tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79666065743210916572024-03-22T09:36:12.761+02:00H2L Online Marketing South AfricaSpecialist Online Marketing company servicing the whole of South Africa. PPC, SEO, Website Design and development.H2L Online Marketinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11057781207898784653noreply@blogger.comBlogger116125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-66807918799222559212013-04-01T11:10:00.000+02:002013-04-01T11:10:02.628+02:00<br />
Facebook announces updates to Mobile Apps Install Ads platform<br />
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Facebook has revealed two new updates to it Mobile Apps Install Ads platform in order to make it easier for marketers and developers to create and tailor these types of ads.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaYCaWXwjXEn0BzNNSHHRrrnYOd-65wX5OmYLnIjd4SFpFimJvvJiTRpwBiS8katD9bpqVeQSXZWGaBCwazYKIdnyLt7bt5xWDE05C04UTIeQ2wVrs7TlfFRrDhINj5_cDUvm0J0teSrn-/s1600/Facebook_app_store.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaYCaWXwjXEn0BzNNSHHRrrnYOd-65wX5OmYLnIjd4SFpFimJvvJiTRpwBiS8katD9bpqVeQSXZWGaBCwazYKIdnyLt7bt5xWDE05C04UTIeQ2wVrs7TlfFRrDhINj5_cDUvm0J0teSrn-/s320/Facebook_app_store.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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First introduced in October 2012, the changes will allow marketers and developers to reach the right people on the right devices. The update means developers will now be able to reach specific version of Android and iOS operating systems as well as target people using WiFi as opposed to 3G for larger app downloads.<br />
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The ad create tool has also been updated to ensure that it is easier to build/launch Mobile App Install Ads. The changes aim to make the process simpler and more akin to sponsored stories and Page like ads where you can get a campaign up and running in minutes, with the ability to build Mobile App Install Ads is now inside Facebook’s basic ad creation tool.<br />
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One of the biggest companies to utilise the platform since its launch last year was mobile operator O2 who chose to do the initial promotion for its new Tracks music application on Facebook Mobile App Install Ads first. Over the first three days the advertising reached some nine million UK Facebook users and charted at number six on the Apple App Store.<br />
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Russian game developer Social Quantum and US-based fashion exchange service Poshmark have also made use of the platform in recent months.<br />
<a href="https://developers.facebook.com/mobile/">https://developers.facebook.com/mobile/ </a><br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com11Cape Town, South Africa-33.9248685 18.424055299999964-34.768171 17.133161799999964 -33.081566 19.714948799999963tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-61136064763092182022012-09-07T17:37:00.000+02:002012-09-07T17:37:28.586+02:00Choosing Keywords to rank on<br />
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I get a lot of questions about SEO... but here's a common one I've been
hearing a lot lately: <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" /><b>"<i>Which keywords should I focus
on?</i>"</b></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />It's hard to give
a blanket answer about keyword selection because every business is different.
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But here's some advice that'll probably apply to your situation. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />If you're choosing between a few different keyword
variations, focus on the one that's most relevant to your business. And
specifically, you want to focus on keywords that have HIGH "</span> <span style="font-size: small;"><b>buying intent</b>." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I'm talking about keywords where there's ZERO doubt that this is a
prospect interested in your products or services. (In other words, no tire
kickers.) <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />Here's a hypothetical example to explain
my point. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Let's imagine you're a dentist based in Cape Town and you specialize in
cosmetic dentistry. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">What keywords should you focus on? <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />Let's
imagine you're deciding between three options:</span> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">1. The keyword "dentist" - <br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">2. The keyword phrase "Cape Town dentist" - <br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">3. The phrase "Cape Town cosmetic dentist" - </span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My advice: You should focus on "<b>Cape Town cosmetic dentist</b>" because it's the
most relevant keyword - even though it's got less search volume.</span> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And there are 2 reasons why... <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" /><b>Reason #1. Get Faster Rankings</b></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /><b><br clear="none" /></b>It's much easier to get ranked on the first page of Google for a
more specific phrase like "Cape Town cosmetic dentist" than for a shorter phrase like
"dentist." </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />(In the SEO world,
these long phrases are known as "long-tail keywords").</span> <span style="font-size: small;"><b><br clear="none" /></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It's common to be able to rank for a 3+ word long-tail phrase within 1-2
months, but you might have to invest for 6-12 months or longer to appear on the
first page of Google for a shorter phrase.</span> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br clear="none" /><b></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Reason #2. Get More Customers</b>
<br clear="none" /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And here's the even more important reason to focus on relevant long-tail
keywords: you'll get more customers. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />If people
search Cape Town cosmetic dentist and land on your website, they'll be </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>way</i> more likely to become a
patient, versus if they just searched "dentist" or "Cape Town dentist." <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" /><b>Think about
it...</b></span> <span style="font-size: small;">WHY do you want to rank on the first page of
Google anyways? <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />Rankings alone won't get you
customers. Traffic alone won't get you customers. In order to get new customers,
you need traffic PLUS </span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>conversions</b>. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />You need people to land on your website and then contact you and do
business with you. And you'll enjoy much higher conversions if you focus on
keyword with clear </span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>buying intent</b>. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />Lesson:</span> <span style="font-size: small;">When in doubt, focus on more specific, more
relevant, longer keyword phrases. <br clear="none" /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-73988725813681359162012-08-10T17:02:00.001+02:002012-08-10T17:02:43.768+02:00Yahoo Search results now powered by BingThe Yahoo and Bing team informed SES San Francisco attendees of the
major benefits of the search alliance. In the near future, 30% of the
market share will now be managed through one adCenter. As of yesterday,
Yahoo organic results are now being powered by Bing.<br />
Here are 6 steps to prepare for transition as Advertisers:<br />
<ul>
<li>Keep your existing adCenter account and augment: this maintains
historical data and allows months to focus on enhancing account
structures.</li>
<li>Analyze campaign and AdGroups: Familiarize yourself with adCenter
features, perform campaign analysis and build out your campaigns, check
your structure and campaigns post – account transition (make sure you
are familiar with import mapping of campaign & ad group settings,
and tweet where necessary).</li>
<li>Maximize keyword coverage: understand keyword differences across
platforms. Make sure to bid on plurals, variations, and popular
misspellings of the queries that matter to you most.</li>
<li>Match types: match types in adCenter are aligned with the industry standard.</li>
<li>Budget for the increase in impression and click volume: managed
advertisers are required to sign new IOs for the unified marketplace and
Yahoo reps are now ready to guide for Q4 budget allocation for Bing and
Yahoo. Self Serve advertisers should seek online help through adCenter.</li>
<li>Monitor, measure, modify and repeat: optimize accordingly.</li>
</ul>
Now that your ads are taken care of, how should you prepare your site
for the transition? Anthony Garcia with Bing states that ranking is
100% based on how Bing indexes and ranks relevance for sites. Content is
still king and SEO principles remain unchanged. Make sure that you give
Bing crawlers access to crawl sites. Change user agents from msnbot to
bingbot (Oct.1). Be sure to continue to use Yahoo Site Explorer because
oversea markets will take longer to transition.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-46909572262782694112012-06-28T21:18:00.000+02:002012-06-28T21:18:32.906+02:00Google Penguin - The new Google algorithmThe Google Penguin algorithm update is nothing to worry about if you
continue writing articles naturally, and without endless keyword
repetition. The update has been designed to catch out those relying on
‘black hat’ web-spamming techniques to boost their rankings, and not
those that have gained their ranking position fairly and honestly.<br />
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<br />
A search engine’s clients are those using it to find information, and
Google is only trying to improve that service for its customers – and
by assisting the search engine to achieve this you can take a big step
towards a good ranking. Google is not particularly targeting poor
quality content here, although you will suffer if your page text is full
of unnecessary instances of your keywords. What concerns Google is the
source of the links back to your website, and the anchor text you use
that people click onto reach your individual web pages.<br />
So that’s it basically – how to keep the Google Penguin algorithm update happy. To be more specific:<br />
<strong>Your Web Page Content</strong><br />
Keep writing articles, but keep it natural and avoid keyword
spamming. The Google Penguin update has been designed to detect what is
known as webspam, a component of which is keyword stuffing – trying to
influence spider algorithms by excessive use of a keyword in an article
or web page content.<br />
You should work to a maximum of around 1% keyword density. The more
discerning article directories apply a keyword limit to your submitted
articles. Ezine Articles for example applies a 2% limit – that includes
similar terms, such as ‘article writing,’ ‘writing articles,’ and ‘write
articles’ all being regarded as the same keyword; even ‘articles’ would
be read as a keyword.<br />
I would suggest using a keyword density of no more than 1%, if that. 2% should be regarded as a top figure.<br />
Taking ‘golf balls’ as an example of a keyword you are using on a
page in a golfing site, you would use the word ‘golf’ in terms such as
‘golf shoes,’ ‘golf apparel’ and many others. The algorithm has no idea
of your intended keyword, so it will list what it believes appropriate
from the semantics of your page. It will take ‘golf’ as a keyword and,
if that exceeds a certain figure (nobody but Google knows what that is),
your page is liable to be dropped a few places in the rankings for any
of its keywords.<br />
So write naturally and don’t worry about keyword density, other than
to keep it low, although not so low that the main topic is lost. Forget
numbers in your article writing, and write naturally and sensibly – as
if you were speaking to the person reading your article.<br />
<strong>Your Anchor Text</strong><br />
Many people use the same anchor text in their links time after time.
