a good idea to strategically place keywords throughout your profile, but do not try to use too many because Google will mark it as spam and possibly pull your listing. The key is to use the most powerful keywords 2-3 times within the profile.

Having a fully optimised Google Places profile will draw more traffic to your website and possibly to your business if done properly. Include all relevant information about your business, include pictures, and keep all of your contact information up to date and that alone will go a long way. Add some positive reviews and strategically placed keywords to get the best results.

Many business owners say they want to do SEO. Far fewer understand the right keywords to target.

I hear you say, “That’s what SEO companies are for”, but sometimes the last person you want to leave this decision to, is your SEO company. That’s because many SEO companies may suggest keywords that are easily attainable (in order to make themselves look good). Or they may simply slip into “order taking mode” and quote on the keywords you specify, without advising on the suitability of your suggestions.

This article explains the 3 essential criteria for choosing the most productive (read: highest ROI) keywords for your search engine optimisation activities.

Here they are:

1. Traffic Volume: is the keyword searched frequently, or are you (and your SEO company!) the only people searching for it? This can be estimated using the Google Keyword Tool (among many others).
2. Conversion Rate: what percentage of searchers on this term make a desired action on your website (opt in, enquire, buy, donate etc.)? This can be determined by first running paid search campaigns for the same keywords and tracking conversion.
3. Competition: low competition is better (obviously!)  There are a number of ways to determine keyword competition.  My fave is the SEOmoz Pro Keyword Difficulty Tool.  It returns a percentage difficulty.  Two seemingly similar terms may have very different levels of competition.  Sometimes there’s a reason for this.  Other times, it’s an anomaly you can exploit.

The Perfect Keyword

Getting to the first page of Google is hard enough, but how to you get MULTIPLE listings on the first page of Google? This video shares how one client got not one but EIGHT spots on the first page of Google Australia. Enjoy!

UPDATE: After a period of approximately 2 months of not being able to accept any new web development or website sales optimisation clients, we are now in a position to accept new clients thanks to the appointment of 2 new Account Managers. Click here to get in touch.

Recently, one of our recent web design clients reported that when their new site went live, they lost ground in the organic search engines for some key terms for which they had previously ranked well.

We thought this was very odd: the on-page SEO on the new site was certainly a lot more focused than the old, and all technical best-practices such as installing 301 redirects where relevant had been followed to the letter.

We analysed the site several times over a series of weeks, made a few tweaks and kept an eye on the site, expecting to see the rankings return.

No joy.

Then one of our techs had the idea of double-checking the robots.txt file for the site and found that the settings had been changed to “disallow” search engines from crawling the site – in other words, to render the entire site invisible to Google et al.

After a bit of drilling down and consultation with the client, we established that there were only two people besides us who had FTP access to the site — the client’s web host, and their previous web designer.

Turns out that the previous website designer wasn’t too pleased when the redesign job was handed over to us, and had snuck in and changed the robots.txt settings in order to sabotage the SEO rankings of the new site (naughty, naughty).

This is a relatively subtle change that can only be picked up if you’re looking for it — it could have easily flown under the radar for much longer had our tech not decided to double-check everything and explore every angle.

(Luckily, in the interim we had set up the client with PPC campaigns, which were working very well and keeping them busy with new projects.)

It’s a little hard to believe that a professional provider would go to these lengths to sabotage the results of a former client, but I guess the moral of the story is, “keep your friends close, and your FTP details even closer”.

And just in case, check your robots.txt file as well

Many people ask me what implications “domain name class” have on SEO and Pay Per Click (e.g. Google AdWords) rankings and results.

“Domain name class” is another word for “Top Level Domain”, or the extension on the end of your domain name (e.g. .com, .net, .com.au). In particular, you should know the implications that country code top level domains (or ccTLD for short) can have on your search engine marketing efforts.

ccTLDs and Organic Search Engine Optimisation

Should your “main” website URL be a .com.au if you’re primarily targeting Australia?

Yes.

A site with a country-specific top level domain will rank better in that country than elsewhere, although you do see other websites with other countries’ ccTLDs ranking in google.co.uk, google.co.nz and so on.

If you’re primarily interested in targeting Australia, you should definitely go with a .com.au domain.

If you’re interested in targeting multiple places, the tactics get a little more involved, but for one nation, this is fine.

Another option is to go with a .com (or .net, .org, etc) but geo-target the domain to the correct country within the domain’s Google Webmaster Tools account.

This presumably works just as well, but a .com.au is really a sure thing in terms of telling Google where your intended audience is.

ccTLDs and Pay Per Click (e.g. Google AdWords) Performance

How about ccTLDs and Google AdWords performance?

The domain name you display in your ads or “Display URL” can certainly influence the click through rates and performance of your ads, and a country-specific domain name (YourSite.com.au) will nearly always perform better than the .com (YourSite.com) for users in the target country.

In some cases, the effect can be large (50% or more), which helps to increase your click through rates and decrease your average cost per click.

If you operate in multiple markets, then ideally you should test multiple ccTLDs in each market — and as a general rule you should avoid serving ads with the “wrong” ccTLD in foreign markets.

If you’re targeting multiple countries and you can’t get hold of a ccTLD for certain countries for whatever reason, then a trusty old .com works best. Bear in mind that in our tests, .com domains normally perform better than .net, .biz or other extensions — but your mileage may vary.

You have to test.

