Relevant Content is the Key

The internet is a valuable marketing and PR tool, but getting the best out of it can be a daunting challenge, especially for smaller businesses with limited budgets.

Understandably, the agenda of the companies setting up websites is to sell their products and services. But it is no good setting up a website with no strategy and objectives behind it and hope customers and potential customers will flock to it.

Too many websites are designed to be ascetically pleasing and flashy with lots of graphics and little focus on content, says Ceri James, sales and marketing director at JD Internet Consulting.

"But search engines rank websites according to the relevance of their content." As much content as possible should therefore be presented in a text format that can be cut and pasted into a document as opposed to being embedded in images. "Search engines do not pick up and index fixed images," he says. So it is best not to just have fancy graphics on the home page without any informative text-based content.

"The first 300 characters of content on the home page are the most important for relevance ranking," says James. Option tabs used to navigate the website and the page titles they click through to should contain the same key words and phrases that should also relate to the content on the page. Search engines are more likely to pick these up than cute or clever titles that need to be interpreted.

"Google's main goal is to index the internet and rank websites in order of relevance," he says.

A company’s aim should be to achieve a higher relevance ranking for its target audience than its competitors as opposed to trying to be everything to everybody. Another consideration is that a 50-page website full of useful content has 10 times more chance of being picked up by the search engines than one with only five pages. Creating links to other relevant websites and getting listed on relevant portals and directories are just some of the ways to get a higher search engine ranking.

"A good internet consultant will set up these links as part of a package," says James. Having attracted the right audience, it is important to keep them on the website as long as possible.

The "stickiness" of the website will depend on factors like the overall look of the website, how easy it is to find what they are looking for and how relevant and useful the content is once they have found it.

Further attractions might include interesting relevant articles, product reviews and benchmarks, offering giveaways or special discounts and displaying prices of products and services.

Some companies are reluctant to display prices on their website, but competitors will get their hands on pricing information some other way if they really want to, says James. Informative articles will attract target audiences to a website and help to increase its search engine ranking, especially if the content contains key words and phrases.

Having found what they want potential customers will also need to easily access contact details, obtain further information or find out where to buy products or services.

“You want the customer to explore the content and then convert their interest into a sale,” he says.

When Robynn Burls set up her online company Encyclomedia, which provides a media contact database service, she realised that setting up a website that nobody can find is a waste of money.

So she started attending conferences and searching for information on the internet to learn how to optimise the website to get a good search engine ranking.

"Search engines look for keywords and phrases in website content that match the words users' type in when searching for information," she says.

Before setting up the company's website Burls first brainstormed with other people about which keywords and phrases to use.

She then used various internet software tools obtained from websites like www.keyworddiscovery.com and www.wordtracker.com/ to test out the effectiveness of the selected keywords. Both these websites offer a free trial of their software and the Wordtracker website contains expert articles and case studies and offers a free newsletter subscription.

Wordtracker will test keywords and report on how regularly these are used in searches and will come up with other related keywords. It will establish how likely users are to type in these words and phrases when they are searching for the type of information posted on the website. But it is worth remembering that a website that uses the most popular keywords will be competing with a lot of others that are using the same ones.

It may therefore pay to use more targeted keywords that are specific to the products and services on offer and are more likely to bring the website up first on the search listing when people type them in. For example, instead of just using the keyword "insurance," use "car insurance" or "budget car insurance."

Having established the optimum keywords, these need to be embedded in the text content on the web pages.

"Bear in mind that Google uses clever algorithms to test the relevance of website content," says Burls. So including words and phrases that relate to selected keywords is likely to increase the relevance ranking of the website. For example, if a person types in the words "public relations", Google will also pick up content containing related words like PR and perhaps publicity.

Having decided on a selection of keywords, the next step is to optimise the content on the website, make sure the text is easy to read and easy for the search engines to pick up and position the keywords strategically.

"I selected three to four keywords and phrases on each page and repeated them three times, once in bold type," says Burls.

Adding a blog to a website is a great way to continually create fresh content that includes keywords and invite comment from those reading the articles posted on it.

Burls says she also writes authoritative articles on the topic of PR for well known information websites like Bizcommunity and embeds some of her keywords in the text with links back to her website. This type of activity gets picked up by the search engines, adds credibility and increases traffic to the website.