Mix it up: when you are writing your resource, box or creating in-text
links that readers can click, it makes sense to use your primary keyword
or phrase as the anchor text (the text that is highlighted as a link).
Avoid the use of the same keyword or phrase all the time. If your
website focuses on article writing or article marketing, avoid the
temptation to keep repeating the word ‘article’ in the text.<br />
You can employ a number of alternative words, such as dissertation,
essay, passage, content, copy and so on.’ Synonyms can often be
difficult to find, particularly those meaning exactly the same in the
same context, so if you are stuck for alternatives, check out an online
thesaurus such as Thesaurus.com and you will find a whole host of them.
You may lose the benefit of links back to your web pages if Google
Penguin calculates your links as being over-repetitive (an algorithm is a
mathematical formula and hence does not use human values).<br />
<strong>Your Linking Strategy</strong><br />
The Google Penguin update looks for a diverse source for the links
leading back to your web pages. Your search engine listing position will
suffer if large numbers of backlinks come from the same website or from
a recognized links farm. The same is true if your links are
predominantly from poor quality web pages and pages not directly
connected with the topic of those to which they link.<br />
Mix your links between different sources, and also different types of
source. For example, don’t have all your articles published on the same
article directory. Make as sure as you can that the links leading back
to your website (backlinks) are not all from the same source – or even
similar sources, but are mixed between different article and web
directories, Squidoo lenses, forums, blogs, private web pages, etc..
Make sure your links come from multiple sources.<br />
So, if you avoid excessive keyword repetition, vary your anchor text
and mix the source of your backlinks up, you can kick the penguin in the
rear end and tell it to get lost. Google’s purpose is to provide its
clients with a good search experience – the search engine is not
particularly trying to punish you – and the Google Penguin update is how
it is achieving that. So keep writing<br />
articles!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-55492303760762162122012-04-16T10:43:00.002+02:002012-04-16T10:44:17.356+02:00How GoogleBot see's your website<br />
If you want a website that works for both people and search engine spiders like
GoogleBot, you have to spider check your work. It sounds obvious and simple, but
if you don’t spider check your work – how do you know it works?<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJaUvdOzQwvoV0hVCb1qzYgsc-DctFkoHBeHx3coc0av4RUkbWPwAv3H11bbrCtfk7sBXn8moreQmG-YsjfkO7ydBtQw2lCT-4po4GObmBn2MFznAAnS8iMYNiWsaAXwbqGlQdlYLr18a/s1600/googlebot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJaUvdOzQwvoV0hVCb1qzYgsc-DctFkoHBeHx3coc0av4RUkbWPwAv3H11bbrCtfk7sBXn8moreQmG-YsjfkO7ydBtQw2lCT-4po4GObmBn2MFznAAnS8iMYNiWsaAXwbqGlQdlYLr18a/s1600/googlebot.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Search engine optimization or SEO is an environment where humans have limited
visibility. There is definitely a limit on how much human eyeballs alone can see
in terms of how the GoogleBot sees your website without actually spider checking
your work on Google.<br />
Search engine spiders like GoogleBot are robot software that crawl your
website for ranking. Google says compared to humans, “Bots access pattern is
completely different” – one of the greatest understatements in Google’s
Webmaster Guidelines!<br />
People tend to assume Google rankings are much more automatic than they
actually are due to this difference between how humans view a website and how
robot search engine spiders view it for ranking.<span id="more-15251"></span><br />
If you’re an SEO and live and breathe Google’s algorithms, many of the
problems you deal with on a daily basis are related to bridging the gap between
what works for human visitors to your website and what works for search engine
spiders that bring traffic.<br />
Search engine visitors are the most affordable way of getting free targeted
traffic to your website. However, one of the biggest SEO mistakes most people
make is assuming their web designer is also a search engine optimization
expert.<br />
In most instances, you should not expect the person primarily concerned with
the look and feel of your website and its coding to also keep up with the latest
in Google’s algorithms that are constantly evolving and updating. While web
design and SEO are both at the heart of your website’s functionality, never
assume your web designer is also an SEO expert.<br />
SEO is a different knowledge and software set than most web designers can
devote time to or should be expected to stay on top of. SEO is also a one strike
you are out environment. You can do a hundred things right, but get one
important element of SEO wrong and it can undo everything else you do.<br />
The question that can often make this point clear is to ask your web
designer, “How do you spider check your work?”<br />
Although Google’s Webmaster Guidelines provide tools and guidance on how to
check a website through a spider’s eye view – like looking at the site with a
Lynx text based browser or using the Googlebot tool in Google Webmaster Tools –
in fact, very few web developers have actually read and followed Google’s
guidelines.<br />
This is why spider checking your website is so important to see if what you
thought you were communicating on the Internet is actually being seen and ranked
on Google. If you haven’t spider checked your website, you simply can’t tell if
it is working on search engines. Here are a few easy ways to do that.<br />
<b>Site:Search</b><br />
First enter the following in the Google search box:<br />
site:yourdomain.com<br />
A site:search is the single most important diagnostic search on all of the
major search engines that tells you how that search engine views your website.
