Services

Most of my time is spent building, running and optimising web based businesses.

I provide search engine optimisation consulting and training to companies.

I’m particularly useful to Microsoft focussed companies, because I have a long history of working with Microsoft products and a deep understanding of what they deliver. This allows me to understand the mindset of developers, managers and business owners (ie your customers) who are searching for Microsoft based offerings (ie your products and services).

If you are a software company, working in the Microsoft space, it’s likely I can be of benefit to you, helping to grow your business via the web channel.

I can help you with the following concepts:

  • Understand who your target market is
  • Research what they need and are searching for
  • Tailor your offerings to meet those needs
  • Improve your site and pages to ‘speak’ to those needs
  • Analyse your competitors
  • Improve your discoverability and ranking in the search engines
  • Track visitor intent, site usage and conversion

Skill set

I cover the following technical areas:

  • Google Analytics, including goals, ecommerce, segments and custom reporting
  • Keyword research
  • On page search engine optimisation
  • Off page link building
  • Traffic generation via Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter
  • Conversion optimisation, A/B and Multivariate testing
  • Integration with social media including Twitter, Facebook and blogs
  • Online store architecture
  • Membership program development
  • Email marketing, newsletters and auto-responders

For further details specific to Microsoft focussed companies, please take a look at my XEN SEO site.

Approach

SEO and Google rankings are emotional terms these days. My approach is long term. It is completely ‘white hat’ and I only suggest ‘Google endorsed’ practices. I don’t offer quick wins, nor do I utilise any black hat techniques.

Format

The format of this consulting is up to you. I can either:

  • work on my own and simply inform you of the changes you need to make (this is ideal if you are a small company) or,
  • work closely with your team and train them up so they understand and manage the process (ideal for companies that have a number of developers)

Data centric

Everything I work on with you is based on data. We’ll carefully analyse your existing analytics, and then conduct thorough keyword research. We make single changes to pages and track the results. Everything is tested and measured. Decisions are based on results, not gut feel or flavour of the month trends.

The current SEO market has its fair share of bad apples who promise much and deliver little. Their approaches are usually short term, vague and overly simplistic. Whilst I agree that SEO is to some extent an ‘art’, it is imperative that the changes are based on hard data.

Pricing

I charge $195 + GST per hour with a 4 hour minimum (ie $780).
I charge a day rate of $1200 + GST.
I charge for email support, ad-hoc phone calls and travel time at the above rate.

As a rough guide you should plan to spend at least $6,000 + GST with me, most likely over the course of two months.

All quoted prices are in AUD, but I can invoice you in your preferred currency.

GST is charged to Australian customers only (ie International customers do not incur GST).

Terms

I have 14 day terms. I accept payment by electronic transfer to my business account or via PayPal and credit card.

My services are provided via my company XEN Systems Pty Ltd.

There are no contracts in place.
You can terminate my services at any point, and simply pay me for the hours worked so far.

Confidentiality

Anything I do with your company is private. As much as it would benefit me, you won’t end up as a case study on this site or be pressured into putting a link to me in the footer of your site. Most of my business comes from word-of-mouth. At most I may ask you to recommend me on LinkedIn.

Availability

I am currently fully booked until the second week of April (05 April 2010).

At this stage I am only available for on-site work in Sydney, but will happily work remotely on other projects.

Free consultations?

Sorry, I don’t offer any free consultations or initial meetings. Instead, I suggest we have a quick 10 minute phone call. You’ll be able to tell within a few minutes whether I can be of any use to you, and likewise I’ll be able to tell whether I’m going to be able to help.

This might sound a little harsh, but the reality is I don’t want to waste my time or yours. After close to 20 years working for a variety of software companies I know first hand how much time gets wasted in meetings, travelling to meetings, preparing proposals, etc.

If you want me to come in and discuss your requirements, meet the team etc, I charge my hourly rate.

I don’t prepare proposals. I can give you a verbal indication of likely costs, based on my pricing above.

Reporting

Whilst I don’t prepare proposals, I do prepare documentation for you once I’ve been hired. You must have a clear map of where you are now (baseline) and where you are headed (required results) – I’ll document this for you. And provide regular updates on progress. All my times are tracked online and you have full access to my online portal of timesheets, invoices, documentation and support tickets.

A little bit about me

I’ve been involved in software development for more than 20 years. For the last 15 years my focus has been on Microsoft technologies. I’ve worked as an engineer, developer, team leader, software manager, CTO, technical director and most recently as a business owner myself. I have a good understanding of both the technological and business sides of software development and consulting. Over the last 12 months I have focussed on cultivating specific marketing skills including in-depth SEO experience, community building, user behaviour analysis and conversion optimisation.

I’ve been awarded as a Microsoft MVP in 2007, 2008 and 2009. I’m a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, Microsoft adExcellence accredited and Google Analytics Qualified Individual.

Microsoft adExcellence Accredited  Google Analytics QualifiedMicrosoft CertifiedMicrosoft MVP (2007, 2008, 2009)

I’ve been involved in the Sydney developer community for a while, have organized developer conferences, and currently help co-ordinate the Sydney Business & Technology User Group.

Other stuff I do

I also do a lot of development, coding and CSS styling behind web sites with a particular focus on WordPress development, as well as provide hosting and numerous other day-to-day tasks required to run a web business. I mention this for two reasons:

  1. It means I understand what you and your team need to do to implement my recommendations, and thus everything I suggest is realistic and achievable
  2. If needed I can manage your developers to implement the changes, or if appropriate, perform the changes for you myself.

Getting started

The first step is to contact me. You can email me at craig@craigbailey.net or call me on 0413 489 388.

If calling from outside Australia use this number: +61 413 489 388.

(As a general guide to time-zone differences, if calling from the US please call me in the late afternoon or early evening your time. If calling from the UK or Europe, calling early morning your time is best.)