Posted by: candice
on Jan 03, 2012
There was a time when SEO strategy was clear-cut. A domain name rich in keywords, templated page designs and lots of good anchor text was the first step. The site would then be included in as many web directories as possible, and also mentioned in blogs and social media platforms to draw visitors. This formula worked quite well for a lot of SEO entrepreneurs until earlier this year when Google Panda – the updated search algorithm - came on the scene.
Life after Panda
Before the Panda era, SEO strategy focused on satisfying Google search criteria and on building a site that ‘did all the right things’ Google-wise to climb the rankings and gain authority. The biggest difference after the Panda update is this: sites can no longer rely on satisfying a list of criteria in order to succeed. They need to be good sites in themselves.
Don’t just build a site – build a brand
If your sites are going to be successful in this new era, they need to do more than contain the right SEO elements. While these are still important, the main focus today is on producing a high quality website that can stand alone as a brand. There are several ways to achieve this, listed below:
Less is more
Create a simple yet effective site that draws new visitors because it is easy to use and provides information, entertainment and a great product or service. Remember that Panda counts load speeds as part of its ranking, so a site that is too slow isn’t likely to make it.
Don’t forget the content
The old SEO adage, ‘content is king’ may be overused, but it is very relevant today. High quality content is a magnet that keeps visitors coming back to your site and draws new visitors in. If people enjoy using your site, they will return and spread the word.
Plan your Marketing Strategy
Once you’ve built your site, build a brand around it by using social media, networking sites and any other internet medium you think will promote your new brand. With hard work and creativity you will be able to rise in the rankings even in the new era of Panda.
Posted by: candice
on Dec 15, 2011
The internet is a big place, and many of us make our way through this vast sea of information by clicking on relevant or interesting links. This way of ‘getting around’ the web is extremely useful when you don’t have specific site or category in mind that you could type into a search engine. A good link draws new visitors to a website and can be one of the most valuable SEO tools – but what makes it good?
It’s all about relevance
With billions of web sites (and users) out there, your site needs to be linked to relevant sites and attract relevant visitors. The number of visitors browsing your site each month may not be as important as who those visitors are – targeting the right site visitor is crucial.
Keep them close to home
Often it’s useful to target visitors from your geographic location by using links from sites that are based in your country or region. Visitors from South Africa may be more interested in a local news or shopping site, and including this link will draw them to your site too.
Finding an audience
Sites that are included in online media directories often attract an audience well – even a small group of focused visitors may be better than a flood of random ones. Ensure that your site also has a good ‘about us’ section, which gives it credibility with new users.
Share information
Visitors to your site should also be given links to other websites that have something in common with yours. Blogs, news stories and how-to guides are always popular choices, provided they are not sites which are in competition with yours.
Keep the links clickable
Links that appear in small text at the bottom of your website won’t easily be clicked, and neither will links that sound boring or not useful. Make sure your links are visible and attract users by sounding useful and engaging. Special offers and informative sites are great choices.
Get your visitors to act
Voting in website surveys, commenting on blogs or entering their email addresses for e-newsletters or competitions are great ways for visitors to show their relevance. Encourage them to do so and you’ll be sure that your link has done its work in drawing relevant visitors.
Posted by: candice
on Dec 13, 2011
If you’re a long-time internet user, think back 5 or 10 years to the sites you used the most in those days – chances are you don’t visit most of them anymore. The websites you do still visit probably include search engines, email sites, or a favourite news or blog site that keeps drawing you back. This simple exercise makes one fact very clear: the sites we keep visiting are the ones that are simple, useful, fast, portable, and have a strong human element.
Future-Proofing Your Website
By using these principles when you design your website for the future, you gain the upper hand when it comes to technology changes. If your site’s design is completely reliant on technology, you could find it becoming obsolete when technologies change. On the other hand, a site that attracts users with great content and ease of use will be able to change its technology and keep growing its user base.
