The Open Graph Protocol is a snippet controller when adding your url to social media. It basically terms your page into a rich object that can then be used on Facebook. The Open Graph Protocol is RDFa-formatted metadata that can be added to the head of your page html which controls the snippet that is shown in Facebook when you 'like' a page or add a URL to your post feed. The Basic Me ..

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"50% of people said that even if they like a business, they will use them less often if the website isn't mobile-friendly" (Google, "What users want most from mobile sites today"). There is nothing more frustrating as a user then to view a mobile site that has 404 errors, homepage redirects or infinite looped pages. It is really important to facilitate a great user experience on mob ..

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One of the best ways to improve your site usability is to increase speed. Simply speaking, users prefer fast sites which in turn give lower bounce rates and higher customer satisfaction. It is so vital in fact that Amazon report a 1%+ revenue increase (http://www.strangeloopnetworks.com/resources/infographics/web-performance-and-ecommerce/amazon-100ms-faster-1-revenue-increase/) for every 100m ..

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Submitting Articles to high quality directories and PR sites can be a good way to show authority in your industry and share information about your business. Using Article Directories for link building however, is not a great option due to the lack of control you have over article re-use and the low quality results it often produces. Google also sees this practice as being fairly in ..

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Negative SEO on a website can take many forms and cause varying degrees of damage, when applied to a competitors website. Negative SEO methods are used to convince search engines that they should punish a site for using Black Hat SEO techniques when they have not. Perpetrators found to be employing these risky Negative SEO methods would potentially be black listed by Google, not to mention pur ..

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Your Browser keeps a list and snapshot of every page you’ve visited and when you visited it in its cache. The goal is to help you locate pages you have viewed in the past and this saved history can be helpful when you want to revisit a site quickly. Unfortunately Browser cache can cause issues when trying to view the latest version of a webpage. As cache retains a copy of a previously view ..

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Small sites can often do a better job at providing quality, niche content. All sites, big or small have started at the beginning at one point so being small does not mean that you can't either become large or authoritative. It is more important than to have quality content that is well shared on a small site than have a large site with lower quality content, just for the sake of mo ..

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On page SEO (/websites/on-page-seo) is the backbone of any successful website so choosing the right Keywords and Phrases to build your pages around is the first and most important step in the process. Keyword Research (/websites/keyword-research) not only helps you make choices on Keywords by comparing Search Volume and Keyword Competition but it will give you a Keyword Strategy so you can ..

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We are constantly asked how to get better rankings in Google. If your site is not optimised correctly, the only way is Google Adwords (/websites/google-adwords-management) and if setup correctly, can work well and give you the instant traffic and exposure you need. The problem is that if it is not setup correctly you could be throwing your money away. Adwords works particularly well for ne ..

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Before adding a custom SSL certificate to your website, we need to ensure all features will continue to run and there will be no interruption to your hosting, navigation, third party plugins or online marketing campaigns. Switching to HTTPS will be like changing your website's domain altogether. It will take some time for search engines to re-index your website and this will impact your c ..

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Keyword Research (/websites/keyword-research) determines a list of the best phrases and search terms for an online business based on local monthly search results and trends. These Keyword search numbers give valuable information about the amount of searches that are made for that phrase, but how relevant, targeted and appropriate are these phrases to your target market and how do you evaluate  ..

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Google Analytics is the one-stop-shop for all information about keyword performance, site traffic and conversion statistics but what about those organic keyword metrics that are 'not provided'? It's frustrating seeing (not provided) in the number 1 spot on your organic keyword listing. (Not provided) certainly doesn't help you track down which organic keyword phrases were used by customers ..

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Adwords has a Trademark protection scheme that stops businesses from having Ads approved with trademarked text within the ad content itself. This is one of the reasons that Ads become disqualified and is often followed by a warning about advertising such trademarks on the Google Adwords network. If you notice that your trademark text is being used within an ad then you can file a comp ..

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We are often asked if Adobe Business Catalyst is SEO Friendly. The simple answer is VERY Friendly! There are a suite of integrated tools that not only make SEO on Business Catalyst simple, but in some cases 'fully automated'. Adobe is also very proactive, working with partners to improve the SEO functionality of the CMS, allowing us to better service and optimise our clients sites.  ..

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Ever wondered what the difference was between Algorithm Updates and Data Refreshes, whether Panda and Penguin were simply money making scams and if you are heading in the right direction with SEO? Matt Cutts once again debunks the theory's that seem to quickly circulate across the SEO industry, warning that we really should be looking at making customers happy, instilling trust in our ..

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How can you make better use of your organic snippets? Calls-to-action and smart, catchy text are a must but how can they be extended to include reviews, lists, addresses or events? Absolutely! There are provisions in Rich Snippets (https://developers.google.com/structured-data/rich-snippets/) to add microdata labels, mircoformats or RDFa formatting to your webpages to highlight revi ..

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Webmaster Tools have now been updated to include more detailed messages and url examples for any manual webspam actions. This means that if your site is penalised for any reason by Google, you will have further clarity into the reasons why and the associated pages of the penalty. This is a great move towards transparency, guidance and help for any Webmasters that have site issues and ..

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Do you know what your click-thru rates (CTR) are for searches that bring up your website result? Are your website CTR's low compared to the average? What if you have a great rank but don't get many clicks? Often the reason that your position is great but there is a lack of clicks, lies in a Snippet that doesn't match the search query and is not enticing  ..

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When buying a Domain Name there are a few essential points to consider to avoid ownership, site speed and search engine ranking problems. The first and most important aspect is to ensure is that it is purchased in your Business Name with your Business Address, ABN/ACN and Phone/Fax/Email included. These contact details become your Domains 'whois' information and should be consistent with  ..

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Sirocco Web Design needs to be granted access to your Analytics Account to link up to either Adwords, Advanced Website Ranking or Monitoring your SEO. To setup Admin Access to the Google Analytics account use the following procedure - Login to your Analytics Account (http://www.google.com/analytics/#?modal_active=none) using your Google username and password. Click into the Google An ..

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In the latest Nielsen Report on Smart Phone usage from October 2015 it reports over 15 million Australians now own a smart phone and around 12 million own a tablet device. With more and more people relying on a Smart Phone as their primary access to the internet it is crucial that your online marketing efforts are mobile friendly. Now having a mobile friendly (Responsive) website is a must and ..

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To login to the Admin Section of your Business Catalyst Website type your website address into your browser and then add a forward slash to the end of the domain name and type the word "admin" ie. http://www.your-website-address.com/admin then click "return". Next you will see the Business Catalyst Login page where you can enter your username (email address) and admin password. If ..

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When creating file names or image names for your site it is important from a usability and SEO perspective that they are properly named. This is vital for email marketing campaigns where incorrect file names can cause images to drop out cause broken links which can be disastrous. Follow these simple guidelines to ensure your file names are to web and Google standards - 1. Do not use speci ..

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With all the Panda and Penguin algorithm updates from Google recently, one questions how valid link building now is for online business, considering there are so many discussions on the issues of 'unnatural link warnings' and 'link penalties'. Regardless of the fact that some link building techniques are classed as ‘illegal’, like hacking blogs, link farming and paid submi ..

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The problem with optimising websites, testing and waiting for results is that it is very time consuming. It is a painstaking job that will bring you results but quite simply takes time. Now, using Google Analytics we are able to speed up the process and run different versions of your site pages at the same time to split test your traffic and report on the results. Not o ..

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