Search Engine Optimization
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Search Engine Optimization
SEO Services - Keyword Research
Keywords are the words used by people when they search for information on the Internet using the search engines.
When people are looking for web design services in Potchefstroom (a city in South Africa), for example, they might type in the words: "website design potch" into a search engine such as Google.
Keyword research is the most important aspect of SEO. If you target the wrong keywords, all your efforts will be for nothing.
The whole term "website design potch" is then seen as a 'keyword' (not just the word "web" or the word "design").
People might also type in "web page design". This is seen as a different keyword. Therefore it is important to note that keywords, or search terms, do tent to cluster together. In fact there is a very well-known statistical phenomenon that is popularly known as the 'long tail' that can be applied to the way that Internet searches are performed.
What is probably not well understood is that it is necessary to 'target' a keyword when doing SEO and Internet Marketing. Your website just cannot perform equally well in the search engines for all search terms. In other words, you would not expect your website to be displayed on the first page of Google if someone searches for the term 'potch printing' when your site sells clothing, now would you? It is therefore vitally important to understand which keywords are the best ones to target.
This is why keyword research forms such an important basis of an SEO strategy.
SEO Services - On Site Optimisation
The second activity to perform is 'on-site optimisation'. This is usually what is understood by most people to be the bulk of work of what is popularly understood under 'SEO'.
When we get requests for website design, our potential client would often ask if SEO is included in the cost of the website and if we say no, they are normally taken aback since it is a service that is often offered as part of a website design package by other web designers.
On closer inspection, this normally consists of updating the website's 'meta tags'. Unfortunately often the client is left with the impression that this would be enough to catapult his/her website to the top of the search engines.
The truth is that the 'on-site' factors are often the smallest component of the whole SEO/Internet Marketing effort. Why is that?
One needs to take a look at the history of search engines to understand why this is the case. In previous years (BG – Before Google), search engines analyzed the actual web page for clues as to what the page is about, so that it could decide whether the page should appear high up in the Search Engine Results Pages (also commonly known as 'SERPS'). The various elements that were used in this analysis would be mostly the 'meta tags' and the words on the page (keyword density).
The 'meta tags' are hidden text elements that is not visible on the actual web page, but which are visible to the search engines. These tags mainly consist of the page title (not strictly a meta tag, but very important nonetheless), the meta 'description' tag and that overused, over-abused tag, the 'keywords' meta tag.
These tags are supposed to contain the main keywords and then voila!, your site will magically rise to the top of the search engines. Unfortunately these days (AG – After Google), this is no longer the case. The reason is that
We do optimise the website – making sure that each page has unique title tags, making sure that the description and keyword meta tags are unique and well structured, making sure that on the relevant pages the keyword density is high enough but not too high to trigger alarms (if it is too high, the site may be considered 'spammy' and penalised).
However, we do not agonise too much over this step, and what is important to note is that this step just cannot be done without having done the keyword research first, else a lot of effort might be put in to something that is ultimately a waste of time. This is largely the reason why this activity is not automatically included in our web design services.
SEO Services - Link Building
There are a variety of link building activities that can be done. This is often a labour intensive process and this is where the bulk of our Internet Marketing activities are focused on.
Some of the strategies that we follow are:
Submission to high quality web directories. Please note that this is NOT a submission service to hundreds of thousands of 'search engines' and directories. This is a dangerous activity and one that can be detrimental to your website health.
Exchanging links with relevant sites in the right way.
Developing articles that contains useful information as well as directs the reader back to your website.
Increasing your website's exposure by making use of certain Web 2.0 related strategies to build links.
Managing Your Online Reputation
Online reputation management (ORM) is a relatively new branch of Internet Marketing but it is getting increased exposure and a lot more companies are realising the importance actively managing their reputation on the Internet.
Online Reputation Management consists of monitoring what other people are saying about your company online and taking pro-active steps to ensure that your online reputation is improved.
People are increasingly turning to the Internet to search for information about potential suppliers or business partners.