Don’t put a space after the colon in a site:search or you won’t get the right
results.<br />
Because your root domain without any slashes after the domain name is the top
of your site’s hierarchy, you always want to see your root homepage as the top
result of a site:search on Google.<br />
If you don’t see your homepage at the top of a site:search, there may be a
problem. Most of your ranking strength is focused in your homepage where the
majority of the external links to a site usually point. The lack of appearance
of your homepage at the top of a site:search on Google is one of the ways you
can see if your site is under a penalty or downgrade – although this is not
conclusive evidence of that fact alone.<br />
Note carefully how your homepage displays with a site:search in Google’s and
Bing’s listings. 65 characters are displayed of your homepage title in blue text
at the top of your search engine listing, 150 characters of meta description
appear under it – or a snippet of text from your body text that matches the
keywords from a search request.<br />
<b>Click Your “Cached “Link</b><br />
Next, on Google and Bing move your cursor to the right of the search engine
listing to make your “Cached” link appear. On Yahoo, the cached link appears
below the listing. Note the cached date – the last time the spider returned to
your site for ranking.<br />
If you get the result “Your search – site:yourdomain.com – did not match any
documents,” that means either your site is not being crawled and indexed on
Google – or you’ve entered the domain incorrectly so check your spelling
carefully. It is also possible it has been removed from the index as a result of
a penalty, although most of Google’s penalties don’t result in this extreme an
action.<br />
One thing you do want to look at is if Google is displaying the cached date
immediately, or sitting on the results for a while running spam tests before
publishing them. If Google is publishing the cache immediately, that’s a good
sign.<br />
Click “Text-only version” of your Google cache<br />
Click the “Text-only version” link in the upper right corner of Google’s
cache.<br />
This strips the website down to the body text and image alternative text
associated with graphic images that Google sees for ranking. After clicking the
“Text-only version” link in the upper right corner of Google’s cache, many
websites have major portions of their site or even the whole site disappear –
meaning Google can’t see your content for rankings.<br />
Clicking back and forth in Google’s cache between the “Full version” and
“Text-only version” of your website is how you spider check your work to see if
GoogleBot and humans are seeing the same thing.<br />
Google only gives you rankings for keywords it sees on your website in the
“Text-only version” – unless you have links that show those keywords.<br />
Unless you perform this test, you simply can’t tell if spiders are seeing
your site properly or not – and very often, they aren’t and the web developer
and site owner don’t know it. When Google can’t see important elements of your
site as humans do, the result is that you have been hidden rather than promoted
on the Internet.<br />
<b>Spider Check Your Keyword Densities</b><br />
Next, enter a search you want to compete for, and find your search result on
Google. Once again, move your cursor to the right of the Google listing to make
the “Cached” link appear and click it. Now you will see exactly how Google sees
your keywords. They are highlighted in the cache.<br />
To get an approximation of your site’s keyword densities (should be between
1-2% in most cases), copy and paste Google’s “Text-only version” into Microsoft
Word and get a word count of how many words Google sees in the body text and
image alternative text of the page. Now do a “Control find” for your keywords to
see how many times they are actually mentioned.<br />
A 1% keyword density is your keywords appearing once in a hundred words – 2%
twice in a hundred words. You can compete for many searches with keyword
densities outside of this 1-2% average, but you may not compete across as broad
a range of searches as each keyword algorithm is very unique. Keep in mind your
rankings are also dependent upon your keywords appearing in the link text
pointing to your site which you can’t see looking at the webpage because it is
an offsite ranking factor.<br />
Other important ways to spider check your work is with Google Webmaster Tools
that give you a wealth of diagnostics about how your site appears on Google, and
Google Analytics that shows your traffic and what keywords are actually bringing
visitors to your site.<br />
While spider checking your work on Google takes less than thirty seconds
involving three simple steps; 1) Move your cursor to the right of your Google
listing to make the “Cached” link appear, 2) Click your “Cached” link, and 3)
Click the “Text-only version” link in the upper right corner, never assume your
webmaster has performed this vital test.<br />
If after doing this test, important elements humans see on your webpage are
not visible to the GoogleBot, your content has been effectively hidden from the
Internet in terms of search ranking. You need to study Google’s Webmaster
Guidelines to diagnose what the problem is – and carefully follow them if you
want people to find you at the top of the rankings for a Google search.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com1Cape Town, South Africa-33.9248685 18.4240553-34.346497500000005 17.7923413 -33.5032395 19.055769299999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-89802245722765982702012-04-04T03:07:00.001+02:002012-04-04T03:07:45.266+02:00What do you expect from your SEO Company?Those of us in the SEO industry operate by some pretty simple principles. We're
in business to help clients succeed. Success can mean many things, but, to most
businesses, every lost ranking position looks like lost business! As SEOs, SEMs,
link builders and inbound marketers, it's important to be successful – not just
for our own sake, but also for the companies we work for. <br /><br />I often tell
our clients that it is in our own best interest that they succeed because our
success is tied directly to theirs. If they fail, we lose. <br />
<br /><br />But the
reverse is also true. If the SEO company fails, the client loses. This is the
dual struggle that many companies, including mine, fight against. We want to do
everything necessary to make sure our clients succeed. The problem is that not
all clients are doing the same for their own success. As the service provider,
however, the burden often falls onto us to deliver what is in clients' best
interest, even if they are not willing to. <br /><br /><strong style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 15px;">Who's looking out for
you/me/we/us?</strong> <br /><br />It's nice to think that doing what's in the
client's best interest is really in the client's best interest. Unfortunately,
it's not always true. Sad to say, but the “something for nothing” entitlement
mentality has taken hold, even among business owners. It's nice that the
Internet gives us all kinds of cool things for free. But not all good things are
available at no cost. Those that rely solely on what is cheap or free only
shortchange themselves. <br /><br />In SEO, clients may purchase services that
provide xyz, based on their budget and hopeful outcome. But when xyz isn't
enough to get them where they want, the client then expects the SEO to deliver
abc on top of it. <br /><br />The last thing any SEO wants to hear is, “Why am I not
ranking for this keyword?” On the flip side, the last thing the client wants to
hear is, “Because you're not paying for that!” <br /><br />Imagine taking your
vehicle to a car wash and paying for the basic wash service. When your car comes
out, it's all sparkly clean, except the engine needs to be cleaned, the inside
detailed and it could use a coat of wax. Now, the car wash company wants you to
have a nice, clean, shiny vehicle. If you're not happy with the wash, you won't
be a repeat customer. But it's silly to pay for a wash and then be shocked that
the wash alone wasn't enough to make your car look just the way you wanted!
<br /><br />This is what SEOs face all the time. Clients taking a lower service but
being upset because they get the lower results! <br /><br /><strong style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 15px;">My best interest is in your best
interest</strong> <br /><br />Whenever two companies do business together, their
best interests almost universally become one. What is good for you is good for
me is good for you. <br /><br />Businesses come to SEOs because they want (nay,
need) to make money. The SEO also wants (nay, needs) to make money. Both need
profits to survive. It's in the best interest of both companies when both
companies are profitable. <br /><br />If one is not profitable, it affects the
ability of the other to hold up their end of the contract. What would otherwise
be a nice long-term and mutually profitable agreement becomes an agreement
where, ultimately, neither benefit in the long-run. Your business agreement is
out of balance. <br /><br />If you only look after yourself, then you'll find that
no one is willing to work with you, which shortchanges your own efforts. On the
other hand, you can't only do what is best for others; otherwise, you won't be
able to deliver as promised, which also shortchanges your own efforts.
<br /><br />If you think always doing only what's in your customers' best interest
is really the right thing to do, then I challenge you to give away all your
services or products free of charge for one year. Wouldn't your
clients/customers be better served by such a move? Wouldn't that allow them to
get a higher profit margin or keep more money in their pocket? <br /><br />Of course
it would, but it certainly wouldn't be in <em>your </em>best interest. Nor could
you do that indefinitely. Sooner or later, your ability to give your clients
what they expect will suffer. They'll be unhappy and so will you! <br /><br />SEO
clients need to ensure they are not demanding more than they are willing to pay
for, just as SEOs must be willing to do everything they can within the framework
provided to get the best results possible. It's in both the SEO's and the
client's best interest to ensure they have a mutually beneficial agreement that
sets proper expectation for results and that neither takes advantage of the
other or allows themselves to be taken advantage of.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com7Cape Town, South Africa-33.9248685 18.4240553-34.346497500000005 17.7923413 -33.5032395 19.055769299999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-22492332888784193222012-03-17T21:12:00.000+02:002012-03-17T22:33:11.211+02:00Facebook Timeline for Pages - Love or Hate it, it's here to stayIf you have not yet converted your Facebook fan page over to the new Timeline design, <b>your page will automatically convert on March 30th</b>,
2012 which is coming up fast. This post covers the majority of basic
settings and features you need to know. Even if you’ve upgraded, you’ll
find some tips here!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Xm3zightS_lKUUsKSnaf1CvwdzQ45VeEDBO4XQKVZne6wIgFQugHrQRFzq-Tx1bBmo4oTtuTS4xxlvujoQ-x9vhQhqqxhM_Y7MvYPh-8R7uneFTRavI5i5Yi95pmrZtIzjxJmOxFZEZz/s1600/facebookpage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Xm3zightS_lKUUsKSnaf1CvwdzQ45VeEDBO4XQKVZne6wIgFQugHrQRFzq-Tx1bBmo4oTtuTS4xxlvujoQ-x9vhQhqqxhM_Y7MvYPh-8R7uneFTRavI5i5Yi95pmrZtIzjxJmOxFZEZz/s320/facebookpage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<h3>
1. Preview</h3>
You have a chance to preview
your page(s) first, made all the edits you wish, get it just the way
you want it, then publish. Look for the preview option at the top of
your page in the old design. Or, see a list of your pages here and turn on page preview mode. Before you publish, at minimum just have an attractive cover image loaded.<br />
<h3>
2. March 30</h3>
Your page will automatically convert on March 30. My advise is <i>don’t wait</i>.
There really is no strategic advantage to waiting … okay, maybe if you
have a really hot custom landing tab with a like-gating campaign that’s
going extremely well. Otherwise, go for the upgrade now and lead the way
by educating your fans on all the new features.<br />
<h3>
3. Cover Image</h3>
Dimensions for the large cover image is <b>851 x 315 pixels</b>.
