26 April 2010

What does Google say about content? Matt Cutts comments

Two important points I get from this video: A. Google's really trying to drive the point home that they work on their algorithm every day and most likely mostly in regards to spam catching (and speed) and B. Get your good content out there...social media.

This informative article  by Barry Schwartz entitled Google Makes One Change Per Day To Search Algorithm, posts a video by Matt Cutts where he is asked the question "how many changes did Google make to their primary search algorithm in 2009"?

Matt clearly states that Google tends to roll out 350 to 400 [changes] per year or "about one thing per day"...

He says the changes could be in how they segment a language, relate better synonyms or web spam improvements.

Take notice of the web spam improvement. - "significant but not always noticed outside of Google"...

He's also asked about content and whether content is still king and he answers "I think content is necessary, it's not always sufficient because people have to find out about your content. You have to find some way of marketing to people...or find some hook or some appealing way to get people to want to find out what information you have......but if you don't have good content it's a lot harder to do good search engine optimization for your site. I would start with that and once you have good content think about how to find out where the rest of the world is so you can tell them, hey this is the great content that I have".

OK so content isn't king anymore unless it has links to it which is basically what good content should give you in the end if people link to you.

Either way, over 300 algorithm changes a year and get your good content out there. I guess he's talking about social media. Agree?

Dont get left behind, Check out what Scream Media can offer you regarding Social Media Marketing and SEO today!

Call us now on 021 559 0800 to speak with  one of our marketing team. 


Click here to see the video

22 April 2010

What makes a successful Website?

A successful website meets clearly identified goals and provides compelling content that draws your audience to your site again and again. In addition it is easy to navigate and last to is attractively designed to complement the content.

When a visitor comes to your website they are making a lot of decisions very quickly. First they are trying to decide whether this website looks legitimate. Secondly, they are looking to see whether you actually do provide the product/ service that they were looking for. How long do they take to decide? Seconds. The appearance of the website is probably going to be the main key to decide whether your target audience hit the back arrow or proceed along the website. Just think of how many times you didn't go into a shop, because of its appearance from the outside.
Basically, users’ habits on the Web aren’t that different from customers’ habits in a store. Visitors glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. In fact, there are large parts of the page they don’t even look at.
Most users search for something interesting (or useful) and clickable; as soon as some promising candidates are found, users click. If the new page doesn’t meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the search process is continued. 
Users appreciate quality and credibility. If a page provides users with high-quality content, they are willing to compromise the content with advertisements and the design of the site. This is the reason why not-that-well-designed web-sites with high-quality content gain a lot of traffic over years. Content is more important than the design which supports it. 
Users don’t read, they scan. Analyzing a web-page, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page.
Have you ever been to a beautiful looking website from a large corporation or organization only to leave in frustration because you could not find what you are looking for ?

Your website should be easy to navigate. You should assume that your audience may not enter the site from the home page. This means that there should be no dead ends. Every page should have consistent easy to understand links back to other pages.

The easiest way to create an easy to navigate site is to take the time to plan the structure of your site before you start building it. This simply means you decide roughly what pages your site will have and how they will link together. Once you do this you can easily create a set of links between your various pages which makes everything easy to find. This is also called a sitemap.


 

12 April 2010

Is your Business Losing Out?

With Internet growth in South Africa at a all time high and the introduction of Paypal, the best thing you can do for your business nowadays is get online. So many consumers and so much of the market is based on the internet nowadays, that it is almost financial suicide not to get involved in the online sensation. Scream Media offers highly competitive prices, as well as a very professional, proven product.

Scream Media not only offers a team of skilled designers and programmers to help design and build your site, we also offer services including webhosting, SEO, PPC, social network marketing and internet strategy.
Creating a website is like nurturing a plant, where the process begins with choosing the right sapling or seed and ends with sowing the proverbial fruit of your labor. Likewise, website designing also requires your utmost attention and step-by-step execution of strategies in order to thrive in the long run. Without a doubt, website designs do play the role in creating that preferred reaction to your business. It is about the overall outlook of a website, where packaging does play the role. After all, first impression can yield better results by convincing the visitors to stick to a page for sometime. Usually, visitors do jump from one page to another, as nobody has much free time these days. In the event that your design does attracts the visitors, there is a high probability that they would like to check out more of your pages. A rule of thumb is 3 clicks to find what you want.

On the other hand, a webpage design says a lot about your business. In case you do not have the budget or skills to create a background based upon coding, you can streamline things by designing the perfect theme. These days, themes have become one of the most useful tools in retaining the visitors, as people remember these websites and like to return to them. Themes work well, when you need to convey your message without too much effort. For example, Scream is in the process of redesigning our own website, following on from the modern art theme we currently have on H2L

It is not difficult to get the right theme for your website. You can consult experienced corporate website design professionals, who can help you out in getting the right theme. A well designed theme should communicate your message effectively.