Search Engine Optimization

Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss Google Business Profile optimization strategy with an SEO industry professional. The interesting question was how Google's algorithm impacts and affects Google Business Profile in terms of optimization and strategy. In general, Google has multiple search algorithms working together to provide the best results. The following are some key points : Complete Business Profile on Google by uploading your logo, cover photo, business photos, adding your services, adding your products, providing your hours, and specifying your opening date . Keywords: Your primary keywords should be incorporated into your GBP (Google Business Profile) listing's primary and secondary categories, description, responses to reviews, as well as your services and products. Radius : Google's algorithm considers the distance between the searcher and your business when suggesting results. Reviews & Replies : The number of positive and negative reviews you recei...

As an SEO analyst, I recently had a unique experience working with a security service business based in Australia that faced legal issues related to advertising and optimizing their services under an unregistered trading name. Here's what happened: The business, Southern Cross Group Services Pty Ltd, received a warning notice from SLED (Security Licensing & Enforcement Directorate) for potentially breaching the NSW security licensing legislation. SLED determined that the business was advertising security services under an unregistered  trading name, Southern Cross Group , on various online platforms such as their webpage, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. This breached section 30 of the Act, by way of clause 18, which requires updating license particulars within 14 days of changes, and clause 29, which mandates including the Master license business or 'proper' name in security job advertisements. As an SEO analyst, I provided the following recommendations to ...

As an in-house SEO analyst, I have been facing several internal challenges in improving our website and website SEO. Since November 2021, I have made the following core recommendations: We need to update the "Theme version" as our current theme has expired. We need to update our authentic images for all the subpages. We need to improve the content on our service pages. In November 2021, our website activities manager went on maternity leave, and a new manager who is not related to website technicalities took over. Despite my recommendations, the new manager did not focus on improving our website and instead worked on a new business that was not our core and not very active. The design and development activities for our website were assigned to a new manager, leaving us with limited resources and team members to work on our core business website. We completed the design and content for the new business's website in a hurry, with most of the elements copied from industry to...

 In our Google ads (PPC), I noticed that we've been bidding on our own brand keywords, such as "Southern Cross Security" and "Southern Cross Security Group," which has cost us $235.98 for 97 clicks. As we already rank first organically for those keywords, I recommended to our agency that we don't need to bid on them. However, after analyzing the benefits and disadvantages of using brand name bidding in our PPC strategy, I asked our agency if we should add competitor brand name keywords to the negative list in our Google ads campaigns and whether we should bid on our SCG branded keywords or create a separate Ad Group in our brand campaign. We have 127 clicks, 490 impressions, and a cost of $349 for our SCG brand name keywords, including "Southern Cross Group Security" and "SCGroup." Our agency replied that although it's possible to add competitor and SCG branded keywords to the negative keyword lists, it may be beneficial to keep them ...

Recently, we received a security warning from the GoDaddy Firewall tool regarding the SCG website at https://scgroup.global . The notification mentioned an internal server error and a site error. We manually checked the website and ran a test using the Sucuri tool, which confirmed that there was no malware found and the site was not blacklisted. We also contacted the SCG Firewall support team to investigate the security alert. The support team replied and claimed that they had cleared all the malware from the site. However, we were not satisfied with their response, as we were unsure why the security alert was triggered at a specific time if the malware had been removed. We requested further details, and they replied that the alert may have been caused by a temporary hosting error or outdated plugins. We did not update any plugins on our end, and the website is hosted on shared web hosting, which can occasionally experience server issues .

 I want to share some insights about the Google Ads Optimization Score and the situation when our score dropped by 17%. When I had an email conversation with Raewyn, our Google Ads agency, I received a good clarification on this matter. Raewyn's response was as follows : "I wouldn't read too much into that. I looked into the recommendations offered by Google to improve the optimization score and most recommendations would not improve the performance of the campaigns at all. In fact, from past experience, most of them would have an adverse effect. And some are not possible or recommended at this time." She listed some of the recommendations provided by Google and explained why they may not be suitable for our campaigns: Increase budgets - which is not a bad idea, but only once we're happy with the results on the current budget. Introduce broad keywords - which she would not recommend as even on phrase match we're picking up a number of irrelevant search terms w...

I recently encountered the issue of "Discovered - currently not indexed" for a blog post that I had published on 15 February 2023. This isn't the first time I've faced this issue, and I previously wrote a blog post about it that went into great detail about my struggles. However, this time I was able to resolve the issue much more quickly. I identified the issue in the "Page Indexing" section of the Google Search Console tool, which I regularly monitor. I confirmed the issue using the URL inspection tool and the search operator "site: scgroup.global/blog/help-points-essential-student-safety-university-campuses/ ". URL is not on Google - URL inspection tool Checked it by search operator To resolve the issue, I took the following actions : I created internal links and adjusted them slightly to link to our services pages using the terms "control room security operators" and "professional electronic security technicians". I checked...