Having been a Brisbane Web Designer since he emigrated to Australia in 2006 Ben will be the one you meet with to plan the new WordPress website for your business.
Ben isn’t actually a hands-on designer, but he has worked with designers since the 2000 when Matter Solutions first began (in London) and since using WordPress from 2008 has trained and worked with some of the most respected people in the local WordPress community. These people are now doing some of the best work web design in Brisbane has to offer, i.e. now working in government and big ad-agencies.
The Kick-Off meeting centres on your content, what you want to say and need to say (usually based on SEO research Ben does before the meeting) and we take you through a detailed web design briefing process. These meetings usually take 1.5-2.5 hours, we learn about your business and everything you stand for.
Our process includes: The sign off, initial planning, data gathering, design process, website building, content entry, review & delivery and finally the go-live.
The sites that we make are focused around a number of main factors. They need to be conversion-focused, easy to update, easy for your visitors to use, have a responsive design (great for mobile), easily trackable using analytics and designed specifically for users.
We take the information gathered in the “Kick Off” and build you a private website only you and we can access. We work on that to add content (and provide you with training) and help layout pages for you.
Creating websites is an art, and something we are very well skilled in. Our team has been developing their skills in WordPress for many years now to great success.
It’s important to create for the users, as an agency we need to work out exactly what your potential customers want.
As a Digital Marketing Agency with SEO and Google Ads expertise we always look at the keywords for your site and your services and make sure we build around the words your audience use to help them find what they are looking for when they search. We even use advanced tech-tools to understand what humans are looking for in websites that are already successful in Google.
Our designers are exceptionally focused on User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX). This means that when we use Search data, these UX skills and exceptional graphic design ability we are able to create truly stunning websites that are, most importantly, are super effective in appealing to your (potential) customers.
When a website has been designed, built, content-entered, content laid out to be effective and proof-read over and over we confirm that you, the client, is ready to go live.
We work with your hosting company, or set you up on our high performance and WordPress Website Hosting & Security service to make your website live quickly and efficiently, and keep it live.
Being passionate about exceptional design doesn’t mean we’re not highly technical too. We work on every little detail of the website go live, even preparing the go live to ensure not one email goes awry during DNS changes and every single enquiry or lead is captured.
We use detailed checklists before and after launch to be 100% sure that everything necessary has been done to maximise your website's impact right away.
We been Brisbane Web Designers since 2006 and in the industry since 2000 we’ve been through multiple iterations of website designs and website trends.
Our current process is something we are incredibly proud to offer to clients. We highly recommend checking out our other services as well, including: Digital Marketing, SEO, Google Ads, Content Marketing, Facebook Ads, Video Production & Animation, Our Digital Marketing Workshops, WordPress Hosting & Security as well as Website Maintenance.
If you need any help but don’t have budget, we’d recommend checking out our tips section.
Are you ready for a conversation with our team? Request a call back with Victoria our Website Project Manager.
Step One is a serious Strategy Call with a Ranking Specialist. Be ready to talk about your goals, your customers, your plans and your budget.
We will give you direct and helpful advice to help you make the right digital marketing decisions for you. Read our "Getting Started" page to be prepared for this. Then book it here.
Our checklist starts with access to your Google Analytics, Google Search Console, HotJar (and others) with these we will:-
Client and agency all on the same page about the goals, the KPIs, the benefits to your business and the activities we're going to execute and anything you (or your team) need to provide.
We're about as flexible as an agency can be. We're just super clear with clients if you ask for something that takes you away from the strategic goals that we've agreed... you know, sometimes clients are their own worst enemy.
Clarity Plus: Our proposal plans often have clear boundaries explaining what you *do and don't get* so you get a clear picture about how far the scope of our work reaches.
Services engaged get into action *together*.
We put all the foundations in place for your success. From an SEO perspective that means a very Technical Audit (beyond the pre-engagement one).
Search Engine Optimisation - Typical action plan...
Conversion Rate Optimisation - Typical action plan...
Learning and improving your website is an essential part of our Leads Turbine process. When you *know* that your website converts you can confidently invest in SEO, Ads and Copywriting.
All hands get into action on your website. All the services you've engaged get into action together and in concert to put all the foundations in place for your success. We keep you informed throughout using our campaign tracking systems.
What happens after the initial 3 or 6 months? (this section title gives it away)
We repeat the process from a higher position and a more informed plan just like entrepreneurs improving a business. The strategist and specialist recommend a new Sprint or give you options for a longer-term commitment, which itself is effectively a series of Sprints, but gives you peace of mind about annual budgeting.
Take it from us Sprints & Quarterly Strategic Reviews keep any marketing agency on its toes. We want to be on our toes so if you just want a set and forget campaign we might not be the right agency for you, take a look at our Getting Started page to see what sort of clients really click into our passionate approach.
Getting started is about step one (above) - have a conversation, usually over Zoom, with an SEO Brisbane Ranking Specialist. We always give helpful advice to make the right digital marketing decisions for you (even if that's to NOT do Digital Marketing). Check out our Getting Started page and when you're ready book your Strategy call here.