Encyclomedia is staging a conference in Cape Town on 20 November (date expired since article was published) aimed at small companies that want to expand their knowledge of PR and what it can do for their business. Conference topics will include search engine optimisation, as an important element of web PR.

Leon Lategan, MD of Purple Cow Communications says in some cases it will pay a company to list its website on an aggregator portal because the chances are that it will achieve better results.

"An aggregator that has say 2000 bed and breakfast establishments on its website is likely to get more hits than an individual website for one B&B," he says.

Today, everyone seems to be offering search engine optimisation and it is important to choose the right one. The selection process should include asking for client references, testimonials, speaking to a few of them and asking them what the consultant achieved for them and how long it took.

Lategan says businesses often make the mistake of trying to pay as little as possible for website optimisation and end up being disappointed with the results. He says if a company wants to pay half the price it could take twice as long to get results.

Article Source

Business Day article published on Tuesday, November 18th

The Rise of Social Media Optimisation - Internet Marketing Trends

Some of the most visited websites include social media sites such as Facebook , Digg , Technorati , Muti , Twitter and YouTube . Each of these sites attract incredible volumes of international traffic because they allow users to interact socially on many levels. Social media optimisation is based on the theory that when websites provide users with the ability to publish content and interact with one another they attract more traffic. The idea of social media optimisation is to attract traffic from sources other than search engines and that is the essential difference between Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Social Media Optimisation (SMO).

Whilst both strategies have the same objective i.e. improving website traffic, search engine optimisation includes various techniques for improving your search rankings whilst social media optimisation utilises viral marketing or micro-sharing techniques.

SMO, however is more than an Internet marketing strategy. It has two dimensions one being Internet marketing and the other being Online Reputation Management. SMO can be used in two ways: to manage online public perception of your organisation and the products and services offered and to use social media tools to attract traffic to your website increasing sales conversion.

SMO and Online Reputation Management:

Organisations realise that they do not exist in a vacuum. The premise of modern strategic management is based on the knowledge that organisations exist in relation to their internal and external environments. Within these environments there are various stakeholders. Customers, owners, shareholders, suppliers, employees, the public, the media and competitors need to be communicated with and their perceptions of the organisation managed. Perceptions or reputations were traditionally managed under the functions of public relations and/or corporate communications. The rise of online social media has necessitated the creation of the field of online reputation management in which an organisation’s online reputation is tracked and managed.

SMO and Internet Marketing:

Cyberspace is a highly viral environment. Marketers have always used publicity to promote organisations, people, products and services. We know that a great product won’t remain a secret for long as people tend to talk about it. This is word of mouth advertising. In a digital world, the Internet serves as an incubator for publicity and word of mouth advertising. Hence we speak of viral marketing in which information travels like a virus from person to person, or group to group infecting individuals with awareness, information, and sometimes passing on value judgements. Social media optimisation mobilises the Internet’s viral potential to attract visitors by offering great content, tools and widgets, exclusive information and social platforms such as forums and blogs.

Mobilising Social Media

There are many practical ways in-which marketers use social media optimisation to attract traffic and manage online reputations. Some basic techniques include the provision of interactive features such as blogs, forums and wiki’s. RSS feeds are also useful whilst the incorporation of third party sites such as Digg, YouTube, Flikr (and locally) Muti and Laaikit are critical.

There are many different approaches to and techniques for the use of social media optimisation. Rohit Bhargava’s rules of Conducting Social Media Optimisation http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html provides a comprehensive description of the various techniques.

Although Rohit’s original top 5 rules can be applied widely each websites social media strategy will differ based on the communication needs of the organisation and the target audience.

Personalised Search takes on new meaning with the launch of Google SearchWiki

Cyberspace has, in the past few days, been abuzz of news about the launch of Google’s SearchWiki feature (official announcement) . There is much speculation at this stage about what this move will mean for Internet Marketing in general and Search Engine Optimisation in particular.

In the last year or so, changes in search engine results have reflected a greater propensity for multimedia content. Whilst a focus on content has been the order of the day there has been talk about moving towards a more personalised search experience. Personalised search whereby the search engine uses your web history to “understand” your preferences and deliver personalised results, has been a signed–in feature on Google since early in 2007.

