Monday 25 April 2016

Does your business need a website?

You find yourself at a crossroads at the moment... You find yourself with a business and you are starting to do quite well, your business is growing (or not) and you want to reach more people.

There are two ways you are go about this:

You can start by making lots and lots of fliers and get someone to distribute them in the area that you operate in, and yes you might get a few phones and yes you might get some more new business.

Or you can go online... You could get yourself a website and yes you could get some new business, the problem is you have looked around and getting a website can be expensive...

Coming back to the crossroads that you find yourself in, do you go left or do you go right? Oh so you decided that you would go from option number 3, you went online and started google (yes you used the internet) found a blog called "Does your business need a website?". Says it all really doesn't it? With 90% of all searches happen online don't you think that your business needs to be online? Ok so that brings as back down to the cost...

Yes there are some web design agencies out there that would charge you an arm and a leg to design you the website of your dreams. There are also web design companies out there that are very well prices that offers amazing services for a faction of the price. 

But if they charge that much less then they can't be that good can they?

You need to have a look at their portfolio that way you can see the work they have done and then judge from yourself to see if the work they have done in the past is good enough for your business, remember it's all about what you want at the end of the day. You have to be proud of your new companies website as this usually means that you have decided to take the next step in your businesses long term future. You have decided that you want to grow, you want a wider reach. 

So to answer your question... Yes your business needs a website and no it doesn't have to be costly. We always finding ourselves using IDS Web Design has we find that they are one of the best Web Development companies out there. Yes they are based in South Africa but that works out in your flavor as South Africans exchange rate is so poor at the moment. Where we normally pay thousands of dollars getting our website developed in the USA, we find that we have almost slashed that price in half!!

Saving money from the start is always a good thing... 

  

Thursday 7 April 2016

What is a Backlink Checker? Can it help me?

Let's break those two questions up and then answer each one...


What is a Backlink Checker?



So if you are asking this question then that means you are starting to do some of our own SEO on your website? Correct? Well as you have probably read everywhere you need backlinks to your website, and they have to be good quality links... C'mon guys what does this all mean I hear one or two asking...

So first of all backlinks are links that point to your website from another website that used your website as a reference on a topic they were talking about. Well that's cool isn't it? Yes it is a Google LOVES it. They want more site linking together so that they start learning what all these site are etc. When you point your website to another you can either do it by placing the URL on, so that people can click straight onto there. But what you use really do is use an Anchor text, that way Google knows more about that link and why you are link to that site...

Ok I know you are saying C'mon dude hurry up here already...

So when it comes to backlinks you need to know if they are strong or not and if they are good links or bad links, so that you know whether they are worth keeping or not. That is where a Backlink checker comes in, Their are programs on the internet like this Backlink Checker from Genius SEO Tools. Their Backlink Checker is part of a larger SEO Tools program that could really help if you were starting your own SEO work on your own website. 

So moving on to the next question

Can it help me?

In short yes it is a valuable part of SEO work if you are managing your own SEO work, as link building is a must in the SEO world and making sure that your links are quality links is a proven fact.




Wednesday 6 April 2016

SEO strategy


What is your SEO Strategy?


With the way that the SEO landscape changes all the time, having the right SEO strategy is important. Some people when you mention SEO (search engine optimization) they start to break out in a cold sweat, but that shouldn't be the case at all...

Knowing what to do isn't that hard you just need to remember that Google just wants you to follow it's best practices which would be your headings, ALT Tags, focus keywords, meta descriptions etc those metrics just tells Google what your page or post is all about. These are just the basics, but you have to remember Google wants it's user experience to be the most important aspect of your SITE.

What does this mean?

Google wants it's users to get the information they were searching for and that content needs to be good, the saying CONTENT IS KING. Is a integral part of get your website ranked...

So to answer the question we started off with. What is your SEO Strategy?

Here is a simple plan for you to follow:

  • Keyword research
  • Search engine optimization (as mentioned above)
  • Link Building (read what MOZ says no this matter)
  • Blogging
  • Social Networking
  • Content Submission
  • Paid Advertising   
If you follow these few simple step you will be well on your way helping your website rank, I found this very good blog on SEO Strategy that will explain all of this in more depth for you. Planning what your next step is in the SEO game is important and know what you need to do next is key. 

So next time someone mentions SEO don't break out into a cold sweat, sit back relax and you will be able to follow your SEO strategy well everyone around you is running around like a headless chicken...