I recently had to use a Newsflash module on a website that had to be tailored a bit from the standard Newsflash. This site was still built in Joomla 1.0.15 so this review is based on the available modules for this version.
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.
This component of our SEO and Internet Marketing activities consists of ensuring that websites have a greater exposure in the search engines by making sure that the website's reputation increases through the fact that it is positioned in such a way that there are numerous other sites linking to it.
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'.
Our SEO and Internet Marketing services consist of the following components. Each of these different components of SEO contribute to different aspects of promoting a website on the Internet. We do have standard packages for SEO (see http://www.tm4y.co.za/products/seo-and-internet-marketing.html) however the best approach for promoting a website is to make an assessment of the real requirements for the site and draw up a SEO / Internet Marketing strategy based on that.
Some of the factors playing a role in drawing up a SEO strategy are:
What is the goal of the website? Website goals can range from attracting customers online to an e-commerce site; to acting as an online brochure for a corporate that adds to the corporate branding overall. This ties in then with why a company would be interested in SEO and Internet marketing for a site – do they want to be able to generate direct leads or sales through the site and want to increase website traffic? Or are they just interested in increasing their company's footprint on the Internet and thereby boost their online reputation?
What is the intended target audience for the website? It makes a big difference with regards to the focus and activities whether the ultimate target audience for the website is local (in other words, South African) or global. The whole SEO approach would differ depending on this factor since the competitiveness of the market varies depending on whether the focus is local or international.
What is the budget for marketing the site? Obviously the bigger the budget the more results can be obtained! However, even with a small budget results can be achieved, it might just take longer to do so.
SEO and Internet Marketing Focus Areas
There are various different focus areas for SEO and Internet Marketing that contribute to the overall SEO and Internet Marketing strategy. These different components are:
There are a large number of seductive internet marketers who
will promise to submit your website to over 700 000 search engines. It may be
extremely alluring, but where is the catch? Surely if you could have your site
submitted to such a large number of search engines for such a small price,
everyone would do it? Why aren't the experienced internet marketers doing it?
They already know that there AREN'T 700 000 search engines
in existence, and that these sites are simply "Free for All"
money-making schemes, be it through spammers or underhand SEO service providers.
Sure, you may have your link posted on the site for a few days, but it will
only be there until it is pushed out of position by one of the hundreds of new
sites that are submitted daily. Then, the email address that you used to sign
up with is literally FLOODED with spam emails from any and every type of
website you can think of! There have even been people who have had to terminate
their email address due to the influx of spam emails they had received as a
result of their submission to these FFA sites.
The truth of the matter is, there are really only four
valuable search engines worth submitting your website to. These are www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.msn.com
and www.ask.com. Apart from these sites,
there may be only a handful of others that can be considered to be of good
quality. The secret is that the best way to have your site shown up on search
engines is not to submit it directly to them, but to have a lot of links all
over the internet linking back to your site. If you submit articles containing
links to your sites to article directories, the search engines will pick up
your quality content, and your links. The more people are reading your content
on the internet through your articles, the more links back you will have to
your site. The good search engines will recognize this and will display your
site amongst their first pages when people search for keywords relating to your
site. Naturally you will need to target these keywords in your articles and the
links you create in your articles.
What you can do to give your site exposure on the internet
is to submit your site to directories. These directories are basically an
online catalogue that list sites relating to many different categories. There
are only a few hundred directory sites in the world that are worth submitting
your site to. To see which directory sites are search engine friendly and
therefore worth submitting to visit http://info.vilesilencer.com
for more information.
Getting your site to perform well in the search engines
takes a lot of work, preferably by an SEO expert. A personal interaction and
assessment of the specific needs of your site should be discussed so that an
SEO schedule can be worked out for your site. Depending on your current ranking
in the good search engines, the best keywords relating to your site will be
targeted. This can be through article marketing, directory submission and many
other search engine optimization methods. SEO can be very labor intensive,
depending on the needs of your site, and is not as simple as submitting your
site to the mythical 700 000 search engines.
How Many Visitors Are You Getting To Your Website?
Do You Want To Get More?
Our SEO and Internet Marketing services specialises in optimizing your website so that it performs well in the Search Engines.
Your website can be one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal, but in order to understand how it can work for you, you need to understand how the search engines work.
Search Engines work off a 'pull' principle
People who are looking for your specific product or service is pulling that information out of the search engines. If your website is deemed important enough by the search engines, and relevant enough to meet that specific 'pull' action, your website will be placed at the top of the results.
Seeing that the people who are looking for a specific product or service sees YOUR website on the first page of Google, matching their enquiry, they will visit your site and possibly contact you.
People who use the Internet to look for products or services have one thing that distinguishes them from people that might be reading about your company in a magazine, or that might have a pamphlet about your company stuffed into their hands on the street corner - people who use the Internet to look for products or services are READY TO BUY. These people normally have a problem that must be fixed - they need a wedding dress, or they want someone to draw up a business plan for their company, or they are looking for a photographer, or a jumping castle.
They have a specific problem and YOU can solve that specific problem for them through the product or service that your company offers.
But You Need To Be Visible In The Search Engines
Being on the first page of a major search engine such as Google can have a dramatic impact on the number of people who visits your website. And remember, all those people are actively looking for a solution to their problem - all that you need to do is persuade them that your solution is the correct one for their problem!
This is an example of a website that has had no SEO or Internet Marketing activities done for it. This website has getting the same number of visitors to it for the past 5 years:
The following is a website that started and Internet Marketing drive in January 2008, with a constant 250 unique visitors per month for the previous 3 years. In January 2009 this site had over 1400 unique visitors and over 3000 visits.
What would YOU be able to do with over 3000 visits to your site per month?
Our SEO and Internet Marketing Packages
Our SEO and Internet Marketing Packages are tailored towards your specific requirements, but we have some 'standard' packages that you can use as a yardstick to start off with.
Bronze Startup Package
This package is suitable for sites operating in an industry that is not that competitive, or for startup companies with a low budget. We target the 1 or 2 best keywords in your industry, optimize your home page, submit your site to 300 directories and develop and submit one article per month to some high quality article directories.
Cost of package : R550 per month Vat incl.
Silver Intermediate Package
This package is suitable for sites operating in a more competitive industry. We target 2 - 3 keywords, optimize your site, submit your site to 500 directories and develop 15 articles through the course of a year which are submitted to various article directories.
Cost of package : R1416 per month Vat incl.
Gold Professional Package
This package is suitable for sites operating in a competitive industry. We target 2 - 3 keywords, optimize your site, submit your site to 1000 directories and develop and submit 20 articles through the course of a year. For highly competitive industries, this package might have to be tailored even more and take place over a longer period of time.
Cost of package : R2833 per month Vat incl.
Contact Us for more information or to chat about your SEO requirements!
Everybody knows that it is much easier to develop a website on a local server first before uploading it to the actual web server. The turnaround time for testing and fixing is just that much quicker using a local server.
Typically one would not really set up an actual Linux server to work on, although that is certainly possible and lots of companies do exactly that, but we prefer to make use of what is commonly known as a WAMP server - a portable, standalone application that combines Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl. A WAMP server therefore is like running a fully fledged Apache server on your Microsoft Windows PC.
