Inaugural Search Engine Optimisation Challenge

Inaugural New Zealand Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Challenge 2010 launches


Christchurch, August 19th, 2010 – New Zealand based Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) specialists now have the chance to showcase their skills in New Zealand’s inaugural SEO Challenge, which is now officially open for registrations.

The competition aims to provide SEO specialists with an opportunity to demonstrate their capability by building a site and optimising it for an "official" keyword phrase, which will be provided via text message to all registered competitors on 31st of August.

The winner will be the owner of the site holding the number one position for the official keyword phrase on Google.co.nz's organic listings on Sunday November 28th at 5:00pm.

Challenge organiser, Adam Hutchinson, says he is launching the competition to provide a way for SEO industry practitioners to highlight how effective search engine optimisation can be in attracting website visitors.

"Often site owners don't know that investing in search engine optimisation of their site can result in a dramatic increase in traffic or make a huge difference to ensuring that you are attracting the right sorts of visitors," Hutchinson says.

"The other problem is that even if they do recognise the importance of SEO, they don't necessarily know who's good and who's not in the industry. Now we've got a competition that allows SEO’s to showcase what they can do, and which gives the overall winner of the competition some bragging rights until the next competition in 2011."

Entry to the competition is free, and open to all NZ-resident SEO specialists. Those interested in participating in the competition can find information about the rules, prizes and entrance criteria on the NZ SEO Challenge website (www.seochallenge.co.nz).

The NZ SEO Challenge is based on similar successful competitions that have run overseas. "It's a great opportunity for SEO specialists to measure themselves against their peers, and to see what techniques other competitors use to score their sites highly," Hutchinson says.

He says entrants should be aware that the competition explicitly rules out "black-hat" SEO techniques from being employed by competitors, and if employed may be grounds for disqualification."

Event dates:
• 19th August – Pre registration via text message begins
• 31st August – Text message announcement of keyword phrase
(Late registrations can be made up until 1st November 2010).
• 28th November 5:00pm –Deadline for competition.

Winner: To be announced Tuesday 12:30pm 30th November over www.SEOChallenge.co.nz

ENDS

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