If you upload an image that’s smaller than these dimensions, it will
get stretched to this larger size. The image you upload must be at least
399 pixels wide. Facebook encourages you to change your cover image as
often as you wish. Newsflash: each time you change your cover image,
this posts on to your wall and <i>goes out into the news feed of your fans</i>.
You may find the activity itself doesn’t get great Edgerank (visibility
score in the news feed). So, what you can do is hide the activity on
your wall, then <b>share the new cover image with a call to action in the textual area</b>, e.g. <i>We’re celebrating 10,000 fans today and just changed our cover image in honor of all of You! Click like if you like! -</i>To
be clear, that message does *not* go ON your cover image itself. You’re
posting your cover image on your wall with the message as a
description.)<i><br />
</i><br />
<h3>
4. Image rules</h3>
Do not put contact info, calls to action, or arrows pointing to the Like or Share button on your cover image. See the Page Guidelines here.
Contact info should go in your about section. The no calls to action
rule is likely because Facebook has been very generous with this large
piece of real estate … however, <b>the company does not want us to run hogwild with all manner of promotions and campaigns</b>…<b> for free!</b> Those come at a price and are called Facebook ads! And the new Premium Ads and Reach Generator. And, the one I’m most excited about: Offers (that one is actually free to set up, though currently only available to large brands).<br />
<h3>
5. Profile picture</h3>
Your profile picture is always a square and is displayed at 125 x 125
pixels or 150 x 150 pixels, depending on the size of someone’s screen.
The photo you upload must be at least 180 x 180 pixels. Facebook
discourage page owners from changing their profile picture that often.
This is the primary, <b>instantly-recognizable image that tracks you throughout Facebook</b> wherever your posts go and wherever you comment as your Page.<br />
<h3>
6. Landing tab</h3>
<b>You can no longer set a default landing tab</b>. Make
good use of the cover image, instead (see #3 above) and the three main
apps (see #8 below). Plus, drive traffic to whichever tab you wish (see
#7 below).<br />
<h3>
7. App URLs</h3>
Custom apps all still function, including the fan-gating feature. Each tab/app still has a unique URL so you can <b>drive traffic from inside or outside Facebook to any ‘landing page’ you wish</b>.<br />
<h3>
8. Showcase apps</h3>
Just below your cover image, <b>your ‘tabs’ are now displayed as apps or views</b>.
You can have a max of 12, though only four are always on display. The
first one is always Photos and cannot be moved. ‘Views’ are Facebook’s
default apps or features such as Photos, Events, Likes, Notes, Map. Apps
are all third party apps.<br />
<h3>
9. Custom thumbnail</h3>
You can add a custom thumbnail image to all your apps. The dimensions are 111 x 74 pixels. These are <b>great areas to get creative and add seamless branding, calls to action, and specials</b>.
To add/change a custom thumbnail, first expand all apps by clicking the
small down arrow to the right of the four app display. Then hover over
any app > click the edit pencil > click Edit Settings > click
Change next to Custom Tab Image (opens in a new window) > click
Change > upload an image. Voila. <b>The image loads and saves right away</b>.
(I have noticed bugs with this feature and have often seen other pages’
thumbnails appear… you may need to upload a couple times to get your
image to stick!).<br />
<br />
For more tips and advise - contact <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">Scream Media / H2l</a> today 021 5590800 - Social Media Marketing courses also on offerAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com4Cape Town, South Africa-33.9248685 18.4240553-34.346497500000005 17.7923413 -33.5032395 19.055769299999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-5374881064423435082011-12-22T11:57:00.000+02:002011-12-22T11:57:40.158+02:00Local Search Engine Optimization<h2>
1. Local Search Engine Optimization </h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YiIyZC6Mqa0/TvL-1nGq7aI/AAAAAAAAAtw/oGR7Hkjv4Tw/s1600/Local-SEO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YiIyZC6Mqa0/TvL-1nGq7aI/AAAAAAAAAtw/oGR7Hkjv4Tw/s320/Local-SEO.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2>
</h2>
The first type is local SEO, which means getting listed in Google Places. We
recommend small business owners start with local SEO, because it's the easiest
and fastest to setup and start seeing results. <br />
Recently, Google has made local business results much more prominent by
displaying local business results at the top for millions of searches. For many
searches, the local results are even more prominent than the regular "Top 10?
results. <br />
If you've been stuck on the sidelines and haven't been investing in SEO
because you thought it was too complex or too expensive, you no longer have that
excuse. It's much faster and easier to break onto the 1st page of Google with
local SEO. <br />
Here are the 3 main ingredients for a successful local SEO campaign are: <br />
<strong>i. Demand</strong> <br />
What keywords are your potential customers searching to find your type of
business? <br />
You don't need to guess. Google has a free keyword research tool, available
here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal <br />
<strong>ii. Relevance</strong> <br />
You need to edit and optimize your Google Places page to make it relevant to
these keywords, so Google knows to display your business listing when people are
searching for your type of services. <br />
<strong>C. Authority</strong> <br />
You need to prove to Google that you're a credible, trusted business. And the
2 main authority ingredients are citations and reviews. <br />
<br />
We created a step-by-step training program that shows you exactly how to do all of this, so you rank at the
top of Google's local results. Learn more about it here: <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/seo-course.php">SEO Courses</a> <br />
<h2>
2. Traditional Search Engine Optimization ('Top 10? SEO) </h2>
The other type of SEO is the type you're probably already familiar with. We
call it traditional SEO (or Top 10 SEO) because these are the techniques to get
you listed in the regular (non-local) Top 10 results. <br />
Traditional SEO is a little bit more complex than local SEO, but has the same
3 main ingredients: <br />
<strong>i. Demand</strong> <br />
You need to do keyword research to find what words your potential customers
are using to search for your services. Same as with local SEO, use Google's
keyword tool as the starting point. <br />
<strong>ii. Relevance</strong> <br />
You need to make your website relevant to your keywords. And specifically,
you want to focus on 1 keyword per page. So, if you offer a bunch of different
services, then you should have a page for each of those services. <br />
<strong>iii. Authority</strong> <br />
The main factor Google looks at when judging the trustworthiness of your site
for the Top 10 results is your incoming links (or hyperlinks). Links are like
positive votes in favor of your business. <br />
If you include these 3 ingredients in your traditional SEO campaign (keyword
research, content, and links) you will begin to rise in Google's Top 10 results
and start getting more visitors to your website. <br />
<h2>
A Note About Building Links... </h2>
Most of the small business owners I've been speaking to have only been
focused on getting <strong>reciprocal links</strong> by setting up link
exchanges with other websites. <br />
Reciprocal links can be OK, but in some instances they can actually be
<em>counter </em>productive. Overall, link exchanges really aren't the best way
to build links, so I don't recommend spending too much energy there. <br />
You want to get a lot of different types of links to your website. And
instead of focusing on link exchanges, you should focus more of your time on
building <strong>one-way</strong> links to your website (where other website
link to you, without you linking back to them). One-way links are much more
helpful for building up your website's authority. <br />
Why would another website link to you? Maybe it's because you are providing a
helpful resource on your website. Or perhaps you write an online column for a
local newspaper's website, and they let you place a byline link back to your
website. There are many ways to build links, and that's outside of the scope of
this post. <br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com50 Darling St, Cape Town 8000, South Africa-33.9248685 18.4240553-35.6117545 15.8971998 -32.2379825 20.9509108tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-21955519615253495892011-11-23T11:13:00.001+02:002011-11-23T11:24:21.513+02:00<br />
<br />
<strong>What Is the Meta Description Tag?</strong><br />
It’s a snippet of HTML code that belongs inside the
section of a web page. It is usually placed after the Title tag
and before the Meta keywords tag (if you use one), although the order is not
important.<br />
The proper syntax for this HTML tag is:<br />
<br />
If you’re using a content management system (CMS), look for a field to fill
out that’s called Meta Description, or possibly just “Description.”<br />
<br />There are 3 important ways that Meta descriptions are being used today that
make them an important part of your SEO and overall online marketing
strategy:<br />
1. They can be used as the description (or part of the description) of your
page if it shows up in the search results.<br />
2. They are often used as part of the descriptive information for your pages
when Google shows “extended sitelinks” for your site.<br />
3. They are often used as the default description in social media marketing
links such as Facebook and Google+.<br />
Let’s look at each of these in more detail.<br />
<br />
<strong>1. Meta Descriptions in the Search Results</strong><br />
People often think that whatever they put in their Meta description tag will
be the default description that the search engines use under the clickable link
to their site in the search results. While this is sometimes true, it’s not
always the case.<br />
Currently, if you’re searching for a site by its URL (for example <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za</a>) Google tends to use the first 20 to 25 words of your Meta
description as the default description in the search engine result pages (SERP).