We urge you to go and check out what people have to say about Ben, our founder, and the team at Matter Solutions.
Check out what they write on our YouTube channel about Sam's PPC advice and help.
We're confident that you'll find that our team in Brisbane walks the walk, and we look after our clients for the long term.
WordPress websites have become increasingly popular in recent times. There is a reason it is the most used Content Management System in the world.
Most website designers in Brisbane these days use it as their main content management system because of its flexibility and ease of use by normal business people. There are constantly plugins that are being developed and updated to make almost anything possible. Some of the smartest minds in website development have been working to create this truly powerful platform.
The entire system is easily updated so you can remain safe and secure but anything custom MUST have been added to the WordPress site "the WordPress way". Over the years I, Ben, have seen some shocking changes made inside the WordPress "Core" or butchery of well-known plugins.
These things did what they needed to for the client's needs... but because they were put in place incorrectly they caused issues, the most common of these are
I guess it depends on your situation whether problem one or two is worse but there is a simple way to avoid them, use a developer with serious experience in WordPress.
Creating a Content Management System of the same complexity of WordPress would cost tens of thousands of dollars... it simply isn't worth doing when WordPress.org provides a free version, and free updates.
The "cost" of using a free to use open source technology like WordPress isn't in a purchase price. The software itself is free (of course).
The cost of ownership is a function of it being super successful. With so many people using WordPress it has become a big target for hackers and scammers who want to break into and utilise your website to do bad things (I won't go into what) but it happens... the "cost" of ownership is in keeping the website secure and prevent bad actors from breaking in.
WordPress make this simple* with security updates that can be applied with a click of a link. We train our clients on how to do this when we hand over the website - AND we show them how to run a backup just beforehand in the very very unlikely event that something goes wrong.
Need to replace this - slides from the WP Business training about WP structure and keeping design, content and code all separated?
We find that the process runs a lot smoother if we can meet face to face but some of the best website projects we didn’t even meet the client until long after the project was finished, e.g. we created a new website for the Samoa Police service, this was an excellent project, see reviews they left for us on Google and Facebook (below), all the communication was done over video conferencing, usually Zoom.
We two strategies that just seem to have evolved over time, but work very well.
The developer responsible for WordPress security is subscribed to two data sources for alerts about exploits and vulnerabilities in WordPress. We know about issues as soon as the community and WordPress themselves know.
Over the years we've been active members of the WordPress community in Australia. We highly recommend anyone interested in WordPress go along to a WordPress event in their areas.
Imagine you have a shop.
Imagine your shop is on wheels. Not a van. Like a full-sized retail store that is on massive caster wheels.
Day one when you start the shop you're nowhere. As you step out of the front door of your beautiful store you step into red dust. You're in the middle of the desert - dry, arid and no people, just a kangaroo hopping along in the distance.
SEO is like deciding on day one that you want to be "in the city" you head towards the city pushing your shop on its wheels because you know there are customers there.
You don't know exactly where "in the city" you will end up, but you'll refine that later.
You don't know quite how long it'll take to get to the city but you know for sure that the closer you get to the city the better it'll be - when compared to the desert.
You make steps like this for weeks. You've come across zero new people, just more red dust and kangaroos, but you can see the city lights on the horizon at night so you know you're headed in the right direction.
As you continue it gets busier. The first visitors enter your store - yippee! People! Some of them browse but no one buys. That's okay, you're not in the right spot for buyers yet, so you continue. Do not give up!
You send out some friends with signs advertising your retail store. Some people follow those friends back to your store - and those people buy! At last! You learn from your friends (1) where they found those people and (2) that there are lots more people in that part of the city.
You push your store to that part of the city. There are already stores like yours so you line up alongside them and make your store even more inviting than the competition.
With the right approach on making customers happy you can dominate and over take the retail stores already in place.
This answer is based on part of the SEO Training I used to provide, from 2010, and this graphic (below) is the one we used to use in our footer to advertised training workshops.
Yes. There are many SEO techniques that you can apply for yourself.
Our commitment to SEO training extends to helping clients (who want to) apply step by step procedures to support and complement the work we do.
It should be noted that some techniques can go from simple to complex very quickly.
For example, analysing a website to find out what Technical SEO improvements to make is very simple with Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool, some changes might be easy for you (your web developer) to implement many changes might have you scratching your head and even finding out that your website designer or developer doesn’t (after all) know much about SEO - or they left it out of the original build because it wasn't their job.
No, definitely not.
If we're doing coding on your website we'd rather you didn't work on it at the same time. With real coding work to be done, we usually use Github or BitBucket to manage the code (usually in a private repository).
Most web designers know how to use this and can work together with us. We can share the code directly with them.
We don't recommend clients get into technical stuff when a solid SEO campaign is underway. There is more chance of harm being done than good.
We'd rather clients stick to assigned content editing and even that we keep don't rely on clients to work on their own campaigns for success... it is just an added bonus if you want to learn by helping.
No. This is a bad idea for you, for us and everyone using the web.
Over the years we’ve seen hundreds of so-called SEO experts come and go in Brisbane.
