Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation is the process of optimising your digital content to achieve maximum visibility within search engines.  Specifically, it looks to achieve this in the organic search listings (the non-paid listings) of a search engine.

Of late, search engine optimisation (or SEO) has been spilling over it's traditional bounds.  No longer can you look at SEO in nice and tidy vacuum where if you follow a set of rules you'll land on top.  SEO is now more than ever itrinsically linked to other forms of digital media such as social media.  Moreover, pure ranking numbers are hard to really quantify nowdays as they can differ by location - and what results are we ranking, universal results, image results, local search results, etc...  Long story short, it can be confusing - it's not just meta tags any more!

Create Studios takes a very practical approach to SEO. We know that at the end of the day, Google (as in Australia anyway that's arguably all that matters right now) is in the business of making sure it's customers find what they are looking for.  So, tricks and the latest SEO trends aside, we know that Google will tend to rank your site better if:

• You have good quality, relevant content then people find and consistenty read
• You have a reasonable amount of content available and have other sites linking to that content
• Your site is easy for Google to read and understand

So, those principals guide the SEO services we offer:

Keyword and Content Research

Before you begin any SEO process you generally need a benchmark and understanding of the landscape you are in.  That's where keyword research comes in.  It allows us to research your company niche and develop a strategy of how to implement changes ongoing to improve your visibility.  Not having done any research before starting an SEO strategy is a bit like playing a game without understanding how to win.

In terms of a deliverable, Create Studios will provide the results of this service in a document form which can then be leveraged to actually implement a strategy around.

Website SEO Audits

Another starting point for beginning an SEO strategy is an SEO Audit.  This is a great starting point when you don't believe or don't know whether or not your site is actually constructed in an SEO-friendly manner.

So, our SEO Audit focuses very much on the on-site factors of SEO such as the code, site structure and website copy.  Create Studios will review your site and provide you with a detailed list of findings and recommendations.

Unlike many SEO consutling companies, Create Studios can then offer to actually implement those recommendations on your site if you so desire. 

SEO 'Blitz'

Sometimes we are  presented with a website that has so many fundamental and obvious issues in terms of SEO that it woudl simply be a waste of your money to get a full audit done in the first instance.  There are some very basic 'no-brainers' that all sites should essentially have in terms of SEO but very many do not.

As such, if this is the case with your website, we basically run through a list of basic items to implement and package it in 1 consolidated project - an SEO 'Blitz'.  We basically just go through your site and get it up to respectable level in terms of SEO - a solid starting point for future SEO Strategy.

The Blitz normally includes:

• Basic keyword research to isolate key words we want to focus on
• Optimise sites' title tags
• Optimise sites' meta descriptions
• Optimise sites' meta keywords
• Optimise sites' H1/H2 tags
• Update/optimise the alt tags on images
• Install Google Webmaster Tools
• FIx any broken links and redirect bad url with 301 redirect
• Create a friendly 404 'Page Not Found' page
• Fix duplicate content issues
• Submit the site XML site map to Google, Yahoo and Bing
• Create a dynamic XML site map if possible (depends on the CMS facility of your site)
• Create a robots file and incorporate the XML site map

The final scope of an SEO Blitz Project will depend on the size of your website.  Please contact us to discuss this option with one of the team.

SEO Retainers

At the end of the day, the most effective way to improve organic search results is to undertake an iterative strategic approach that spans over some length of time.  Essentially, you should always be looking to make incremental improvements and additions to your SEO weight and analysing the changes over time.

This process can also leverage a hypothesis and testing method to see what works well and what doesn't work over time.

Create Studios can offer an SEO Retainer Service when you essentially want to outsource your SEO work completely.  We create the retainer based on a set number of hours per month and then provide you with monthly reporting and explanations as to the strategy.

Note that we generally never start an SEO Retainer without first going through an Audit or Keyword Research Process.

Feel free to contact one of our team if you would like to discuss SEO Retainer options.