However, if you have a listing at DMOZ, also known as the Open Directory Project
(ODP) and are not using the “noodp” tag, they may default to that description
instead. (Do a search at Google for www.amazon.com to see an example.)<br />
Bing and Yahoo!, on the other hand, don’t always default to the Meta
description tag for URL searches. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. A
search for <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za</a> at Bing or Yahoo! shows content from my home
page as the description rather than the contents of our Meta description tag.<br />
Of course, real people aren’t typically searching for a site by URL, so what
the search engines show for those types of search queries is not as important as
a true keyword search. So don’t get hung up on what you see when you search for
your site by its URL or if you’re doing a “site:command” search to see how
they’re indexing your pages.<br />
Instead, go to your favorite web analytics program and find the keyword
phrases t<b>hat are currently bringing you the most traffic. </b>Then see what your
description looks like at Google when you type in those keywords.<br />
And surprise! What you’ll find is that your search results description will
be different for every search query! You may see any combination of the
following used:<br />
* Your entire Meta description tag text as the complete description
(typically if it’s highly relevant and contains no more than 25 words).<br />
* A full sentence pulled from your Meta description tag, but not the entire
Meta description (if it contains more than one sentence).<br />
* Text from one part of your Meta description mashed together with text from
another part of it (if it’s more than 25 words long).<br />
* Some text from your Meta description mashed together with some text from
the page.<br />
* Some text from your page mashed together from some other text from your
page (nothing from the Meta description).<br />
<br />
Some of the circumstances that cause Google to not use text from your Meta
description may include:<br />
* The information in the Meta description tag was not specific to the page it
was on.<br />
* The search query used some words that were not in the Meta description, but
those words (or some of them) were used in the page content.<br />
<br />
My recommendation is to always use keywords on any pages where you get search
engine visitors (or hope to get them). Make them very specific to the page
they’re on by describing what someone will find when they click through to the
page from the search results, while also using variations of your targeted
keywords.<br />
Because Google will show only show around 20 to 25 words as your description,
many SEOs recommend that you limit this tag to a certain number of characters.<br />
<br />
For instance, if you’re optimizing a page for 3 different keyword phrases,
you could write a 3-sentence Meta description tag, with each sentence focusing
on a different phrase. You could probably even insert more than 3 phrases in
those sentences if you’re a good wordsmith. The idea, however, is not to stuff
this tag full of keywords, but to write each sentence to be a compelling
marketing statement – a statement that naturally uses the keywords people might
be typing into Google to find your site.<br />
<br />
Overall, the Meta description tag gives you a little bit more control over
what people might see before they click over to your site. The more compelling
it is, the more clickthroughs you should see. If your Meta description tags can
help with that, then it’s certainly worth the few minutes of time it takes to
create interesting, keyword-rich tags that sum up what users will find when they
arrive!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0Cape Town, South Africa-33.9248685 18.4240553-34.346497500000005 17.7923413 -33.5032395 19.055769299999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-71002520737636178512011-11-21T13:40:00.001+02:002011-11-21T13:42:29.410+02:00Using Facebook for business<div style="margin-left: 210px;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><strong>1. Invite by welcoming</strong></span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 210px;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;">The Welcome-tab is an essential tool.
Yes, big brands like Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Fretzie Bercede etc. use
it. No, you are not imitating them; just making use of what is available
to all. You can make your page look different and exciting. This would
organically invite people to your page. The welcome page is the
influencing page which can present a clear ‘call-to-action’ to your page
visitors; if it’s good then your page would be liked by many
automatically! </span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><strong>2. Coupons, offers available<img alt="coupons_socialappshq" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/fbappshq-assets/datas/10181/large.jpg?1309442267" style="float: right; height: 164px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; width: 250px;" /></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;">You can dole out “special discounts and offers”
to your fans (only!). Also, the people who are not your fans can be
enticed by showcasing your offers but not providing them. This would be a
compelling tactic that would make them ‘like’ your page. Giving
discounts and offers is an old marketing technique of course, but in
social media it performs as a ‘likeable’ tool!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><strong><img alt="expectations_socialappshq" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/fbappshq-assets/datas/10182/large.jpg?1309442273" style="float: left; height: 150px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; width: 200px;" /></strong></span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 210px;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><strong>3. Learn more of their expectations</strong></span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 210px;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;">Your company is in the process of
building up and formation. So it’s always better to learn what your
consumers demand from you. You can create quizzes or polls for a
particular query and know what your customers are looking for! The level
of participation would also let you the number of people interested in
your business. Use the polls app on Facebook to know your customers best! </span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><strong>4. Updating is crucial</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><strong><img alt="updates_socialappshq" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/fbappshq-assets/datas/10184/large.jpg?1309442282" style="float: right; height: 130px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; width: 220px;" /></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;">Your page needs to be updated
regularly. Make activity on your page, keep it going! Update about the
customer-friendly stuff your company just created, the deals happening
etc. Share as much as possible! Let them know your company works just
like the large busy industry. Make an impression.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><strong><img alt="answer_socialappshq" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/fbappshq-assets/datas/10183/large.jpg?1309442276" style="float: left; height: 196px; width: 250px;" /></strong></span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 260px;">
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 260px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><strong>5. Yes, you’re answerable!</strong></span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 260px;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;">You owe responses to all the comments
by your fans. If you are responding well, your customers would certainly
feel they have a space in your business. Respond them positively and be
transparent. Further, accept criticism since they’re the experiencers
of your products. They know the faults best. Accept it and correct it
abidingly. Respect the complaints by your ROIs.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0Cape Town, South Africa-33.9248685 18.4240553-34.346497500000005 17.7923413 -33.5032395 19.055769299999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-7789886477620823552011-11-05T10:00:00.001+02:002011-11-05T10:00:54.006+02:00Mobile Website DesignDid you know that in the world today there are more than 2.4 billion
mobile phone users, and a thousand more are added every minute! <br />
About 30% of these mobile phone owners (more than 700 million and
growing) have browsed the Internet through their mobile phones. This is
the reason why mobile Web browsing is predicted to become the next
predominant Internet platform.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTH1nV0zSHik5s9vABgrQNc7p7HIQ5QC9t7a9rduKxuVK3D6o30P0ozLHrNya463FSDx87dd3rPSNhzp5SljVUDGN8zp3jzfjsaKD0PSjuBaCdkcZkrcj3ABUFC8QBgR89MhEjmJoW_wBN/s1600/mobile_website_design.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTH1nV0zSHik5s9vABgrQNc7p7HIQ5QC9t7a9rduKxuVK3D6o30P0ozLHrNya463FSDx87dd3rPSNhzp5SljVUDGN8zp3jzfjsaKD0PSjuBaCdkcZkrcj3ABUFC8QBgR89MhEjmJoW_wBN/s1600/mobile_website_design.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<h4>
The Basic Principles of Mobile Website Design</h4>
First, you have to know that the <a href="http://www.webpagefx.com/websitedesign.htm">Web site design</a>
and construction generally used for computer browsers is not
compatible with that of mobile phones. For your site to work well on a
mobile handset, it must follow the accessibility design guidelines for
building mobile Websites which are set by the W3C. <br />
In mobile phones, the technology called the WAP is used for
browsing. Because of the limitations of WAP browsers in terms of screen
size and allowable download, you will need to strip down your current
design. <br />
The easiest way to build your mobile Website is to modify your
existing Internet site to make it compatible for mobile handsets. If
you decide to do so, expect that there will be big changes in terms of
layout, design and construction.<br />
<br />
Here are some principles about mobile Web design that you should take note of before proceeding to build one of your own:<br />
<ul>
<li>Websites which make use of tables for the main layout will not look right on mobile phones.</li>
<li>Your site must use CSS for the layout to ensure maximum compatibility.</li>
<li>It is easiest if your site is coded using either XML or XHTML, with your character encoding set at UTF-8.</li>
<li>You have to consider that different mobile phones have
different screen sizes. This can be a major headache if you want your
mobile Web site design to run on all of them.</li>
<li>Remember to put all the most important information that you
want mobile users to see on the top of the page. It can be time
consuming to browse through a mobile site, not to mention tedious to
read through. Make your mobile site design convenient for your
consumers.</li>
<li>It is difficult to enter text in mobile Web sites. You may
want to offer your user the convenience of radio buttons and lists,
which they can choose from depending on what they need.</li>
<li>If you wish to put images on your mobile Website, it should be in jpeg or gif format.</li>
<li>A good mobile Web site design provides back buttons and links.