The ones who disappear the fastest are the ones who resort to over-promising. They win deals with glitter and shiny promises. The shady ethics mean they are left with no option quick tricks to get quick rankings. The client is happy and pays up. It works. But for how long? The seeds of future problems have been sown.
These operators are smart enough to make sure their ranking guarantees are well cleared and the money is in the bank before a Google penality comes looming. The client is then carrying the proverbial can for shoddy SEO work, dodgy link building and even keyword stuffing.
These offers seem so good we've lost clients to these clowns. Good business owners who don't know what they're buying in an unregulated market getting burned. It happens all the time.
Clients can be their own worst enemies. They insist on ranking guarantees and then the only answer is to do shady work.... sometimes keywords don't move as expected. The question is do you want shady work done to meet the guarantee or do you want it done right? We decided years ago to approach this differently.
I've got clients who ask me to guarantee the work we do. I do. I guarantee it'll be first-class SEO work all done the right way to get you ranking and we will only take risks that you know about. No shady tactics or dodgy ethics here. Matter Solutions has been around since April 2000, and operating in Brisbane since 2007.
Our reputation isn't worth risking for one deal or a hundred deals.
If you find yourself on the edge of buying SEO from someone like this ask these questions, and get the answers in writing, ideally enjoined into the contractual agreement.
This really is an *it depends* question.
The answer above about the time it takes to do SEO is very relevant here.
The more money you have the better rankings you can have.
The more time you have the better rankings you can have with the same, or even less money.
The cost of Australia/Brisbane based Search Engine Optimisation is very much dependent on the level of competition for the keyword(s) you're targeting and the approach the SEO Agency plans to take.
The "Cubby House" market is worth a great deal less than "Property Investment" so a long-slow-burn campaign for Cubbies could be done for $1200-2500 per month, or $3-4k per month for a campaign seeking results in 6-9 months... Property Investment could swallow up 5x as much and still not quite rank.
This is a factor of how competitive the keyword is, and how many players are in the market doing SEO seriously. In "property investment" in Australia it is clear that 10-12 companies are seriously doing SEO, and another 20+ are having a good go. Getting to page two is harder than getting to page one for "Cubby House"... but its also worth noting that getting from page two to page one for "Property Investment" is an uphill battle which is hard to predict... well much harder to predict than "Cubby House".
Consider also that in these many months of work a new competitor could enter, existing competitors can step up their efforts and Google can just change the type of sites it wants to rank for this keyword (it happens).
This is why this meme about SEO Questions is so accurate. The answer really does "depend" on factors outside the SEO's control.
The best first step is to talk to one of our Ranking Specialists, check out Getting Started page first.
Consider the Return on Investment for your business. Answering these questions should help...
If you answered "yes" to all three of these questions then you should definitely do some SEO, even just a little bit to accumulate value and strength in your website over time.
It'll still take skill to make sure the "intent" (in question two) of the people searching lines up with what you're offering (q3) but that's the job of a great SEO Company. We're here to help you learn and improve your marketing.
If you're still unsure you can still set-up a small Google Ads campaign, this way you can test to see whether people look for your offering (q1), will buy or get in touch (q2) and you can make money (q3). If you're making money from Ads you can definitely make money from SEO when you rank.
Consider SEO this way, imagine a retailer setting up a huge store and testing the market with a huge investment. It'd be better to set-up a temporary kiosk and do some market testing. We have experience doing this using Google Ads. Our Qualified Google Ads Managers can link up with the SEO and put this in place for you.
Our SEO team will be able to help optimise your website that will see an increase in:
Take a look at the answer above about "How Long Does SEO Take?" - that's some good guidance for this question too.
When SEO is done correctly it is safe and will help protect your website from future Google algorithms.
When SEO is being implemented that goes against best practices – that is when your website is put at risk.
If a website is seen as trying to trick search engines then there are number of remedies that Google (and others) can impose. Most penalties are algorithmic but in extreme cases where a website is doing bad techniques on a consistent level, search engines will give you a manual penalty. A manual penalty could be partial for a set of keywords, for a set of pages or sitewide. A sitewide penalty will remove your entire website from the search engine completely.
Always make ask your SEO company about the risks you're taking on. This is a clear conversation we have with clients early in the campaign planning stage.
We help clients craft Digital Marketing Strategies.
Some clients already have a strategic digital marketing plan defined and need a specialist Search Marketing Company like Matter Solutions to deliver on its activities and meet its objectives.
In either case our SEO campaign work by our team is well placed align with specialists at Matter Solutions, or other agencies, who provide complementary activities and objectives, e.g.
Most of our SEO Packages include a monthly report split into three sections.
Where relevant a skilled member of the SEO team will write about the data, the activity and the results to give you insights into what we see in the results.
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Our mission is to help your business through Comprehensive Digital Marketing.
Take a look at our Get Started page to see the type of clients that we're able to help the most, does this sound like you?
Email: hello@mattersolutions.com.au
Tel: 07 3117 2300
Address (by appointment)
Matter Solutions, Level 6/200 Adelaide St, Brisbane City QLD 4000