Google’s SearchWiki is also a signed-in feature (meaning that only users with a Google account have access to it). SearchWiki allows users to personalise their search results by moving a result to the top of the page. Users can also delete pages from the results and comment on pages within the results. Their comments can be viewed by all signed-in users and they can view comments made by other users. Take note: this feature is currently only available on Google English (US) version.

The Upside of SearchWiki

The biggest advantage of SearchWiki is greater personalisation. The ability to ensure that the page you favour appears first in your results allows you to access the information you require with greater ease and reliability. Likewise, the ability to delete those pages which add no value to your search results is also wonderful whilst the ability to comment on pages and view the comments of other users gives the search action a social dimension. Allowing users to share their value judgements with one another makes search a much more interactive experience.

The Downside of SearchWiki

Some users may find that these added features make the search results appear more cluttered although my personal opinion is that they blend in quite well.

In most cases organic search results ensure that the most desirable results appear first. It is possible that if SearchWiki is overused it will limit the user’s inclination to learn new things. If a user prefers a single source and only visits that page repeatedly in their online search for a particular term they will hamper their chances of receiving new and important data.

The no.1 complaint from users of SearchWiki is that it cannot be turned off. The only way to turn it off is to sign-out from Google and for many that is not an option.

The comment section of SearchWiki is open to advertising as well as spam, but I'm sure Matt Cutts and his team have thought about this and will find a way to combat negative comments and inappropriate meterial.

The Googleside of SearchWiki

SearchWiki will provide Google with valuable information about their user’s likes and dislikes. If they chose to utilise this information it could aid them in delivering even better search results. The question is, will data gleaned from SearchWiki affect Google Bot’s algorithm? It stands to reason that if the data could improve search results they may come to factor it in at some stage.

Regardless of Google’s next move the launch of SearchWiki, means that the editorial role of ordinary Internet users has and is growing. This shift intensifies the focus on content, and makes it that much more important for Internet Marketers to provide users with a feature rich and satisfying online experience.

The real cost of deferring search engine optimisation

Get it Right the First Time

Time and budget constraints often see clients deferring SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to a later date. Marketers faced with launch deadlines and cost issues tend to push the delivery of their website in order to meet a deadline or complete a project within budget thinking that SEO can be addressed later. This leads to a serious, detrimental and costly process error.

There are essentially two ways to design or re-design a website. One way includes SEO whilst the other does not. The difference between the two approaches is that one includes competitive analysis and positioning whilst the other neglects this essential marketing component.

When designing a website focus is often placed on the clients communication requirements. The planning phase of a website development initiative includes addressing issues of what to communicate and how to do so most effectively. Functionality is often considered during this phase with a view towards providing maximum user satisfaction. All of the above is entirely necessary with any marketing campaign, be it in an online or offline environment. However, in most cases for a marketing strategy to be effective it also needs to be competitive. You need to look to your competitors and position yourself in relation to their market position.

Consider the process you may follow if you were to launch a new product, or expand your service offering. You would typically approach your advertising agency. They would do a thorough market analysis, which would include identification of any competing products and/or services. They would also explore the product features and benefits and define your unique marketing proposition in order to play up the key selling points. They would furthermore identify appropriate media and devise an effective media plan. Similarly, competitive website design involves:

Competitive analysis: Who are the existing players in the market? How do they rank? What features do their websites contain and what works well for them?

Keyword research and recommendations: The provision of keyword statistics which allow you to make intelligent and informed decisions with regards to effective keyword usage.

Search engine friendly design: Linking, metadata, code and keywords are addressed to ensure search engine friendly design.

Internet marketing strategy: The use of pay per click, affiliate marketing, newsletters, e-mail and SMS marketing to attract more traffic to your website.

A competitive approach should therefore be adopted consciously and consistently throughout the website development process in order to avoid facing design flaws which may require costly alteration efforts.

The inclusion of search engine optimisation may drive initial website development costs up by as much as 25%. This is due, mainly to the inclusion of competitive marketing expertise, additional consulting hours, reporting, specialist programming and the creation of attractive content. However it will save you time and money in the long run.