Many phones are not equipped with back buttons, so try to provide one.</li>
<li>Keep in mind that the maximum page size for a mobile page is only 20 kilobytes. Make everything fit into that number.</li>
<li>Lastly, you should bear in mind that users are actually paying
fees to access your mobile Website. Make sure that they are getting
their money's worth!</li>
</ul>
<br />
Having a mobile friendly website is especially important for businesses who want to
increase their exposure onto a fresh, up-and-coming platform ahead of
their closest competitors. However, designing and optimising sites for
various mobile platforms is very challenging due to the amount of smart phone platforms available .<br />
<br />
The fact is that people
accessing the web via their phone are having to deal with smaller screen
and slower connection times, meaning that a site that looks impressive
on a PC may lose quality and functionality when accessed with a mobile.<br />
<br />
There’s a lot to take into consideration when it comes to this kind
of specialist website design development. Sites need to be optimised for
all of the latest browsing devices, such as iPhones, iPad, Blackberry and Android
platforms (amongst others), which can be a time-consuming process.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">Scream Media</a> is proud to offer affordable solutions when it comes
to mobile web development and urges any company lacking a sound mobile
presence to get in touch before they lose out on exposure and revenue
generated from on-the-go web browsing.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com2Cape Town, South Africa-33.9248685 18.4240553-34.346497500000005 17.7923413 -33.5032395 19.055769299999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-19542966390987077882011-10-12T11:25:00.000+02:002011-10-12T11:25:18.456+02:00The not so humble Description TagMeta tags are often very misunderstood, people often get confused with the different types of tags available. In short your<i> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_570246416">meta description
tag</a></i><a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/"> </a>is often used as the snippet on the search results pages to describe your
site. So apart from including keywords, it has to do the job of convincing people
to click on it.<br />
<br />
A nonsensical list of keywords is not going to convince people
to click so you have to balance it out with an appealing sentence, preferably
including a call-to-action or reason to click.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEoAHil4vMBSorTvrbkqSHAnIzsbIhgE7n2e8XllxLMtznIFQawOqt2CQOIC3z0fTbPUYx8Pl7I-UpDHMOYdbIrZ6ZqURT7u7tfxaj1Ey3UwLjyP5KzwVpoq5Tdtcrza_7twVZWtqhj5EU/s1600/metatags.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEoAHil4vMBSorTvrbkqSHAnIzsbIhgE7n2e8XllxLMtznIFQawOqt2CQOIC3z0fTbPUYx8Pl7I-UpDHMOYdbIrZ6ZqURT7u7tfxaj1Ey3UwLjyP5KzwVpoq5Tdtcrza_7twVZWtqhj5EU/s1600/metatags.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Yes, it’s important to put your keywords at the start of the tag if you can,
but you have up to 160 characters in that tag indexed by search engines, so
you should use the space to your advantage. Having a short, unimaginative meta
description tag or simply copying your title tag is not going to make any difference
to your overall rankings and is more likely to turn your potential visitors
off.<br />
<br />
Google admitted that it no longer considers the meta description tag in their ranking
algorithm anyway, so, other search engines aside, the main job of the tag in
Google SERPs is to convince people to click on the link and visit your site.<br />
<br />
Put it this way: if you were in the market for an antique chair and you saw
the following two listings in Google, which one would you click on?<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Site1.com</b><i> – “Antique Dining Chairs.”</i>
</li>
<li><b>Site2.com</b><i> – “Antique Dining Chairs – over 500 chairs on
display at the Glebe Antique Centre.</i><i> Dining chairs to match your table,
occasional chairs for that special place in your home.</i><i>“</i> </li>
</ul>
I’m thinking Site2.com – am I right? And – oh look! The longer tag managed to
include *dining chairs* twice and a whole bunch of other keyword phrases as
well: *dining chairs Glebe*, *chairs Glebe*, *occasional chairs*, *Antique(s)
Glebe*.<br />
<br />
Got it? Why not let the experts help. <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">Contact Scream Media</a> today on 021 5590800Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-42235157148087882812011-10-11T13:30:00.000+02:002011-10-11T13:33:13.182+02:00SEO and BlogsIf you don't <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">optimize</a> your blog—or other online content—there's a good chance
you're missing out on higher search-engine rankings that could extend your reach
well beyond your site's current readership. But take heart: Sometimes all you
need are a few tweaks here and there.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnwCakVbs2WFvQeNTZ5tP85yZ4gb_vy1JukjWbxIzgEmBEDlqBcg_B_wnEIUHXoExByO3ow-dLkuqIckHUtfLaRY-iuNoDwgMCB9CtJF7icn7kceSUJ6d0aSb5zuHHw8vJtTEU_Hh5uc_Q/s1600/Make-Blogger-Blogspot-SEO-Friendly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnwCakVbs2WFvQeNTZ5tP85yZ4gb_vy1JukjWbxIzgEmBEDlqBcg_B_wnEIUHXoExByO3ow-dLkuqIckHUtfLaRY-iuNoDwgMCB9CtJF7icn7kceSUJ6d0aSb5zuHHw8vJtTEU_Hh5uc_Q/s320/Make-Blogger-Blogspot-SEO-Friendly.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SEO Friendly Blogs help you get found on Google</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<b>Arrange your post's content in logical order.</b> Think back to
the essay format you learned in grade school: an introductory paragraph followed
by supporting evidence and a conclusion. It improves readability for human
visitors, and will earn a search engine's approval.<br />
<br />
<b>Pay attention to word count.</b> According to Google an
article should contain at least 200 words. (For eyeballing purposes, most
<i>Get to the Po!nt</i> newsletters are between 250 and 300 words.) We
recommend writing to a target length in the 400-to-500-word range.<br />
<br />
<b>Be sure to use local keywords.</b> If your company offers
products or services to a specific region, incorporate terms that local
customers will likely use when searching for companies in your area.<br />
<br />
<b>Choose an image that complements your text.</b> This provides
visual interest for the reader, and you gain SEO points with a keyword in the
photo description tag.<br />
<br />
<b>Don't duplicate and resubmit content.</b> As with keyword
stuffing, this raises major red flags for search engines—and they'll likely
treat you like a spammer. "That could be the kiss of death for your site.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/"><b>Remember to deep link back to your website</b></a>. In bound links are essential for SEO, with a Blog you have control over these ln bound links. Look at the heading of this paragraph and you will see exactly what I mean!. <br />
<br />
<b><i></i></b>Tweak it one more time. If your blog
delivers valuable content, you're already winning most of your SEO battlesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-62150175248625954772011-09-30T11:38:00.000+02:002011-09-30T11:38:51.479+02:00The Importance of Anchor Text for SEO
Anchor text is perhaps one of the most important aspects of Search Engine
Optimization but it is also one of the least talked about. Anchor text is the visible text of a hyperlink, for example the text
link below links to our home page <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za</a> with the
anchor text - h2lonlinemarketing.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZ-B2R8pc2ZPyiJguAJHdTLUetWU_AArJe3ni92bGrcTbspSRrdkzAPpEggbgscZSZ9GFzywEpK8noFHcaGZehVyVCJJBnBAxVD2BsjGQIYQhHKrlQuWUv_Boy6-4ftBVqDotXDGjvSW6/s1600/first-anchor-text-counts.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZ-B2R8pc2ZPyiJguAJHdTLUetWU_AArJe3ni92bGrcTbspSRrdkzAPpEggbgscZSZ9GFzywEpK8noFHcaGZehVyVCJJBnBAxVD2BsjGQIYQhHKrlQuWUv_Boy6-4ftBVqDotXDGjvSW6/s320/first-anchor-text-counts.gif" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
This one element of SEO is important to understand because it can help your
page get ranked for a target keyword and also help you evaluate your competition
more precisely.<br />
The latter is critical and, in fact, if you don’t take anchor text backlinks
into proper consideration when looking at the competition for a keyword you