Keep it Simple
In today’s overworked societies, where time is precious and people are overloaded with information, a simple website is always appreciated. Understanding your target audience, being aware of their needs and knowing exactly what you want to offer them will help you greatly when it comes to keeping your site simple.
Make it Useful
When it comes to usefulness, content is king. Keep your audience fascinated with great content that really tells a story, while providing useful information that links to your website’s product or service offering. A website that entertains and informs will always draw new users.
Make it Fast
Websites that take too long to load are a big negative for internet users. To ensure that your website loads quickly, make sure it is kept simple. You can also run YSLow from Yahoo or Google’s Page Speed Online – two great tools that will speed up your site.
Portability
Mobile internet is the future. From tablets to smart phones, to digital screens that may be found all over in 5 years from now, your site will have to be mobile-ready in order to stay viable. If you’ve kept your site simple, this will go a long way in preparing the mobile version. Remember to keep your navigation simple and avoid developing Flash applications – focus instead on html or JavaScript.
The Human Touch
Internet users like nothing more than human interaction. Social media aside, you can make your site more human by making all your content accessible, remembering that great content tells a story. Pay special attention to bulk emails and error messages – making these more human can reduce your bounce rate significantly.
Posted by: candice
on Dec 08, 2011
Before the days of the internet, there was email. As the web has developed, especially with the popularity of sophisticated social media tools, some internet marketing professionals have questioned the power of email to carry a brand message or attract users to a website. Could email be a thing of the past, best left out when developing your SEO strategy? Not quite.
The Ongoing Popularity of Email
Like many basic products and services, email remains popular even as more sophisticated options become available. Web users are normally willing to sign up on new social media sites, shopping sites, and other value-added websites which they test out for a few days or weeks, but email accounts stay quite constant due to the need to stay in touch. Studies have also shown that email remains the most trusted form of communication – in short, the email address is here to stay.
Mobile Email: Pocket Marketing
With the introduction of mobile email on most smart phones, you don’t have to wait for your target users to be at their computers anymore – emails can now be read as soon as they are delivered and that presents a marketing opportunity.
It’s worth noting that email content which is going to be read on a smart phone needs to be designed so that it opens quickly and displays well. Also, when you design your email content make sure your links aren’t buried too deeply in the text or mobile users may miss them. When it comes to tracking you may not want to use open rates, opting for shares and clicks may be a better strategy.
The New Approach to Email Marketing
Rather than viewing email and social media marketing as two separate things, the approach we need to take today is to integrate them. Make email a feature on your websites when it comes to content sharing, and include links to your Facebook, Twitter and other social media pages in email correspondence.
Remember, the average reader’s attention span is nine seconds. To take advantage of this fact, make your content short, sharp and captivating. Once you draw your reader in, your marketing message will make a big impact.
Image Credit
Posted by: candice
on Dec 06, 2011
Many SEO specialists and writers alike will be familiar with the old saying, ‘content is king’. For a long time this approach to SEO has yielding great results, drawing internet traffic and rankings to sites which are carefully designed and contain excellent content. However, with the new Google Panda update and the rise of new search types (personal, social, and local to name just three),the SEO landscape appears to be changing – how do we keep up?
Google Unleashes The Panda
Google Panda is the name given to an update of Google’s search algorithm that was announced for the first time in February this year. Named after its creator, Navneet Panda, this new algorithm is based on the browsing patterns of real users that were studied by Google.
This piece of smart software ranks sites according to quality, reliability and speed, filtering out sites that contain too much advertising or are low quality. This new ranking approach has a few implications for those of us involved in content creation and SEO strategy.
Keeping Up – A New SEO Content Approach
As long as the internet exists, there will be a need for quality content. The key issue at the moment is how to tailor your content to the new search environment that Google Panda has created.