Benefits of including SEO in the initial development stage:

• Your website will perform at optimum capacity from day one,
• You will capitalise your investment sooner. You can expect admirable traffic statistics and a good conversion rate within three to six months.
• You will not incur additional development costs for at least the first year to 18 months.

Should you choose to defer search engine optimisation to a later date, it is quite likely that you will incur three to four times the cost of an upfront SEO investment.

The real costs of deferring SEO:

• Code and design will need to be redressed for SEO,
• All website content will need to be updated for keyword optimisation,
• You will incur opportunity costs as a result of a website which does not compete effectively for traffic in your online marketplace,
• You may lose valuable market share to competitors who perform better online.
• You may loose valuable site age.

What we can do for you?:

If you are launching a new website or re-designing an existing one do not neglect the primary website concern which is search engine optimisation. Enquire about DiscoverSEO services to achieve optimum Internet marketing results.

Inside Adwords Pay Per Click

A Double Edged Sword

There are many different ways to get your website into the top ten results on SERP’s (search engine results pages). Some of the most popular techniques include SEO (search engine optimisation) and PPC (pay per click). Whilst the objective of these two techniques remains the same, their methods differ.

When using an SEO strategy the objective will be to make material changes to a website in an effort to improve its visibility on search engines and thus its ranking in organic search. Resources are directed towards lasting and long term improvements to a websites design, code and content.

PPC on the other hand is a paid form of search engine advertising, in which guaranteed placement is purchased for a given fee. The fee is determined by the market demand for your chosen keywords as well as relevance between the keyword and the content of your site. All major search engines offer some form of PPC service. Some of the most effective pay per click services available include Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter, however since Google is the most popular search engine today, it stands to reason that their AdWords offers a greater pay per click reach than any other advertising medium available.

Although there are numerous benefits to using pay per click it is a double edged sword in that it produces both favourable and unfavourable results.

Some of the advantages include:

Immediate results
The pay per click campaign process is as simple as one, two, three. One, create an advert consisting of one title line and two content text lines. Two, set a budget, select your keywords and decide where you would like your advert to be displayed. And three, have your advert appear on the first page of Google results for your keywords.

Pay only for results
You set a budget which will only be debited each time someone clicks your advert and is connected to your website. No other advertising medium guarantees that your advert will be seen.

Targeted reach
Pay per click offers accurate targeting. Provided you select your keywords intelligently, your advert will only be visible to those users who are specifically in the market for your products and/or services. You are also able to direct your advert at specific regional target markets using AdWords functionality.

Local business ads
Link your advert to Google Maps to display your geographic location, contact information as well as an image depicting the nature of your business.

Some of the disadvantages include:

Cost
Certain keywords, depending on how much online competition exists, may be quite costly to secure.

Continuous investment
Pay per click requires that you continuously direct resources towards this method. If you consistently direct resources towards pay per click and fail to make long term improvements to your website using other Internet marketing methods you will create for your business an unhealthy reliance on this method of advertising.

Uncertain market share
It is possible to gain market share through the long term use of pay per click advertising. However because this market share is based on paid placement, it is volatile and could be purchased by a higher bidder.

Every marketer’s objective is to obtain maximum marketing value at minimum cost. Depending on the market in which your business exists and the level of Internet marketing competition, a PPC campaign could provide quick results for a reasonable fee. On the other hand, it could prove costly in the long run and fails to deliver lasting results.
What we can do for you?:

DiscoverSEO will assess your site to determine if Adwords will benefit your company. If you have an existing Adwords Account, we can assist in maximising the potential of your Google Adwords Campaign and bring you the best possible results for your market. Get an Adwords quote »

How to set up a blog in 5 easy steps

Step One: Select a blog service

Some of the most popular blog services available include Blogger, WordPress and Movable Type. Each of these reliable and useful blog services vary in terms of features and cost. Whilst Blogger and WordPress are free Movable Type is a paid service. Some of the advantages of using Blogger include free hosting and easily incorporated Adsense services. Although WordPress and MovableType require that your blog be hosted on your own server they also offer better statistics and more customisation. All three are great blog service options, your decision with regards to which service to use will ultimately depend on your budget, customisation and hosting requirements.