could be missing out on some hidden gems that are easy to rank for.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>What Is Anchor Text?</strong><br />
Anchor text is the hyperlinked text you see on a webpage. It is the visible
words that you can click to take you to another page. Anchor text html code
looks like this:<br />
<br />
<xmp><a href=”http://www.yoursite.com”>Your Anchor
Text</a></xmp><br />
On most websites, you typically see this as blue text that is underlined and
when you click on it with your mouse, you are taken to the corresponding
url.<br />
<br />
<span id="more-12044"></span><br />
<strong>How Bloggers Use Anchor Text</strong><br />
Bloggers and website owners use anchor text naturally to point to other pages
on their website as well as pages on other sites that they find relevant to what
they are blogging about. You’ve probably even done this yourself when writing a
post where you referenced another post on your site, an affiliate product or
even a post on another site.<br />
Usually a blogger will use a phrase that indicates what the page is about in
the anchor text, as opposed to a url, so that the sentence reads correctly.<br />
The anchor text in these links helps both the visitor and the search engine
spiders figure out what the ‘linked to’ page is about.<br />
<br />
<strong>How Search Engines Use Anchor Text</strong><br />
Search engines use anchor text to help them figure out what the hyperlinked
page is about. So, as you can see, getting anchor text backlinks with relevant
phrases in the anchor text is pretty important if you want the search engines to
rank you for a particular keyword phrase.<br />
In fact, anchor text is such an important factor in ranking a page that pages
can rank for a keyword phrase even when that phrase does not appear in the url
on the page!<br />
There are several cases where this has happened, but perhaps the most famous
is where the Adobe Reader download page ranked number<br />1 for the search term
‘click here’ for many years even though those words were nowhere on the page. So
many people had linked to that page using the anchor text ‘click here’ that it
got to the number 1 spot without any on page SEO for the term.<br />
<br />
Search engines place a large importance on external anchor text (links coming
in from other sites) and some importance on internal anchor text (links from
within your own site) when ranking a page so it stands to reason that you should
make getting anchor text backlinks with your target keyword phrases a
priority.<br />
One important thing to note is that it is widely thought that if two links on
the same page target the same url, that only the first link is counted by Google
so you want to be sure that you use your desired anchor text in that first
link.<br /><strong><br />How Anchor Text is Important When Judging Competition for a
Keyword</strong><br />
If you think about how important anchor text is to the search engines when
determining ranking for a keyword, then it’s easy to see why it is a critical
component of analyzing the competition for a particular keyword phrase.<br />
<br />
<b>Allinanchor:”your keyword phrase”</b><br />
This will return the pages which have anchor text pointing to it that contain
the quoted keyword phrase.<br />
I hope you can see how powerful this is – first of all, Google must think it
is an important element of a page because it provides the allinanchor operator.
Just the existence of the operator would seem to indicate that it uses the
anchor text when deciding what a page is about and ranking it.<br />
<br />
Secondly, using this operator will show you which pages are optimizing for
your chosen keyword phrase!<br />
It makes sense that only the pages that have anchor text backlinks with your
phrase are the ones optimizing for it so you can forget about searching for your
phrase in quotes or any of that nonsense.<br />
Not only that but, you can take a look at the actual backlinks for each of
your competitors and see how many of them have that anchor text and what the
strength of those links are to make a more educated guess as to how difficult
they will be to beat out for that top spot.<br />
<br />
<strong>Anchor Text “Best Practices” For Your Website</strong><br />
Now that you know how important anchor text is to your rankings, I’m sure you
will want to pay more attention to it in your SEO efforts but you don’t want to
go hog wild and create tons of anchor text backlinks all with the same keyword
phrase or you might find that your efforts don’t yield the results you want.<br />
Here are some things to consider:<br />
<strong>1. Vary Your Anchor Text</strong> – We all know that Google prefers
it when people link to you naturally and when that is the case, they don’t all
use the same anchor text. So, when you are linking to your site from your
articles or web2.0 properties you want to<br />make sure you don’t always use the
same phrase as well. Using your target phrase in about 50% – 60% of the links is
probably a good idea.<br />
<br />
<strong>2. Links From Relevant Pages</strong> – For the best results, you
want your anchor text backlinks to come from pages that are related to your
topic. This is what would happen naturally if people were linking to you and it
would most likely be from a blog post on the same topic.<br />
<br />
<strong>3. First Link On Page</strong> – Don’t forget that Google only counts
the anchor text from the first link that it sees so if you have more than one
link to the same url on a page, act accordingly.<br />
<br />
<strong>4.Plan For Natural Linking</strong> – There’s nothing better than
having people just naturally link to one of your posts but, of course, you
can’t control the anchor text they use when they do. Since most people will
naturally use your headline as anchor text, you want to be sure to consider that
when coming up with the title for your blog posts.<br />
<br />
Anchor text is crucial to both your SEO efforts as well as when analyzing the
competition for a keyword phrase. Taking the time to use it properly can be the
difference between ranking in the top 3 and not ranking at all so it’s in your
best interest to start putting better anchor text practices to use in your
business today!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-49525225353765427862011-09-12T10:02:00.001+02:002011-09-12T10:02:24.985+02:00Facebook Myth's<b>Facebook promotions take many forms.</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO3GdvNHhey8E6czmjA2anMZVl_5kogDa2idjGKE49bASqYdhXMuO9jzalSFM_EFVYP3S66AGqytzX3_V-2Fmm8bAoqACWS4jBIqsxwciYJB9Trcn1F2XSK7rdg27WE2Ue79eoXvKbltiv/s1600/Facebook+Logo+21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO3GdvNHhey8E6czmjA2anMZVl_5kogDa2idjGKE49bASqYdhXMuO9jzalSFM_EFVYP3S66AGqytzX3_V-2Fmm8bAoqACWS4jBIqsxwciYJB9Trcn1F2XSK7rdg27WE2Ue79eoXvKbltiv/s320/Facebook+Logo+21.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />One brand will give away instant-print coupons behind a “like” gate. Another will reward random fans for posting on the brand’s wall. And still another will host a sweepstakes in a custom third-party application.<br />Can you guess which one of these is violating Facebook’s rules and is likely to see their page brought down?<br />
<br />Alas, Facebook resembles the wild west of social networking. And just as the lawless land of email marketing was tamed a decade ago, the ever-evolving Facebook platform is being settled by emerging best practices, updates to the user experience, and Facebook’s stringent promotion guidelines. <br />
<br />
If an objective of your contest is to “go viral”, Facebook wants to stop you. Why? First, Facebook wants you to pay them to drive impressions and engagement through its advertising<br />platform. Additionally, thanks to game publishers like Zynga (the makers of Farmville and Mafia Wars), viral tactics are now widely considered annoying by Facebook users. Facebook’s desire to make money while delivering an uncluttered user experience means the virality you seek isn’t likely to happen.<br />
<br />
MYTH: Clicks on your "Like" button = brand engagement.<br />
REALITY: It's not that
easy. Make your brand worth spending time with and you'll achieve real
engagement: passion and loyalty. As social media blogger Jay Baer candidly
quipped, "I have a deeper engagement with a can of beer than I do with the
'Like' button."<br />
<br />
MYTH: Trolls will take over my contest and fan page. REALITY: A clear,
thought-out social plan and solid promotions will keep trolls on a short leash.