In recent times, content farms and other approaches to SEO marketing that included ‘plugging in’ content on a website and waiting for the traffic to arrive have lost their value, with a new and personalised approach being needed. In the era of personalised searches, we need to reach out to web users personally and keep their interest as long as possible,
Getting Personal
Today’s SEO content should be less advertorial and more engaging. We need to tell stories, to keep people interested and returning to our sites. Before developing a content strategy, take into account what your target audience’s wants and needs are. By blending marketing content with general interest content that makes your site entertaining and memorable to users, you will create an optimised site that will keep the traffic coming as the SEO landscape continues to change.
Posted by: candice
on Nov 24, 2011
Do you sometimes feel like your social media presence isn’t bringing you the results you’d like? Maybe you started out with a lot of interest and activity that has dwindled, or you may feel that your campaign lacks focus and isn’t attracting the kind of attention you’d like. Whatever the cause of your social media plateau, there are a few easy-to-implement ways of resolving it:
Who are you following and who’s following you?
One of the best ways to create a social media presence with real credibility is to be part of a larger network. No matter what social media site you happen to be using, the connections you make have a lot to do with the success of your campaign.
While having a large network is great from a numbers point of view, you need to be quite selective about who you follow and who follows you. The more credibility the other people and companies in your network have, the more you will have too. Don’t feel bad about removing less-useful contacts if you feel your social media presence doesn’t benefit fully from them.
Pay attention to what you say
Every time you put your message out there, it has an impact on your social media presence. With so many eyes on your status updates and announcements you need to make sure that you produce quality content and also balance your marketing message with other content that will give you credibility.
When you are pushing your own message, make sure it’s engaging and also informative. It really needs to stand out if it’s going to attract and keep other peoples’ attention.
Remember to include content that is not directly related to your campaign. Whether you are recommending useful websites, engaging in fundraising for a good cause, or just taking part in stimulating conversations you will gain a reputation as someone worth following – and others who are worth following will soon be following you!
Keep your goals in mind
Finally, always remember what the purpose of your social media campaign is and what goals you would like to achieve. If things go awry, make some changes and you’ll be a step closer to success.
Posted by: candice
on Nov 03, 2011
The process of designing and launching a website can be long and sometimes quite challenging. Especially if your site requires a number of photo uploads and e-commerce functionality, you may be considering launching it without some features and adding them over time.
Then again, you wouldn’t want your site to look unprofessional. This brings you to a crossroads: either you launch the site as-is or face delays that could affect your website’s authority. What is the best strategy?
Posted by: candice
on Oct 27, 2011
Any effective internet marketing campaign must rely on quality content that informs and excites clients, serving their need for useful information while carrying the marketing message effectively.
For copywriters, achieving this balance is a delicate and often difficult task but one that can be made simple and easy by using a few basic guidelines:
Posted by: candice
on Oct 25, 2011
If you’re planning an event in the near future and looking for a unique and effective way of marketing it, look no further than Facebook. Every day, millions of users log on to Facebook and among them are a lot of potential guests who may be interested in your event. Whether you have a guest list in mind or are focussed in sparking interest for a public event, Facebook may be the perfect way to spread the word.
Getting Started
First of all, you’ll need to create your event. How you do this is up to you, but two major options you should consider are whether to create the event using your personal profile or using a fan page. The advantage of using your personal profile is that you have a list of friends who can be invited by private message. If you use a fan page, which is dedicated to the event, you will be able to upload photos and use the page as a content generation and marketing tool but friends who are invited will have to interact with you through the fan page updates.
Posted by: candice
on Oct 18, 2011
Whether you use Twitter for business or personal use, you may be pleasantly surprised at the number of people following you. Even if your Tweets are reaching hundreds of followers you should be asking the simple question: “Are they really paying attention to what I say?”
If you are a business owner who is exploring online marketing as a tool to generate new business or communicate with existing clients, you may be familiar with Twitter’s valuable role which complements content generation by creating daily customer awareness. The number of new and existing clients who follow your company’s Twitter account may be large, but can you be certain that they are taking in the message contained in your tweets?