Step Two: Create a blog address

Your blog will need to be named. You should select a domain name or URL which will be memorable and which will appeal to your target audience. Some general advice about domain names:

• the domain name should be kept short but at the same time it should be descriptive enough to inform readers what the blog is about,
• they should preferably not include any words or names with complicated spellings,
• numerals should also be avoided.

Step Three: Choose a Template

Most blog services offer a variety of templates. The template includes look and feel elements such as design, colour, and font of your website. Templates can often be changed if you are not satisfied with you initial selection.

Step Four: Include appropriate features

Features, such as those mentioned above, affect how the reader interacts with your blog. They have the ability to ensure that a user has a pleasant and memorable experience.

Step Five: Create great content

You now have a catchy domain name, you have selected a suitable blog service, are satisfied with the look and layout of you blog and feel that your blog features will appeal to your target audience. The stage has been set and the final performance is up to you.

The number one attraction of any blog is content and it is the quality of your content which will determine your blogs impact. Remember to pay attention to two things, purpose and frequency. When creating content for your blog you must remain true to your purpose in establishing the blog. Be it to educate, inform, interact, entertain, or all of the above purposeful writing ensures that you make good choices with regards to topics, tone and frequency of posting.

Blogs and Blogging Simplified

Blog is the short term for weblog. Weblogs originated in the late 1990’s and were used as a log or list of links to web pages the author visited and considered to be interesting or relevant. Each link included the author’s comments and thoughts on the linked articles. The trend soon caught on, as website administrators realised that this could be a quick and painless way of regularly updating their websites with information.

It was not long before software to support effortless weblog posting was developed. In so doing, today’s commonly used blog application was born. These day’s blogs are used in all sectors from corporations, to academia, and even in online social settings. Blogs have become more verbose and although they often contain links to other web pages, they are no longer merely a list of links. They are more like online journals, presented in reverse chronological order with the latest posting appearing first. There are no restrictions on what the author writes and he needs never be edited.
A good blog includes

Every good blog includes a few features: archives, syndication, blog-rolls, comments, pingbacks and trackbacks are probably the most important.

Archives are often found on the front page of a blog and are a collection of older posts. What’s cool about archives is that they allow the blog author to keep older posts on the website and to arrange them in an accessible manner. Articles in an archive can be arranged according to period of publication, (for example day, month or year), topic, author (in the case of many authors) or any other classification deemed relevant by the administrator.

The syndication process, allows readers of your blog to subscribe through RSS or similar technology, to automatically and regularly receive notification of any updates made to your weblog. They contain “feedreaders” which are designed to look for new information on specified pages and inform the user of the change in content that a particular webpage has undergone.

Blogrolls have replaced the initial intended function of weblogs. A blogroll consists of a list of links to other websites, blogs and news sites that are relevant to the subject of a particular blog. It also uses aggregation technology (like feedreaders) to “roll” the list of sites for new content.

Comments make weblogs really interesting. They allow readers to provide their various points of view, agree or disagree with the author and generally participate in the conversation. They are a great way of attaining feedback from stakeholders and many corporate bloggers use it as a sounding board for their thoughts and new ideas.

Trackbacks and pingbacks are quite similar to one another although they use completely different technology. Trackbacks were used first and allow users to reference another blog post, comment on it and inform the referenced blog that they have been tracked. Pingbacks allow for automatic reciprocal referencing but do not include comments. Both trackbacks and pingbacks are a bloggers way of referencing another blogger online. Online interlinking facilitated by trackbacks and pingbacks increases a websites search engine visibility.

How much business does your web site really generate?

Isn’t the purpose of your web site to generate revenue, by driving the right people to it, so that they can make an informed decision about your products & services, & then ultimately spend money with you?

This will only happen if your web site is listed in the top 20 search results of Google. – This is exactly how Discover SEO can assist your business.

Through its in depth understanding of how to optimise web sites, we will get YOUR web site strategically listed in all the related directories and search engines, crucial to getting you found under the correct searches & drive huge amounts of traffic to your web site each and every month. This in turn will mean increased sales & revenue for your business.

To find out more about this amazing service, go directly to Discover SEO & contact us right away.

The longer you wait, the more business you are losing to your competitors.