I’ve just released the new-and-improved version of my audio program, Search Engine Strategies For Lead Generation Websites.

This program is designed especially for time-poor, results-focused business owners and managers who want to learn how to deploy practical and proven Search Engine Optimisation strategies to drive top search engine results.

This 4-part, 97-minute audio program shows details how to:

• Generate immediate “windfall” income by generating more sales leads and sales at lower cost.
• Save thousands of dollars on paid traffic generation such as Google Adwords
• Leverage your existing website content while incurring minimal additional expense.
• Reduce or totally eliminate pay-per-click expenditure.
• Bypass the steep SEO learning curve (is it worth your time to spend dozens of hours studying what you could easily digest in less than 2 hours?)
• Become your own “SEO guru” and master the tools and tactics the big players use
• Gain an instant credibility boost: studies show that consumers believe that the websites at the top of the search engines are more credible and pre-eminent than paid advertisers.

The price is just $47 (that’s Aussie dollars), putting this program well within reach of any business owner, and it comes with a no-questions asked, 60 day money back guarantee.

Update: 4 May 2009: A number of commenters have asked me to elaborate on what makes this program different – here’s a brief update:

How is this SEO program different?

There are a lot of SEO experts and “gurus” on the Internet – many with impressive experience and qualifications – so what makes this program different and why should you buy it? Here’s a brief analysis as to what makes this program different:

• An SEO program for business owners – many SEO programs delve into excessively technical details.  My program provides a “business owner”-level overview of the core techniques of SEO, plus implementation steps for the 20% of SEO techniques that deliver 80% of the results.  Business owners can either use this program to quickly get up to speed on SEO in order to tell good SEO firms from bad, or delegate the implementation to an in-house person to implement the action steps laid out in the program.
• Focused on lead generation applications – most SEO programs take a generalist approach — this program focuses specifically on SEO for lead generation websites (i.e. websites where the principle focus is generating qualified enquiries for a product or service).  In the program I provide specific advice on the kinds of SEO strategies that work best in lead generation applications.
• Based on what works - the program is 100% practical and is focused around the exact same strategies that have produced first page rankings for dozens of our clients in real lead generation scenarios.
• Concise and to the point - the entire audio program is only 97-minutes long – long enough to cover all the key points, but not so long that you need 20 audio CDs to listen to the entire thing (and business owners typically don’t have time for that anyway).
• Very affordable - other programs are priced at up to $1,000 (or more).  This program is only $47.   I deliberately priced it so low to ensure that price is not an option.  Any business owner can acquire these skills for a fraction of the cost of engaging most SEO firms.
• All future updates included FREE – because the SEO world is changing so fast, I intend to occasionally update the program.  When I do, all purchasers of the program will receive the updates free.  A one-time investment ensures unlimited updates, for the time being at least…

Click here for the full story and to purchase the program

Here’s a question I’m often asked:

“Which is better: optimising my site for “free” search engine rankings, or paying for clicks on Google Adwords?

My answer is always the same – if you can profitably generate website traffic with both, it’s best to do both to generate maximum returns.

But you should also keep in mind that free search engines and paid search engines are very different animals.

Let’s look a little deeper so you understand the pros and cons of Search Engine Optimisation for the “free” search engines (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click optimisation on paid search engines (PPC).

SEO vs PPC

PPC (paying for clicks) is good because…

1. It’s a very fast way to generate targeted traffic – you can literally generate visitors to your website within 10 minutes. SEO takes much longer to see results.
2. You can easily decide where to send each visitor (e.g. if a visitor searches on “blue widgets”, you can direct them to your “blue widgets” product page.) With SEO, the search engines decide for you.
3. You can easily test multiple headlines / copy / offers by testing ads in Google Adwords.
4. You can easily drive traffic for a broad range of keywords. With SEO, you’re wise to focus on fewer keywords.
5. Your website doesn’t have to be “search engine friendly” for PPC to work. (Websites built with “Flash” are notoriously UN-friendly to search engines, but they don’t necessarily affect PPC traffic.)
6. You’re optimising for conversion results, not the ranking formula for a particular search engine.
7. You can easily change positions on the page in order to find the best Return On Investment.
8. Changes in “the rules” of Pay-Per-Click search engines tend to be smaller and less frequent than changes to the “free” SEO rules.

SEO (free traffic) is good because…

1. It’s free!
2. You can generate hoards of traffic for search terms that it would be un-economical to bid on with Pay Per Click.
3. The long-term Return On Investment is often better than Pay Per Click. It’s slower at first, and the risk is higher if you don’t know what you’re doing, but it’s cheaper in the long term.
4. Once you get good rankings, it’s relatively easy to maintain them with little incremental effort.
5. You can build incredible momentum and dominate your market while your competitors bleed themselves dry trying to compete with you on PPC search engines as they pay for every click.

Conclusion: SEO and PPC both have their place in any online lead generation strategy for your business website.

But the Search Engine Optimisation field is riddled with mis-information and half-truths that can waste your time, blow your budget and frustrate the heck out of you, all at the same time.

That’s why I’ve decided to totally rework my audio program, “Search Engine Strategies for lead generation websites”. It will contain what I believe to be the most concise, most effective way to generate free Search Engine traffic to your “real” business website. And…it will be available for less than $50.

This new program will be launched on Tuesday 10th March at 12 noon AEST, but if you want to get access before everyone else, and gain access to extra Early Bird bonuses, you can join the pre-launch notification list here.