People are people, online as in life, and they'll share negative (and sometimes
inappropriate) views as well as positive ones.<br />
<br />
MYTH: Giving away an iPad is enough. REALITY: Making fans do stuff for prizes
is ineffective; they know the odds of winning are low. Align prizing with your
brand and ensure everyone walks away a true winner!<br />
<br />
MYTH: I don't need rules for my Facebook contest. REALITY: The legal
ramifications of running a contest on any medium are complicated, especially
when you're doling out prizes. Seek legal counsel before your promotion, make
the rules of the game very clear to players, and safeguard against abuse of
those rules.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><em>The Po!nt:</em></b> Don't be fooled by Facebook's pretty face; it's a
jungle in there. Thankfully, that jungle has safe pathways. Take time to learn
them, and you'll produce a bunch of cool new inroads with happy, engaged
fans. <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">Scream Media </a>has over 8 years experience navigating Facebook and other Social Media platforms. Contact us today on 021 5590800 for a free, no obligation quote.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-77308663585161284162011-08-31T14:14:00.000+02:002011-08-31T14:14:53.993+02:00How can I get people to revisit my website? <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwrP7cYuDZkirMaAkyUg2gJxNBccwl89d3t5J6utGjvoMJxYDG0wKMo1JE4UA9L3Ov-FSFwIXUbpV1sBrQmsdtzJHsirZu6xs-Zym_Nx0SCojRRVQ4hvT88zgY_6D31yDFEEJiQLyyn6KQ/s1600/web_visitors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwrP7cYuDZkirMaAkyUg2gJxNBccwl89d3t5J6utGjvoMJxYDG0wKMo1JE4UA9L3Ov-FSFwIXUbpV1sBrQmsdtzJHsirZu6xs-Zym_Nx0SCojRRVQ4hvT88zgY_6D31yDFEEJiQLyyn6KQ/s320/web_visitors.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><u><strong></strong></u>To get people to keep coming back to your website, you need to give plenty of reasons why they should. If you think about it, it's just common sense. You wouldn't keep going to a shop every day if nothing had changed each time that you went. You need to continually add to your site in a variety of different ways. Add new blog posts/articles, tutorials, videos, pictures, interviews, competitions, news, events, etc. Doing this regularly gives people an excuse to click on your site and catch up with what's new. Not only that, but it shows to new visitors that your site is not dead, there is an active presence online. <br />
<br />
When just starting out with a brand new website, you should have an almost endless list of things that you need to add, so you have got more than enough to get you started. A lot of people think that they need to add everything at once before publishing their site, when actually a single blog post is a great way of starting. As long as you build upon that on a regular basis, then that is enough reason for people to revisit your website. <br />
<br />
<u><strong>Techniques to bring traffic back to your website</strong></u><br />
<br />
Apart from regularly adding content, there are a number of other ways to encourage people to come back to your site. <br />
<br />
<div><strong>Email Marketing!</strong> </div><div> </div><div>This is a great way of getting people back to your website. The key is to build a large email list of your customers/visitors. When people register to become a member, you get their email address. When people sign up to your weekly newsletter, you get their email address. The more ways there are to get someone's email address the better.</div>With an email list, you can build a brand, recommend products, promote any events/workshops that you may be holding and more importantly to can encourage people to keep returning to your website. <br />
<br />
Just don't go overboard with emails so that they are viewed as spam! Nobody likes spam! <br />
<br />
<div><strong>Newsletter!</strong> </div><div> </div><div>These are a great way to encourage people to return to your website. Within your newsletter you can keep referring people back to your website. You can automate the whole process as well, letting it run on auto pilot. </div><div><strong> </strong></div><div><strong> </strong></div><div><strong>RSS Feeds!</strong> </div><div> </div><div>These are great for informing people about your latest updates. Feeds update themselves automatically when you add to your blog. People that have chosen to subscribe to your RSS Feed are automatically told about your new content, giving them incentive to check it out. </div><div> </div><div>These are so easy to set up and do everything automatically for you. Google Feedburner is a great tool to use to do this. This is something that you should definitely include on your website. </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><strong>Be Friendly!</strong> </div><div> </div><div>If someone takes the time to email you with a question, then put the effort into replying. Even if you don't know the answer to the question asked, perhaps you could refer them to somebody that does, or be honest and say I don't know! The fact that you have shown to actively respond to a visitors question can go along way. </div>If you are getting lots of emails about the same question, then that might be a good subject to write about in an upcoming blog post. You could send emails back thanking the individual for the question and stating that you will be writing an in depth post outlining the answer for him.<br />
<br />
Post comments on your own posts answering peoples questions, refer to people that have asked questions in videos, etc. This all helps to build a community around your website. Doing this sort of thing shows to your visitors that you aren't a faceless website that doesn't interact with its viewers, that you are willing to help if you can. <br />
<br />
<div><strong>Network!</strong> </div><div> </div><div>Get in contact with other people that are involved in your field of interest. You may not get too many replies if you still have a small reputation, but that will change as you grow your online status. You could offer to link to their website in return that they similarly link back to you. This can help your credibility and increase your reputation.</div>As the saying goes, "It's not what you know, it's who you know that matters!" <br />
<br />
<u><strong>Homework!!!</strong></u><br />
<br />
These are just some ways to get people to come back to your website. Again, this is something that you have to continually work on, it won't just happen over night. Get in the habit of adding articles/blog posts every few days, regularly tweeting, posting things on your social media sites, running competitions, making videos, etc. If you continually produce reasons for people to return to your site, then they will.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-28220066074456674782011-08-23T16:13:00.000+02:002011-08-23T16:13:54.124+02:00When algorithms control the world<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYobFtWV7bMIC9RvYCFI_sar0FFehVuxP1hrgqG6Hlz8X0WgE1gZ12e-X8Lvi6YWfsIm85BkowBwwOpl1TpSPrl5yzVdSsSwi23yFQFaaTsYLNfpL6x6Y907jnZBDkre_CDLeypWe3-T_/s1600/computers_brian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYobFtWV7bMIC9RvYCFI_sar0FFehVuxP1hrgqG6Hlz8X0WgE1gZ12e-X8Lvi6YWfsIm85BkowBwwOpl1TpSPrl5yzVdSsSwi23yFQFaaTsYLNfpL6x6Y907jnZBDkre_CDLeypWe3-T_/s320/computers_brian.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Globe with binary code Algorithms are spreading their influence around the globe<br />
<br />
If you were expecting some kind warning when computers finally get smarter than us, then think again.<br />
<br />
There will be no soothing HAL 9000-type voice informing us that our human services are now surplus to requirements.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>In reality, our electronic overlords are already taking control, and they are doing it in a far more subtle way than science fiction would have us believe.<br />
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Their weapon of choice - the algorithm.<br />
<br />
Behind every smart web service is some even smarter web code. From the web retailers - calculating what books and films we might be interested in, to Facebook's friend finding and imaging tagging services, to the search engines that guide us around the net.<br />
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It is these invisible computations that increasingly control how we interact with our electronic world.<br />
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At last month's TEDGlobal conference, algorithm expert Kevin Slavin delivered one of the tech show's most "sit up and take notice" speeches where he warned that the "maths that computers use to decide stuff" was infiltrating every aspect of our lives.<br />
<br />
Among the examples he cited were a robo-cleaner that maps out the best way to do housework, and the online trading algorithms that are increasingly controlling Wall Street.<br />
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"We are writing these things that we can no longer read," warned Mr Slavin.<br />
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"We've rendered something illegible. And we've lost the sense of what's actually happening in this world we've made."<br />
Million-dollar book<br />
Cover of the Making of a Fly The book was briefly one of the world's most expensive<br />
<br />
Algorithms may be cleverer than humans but they don't necessarily have our sense of perspective - a failing that became evident when Amazon's price-setting code went to war with itself earlier this year.<br />
<br />
"The Making of a Fly" - a book about the molecular biology of a fly from egg to fully-fledged insect - may have been a riveting read but it almost certainly didn't deserve a price tag of $23.6m (£14.3m).<br />
<br />
It hit that figure briefly on the site after the algorithms used by Amazon to set and update prices started outbidding each other.<br />
<br />
It is a small taste of the chaos that can be caused when code gets smart enough to operate without human intervention, thinks Mr Slavin.<br />
<br />
"This is algorithms in conflict without any adult supervision," he said.<br />
<br />
As code gets ever more sophisticated it is reaching its tentacles into all aspects of our lives, including our cultural preferences.<br />
<br />
The algorithms used by movie rental site Netflix are now responsible for 60% of rentals from the site, as we rely less and less on our own critical faculties and word of mouth and more on what Mr Slavin calls the "physics of culture".<br />
Leading role<br />
Hollywood sign Code is playing its own lead role in Hollywood<br />
<br />
British firm Epagogix is taking this concept to its logical conclusion, using algorithms to predict what makes a hit movie.<br />
<br />
It takes a bunch of metrics - the script, plot, stars, location - and crunches them all together with the box office takings of similar films to work out how much money it will make.<br />
<br />
The system has, according to chief executive Nick Meaney, "helped studios to make decisions about whether to make a movie or not".<br />
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In the case of one project - which had been assigned a £180m production cost - the algorithm worked out that it would only take £30m at the box office, meaning it simply wasn't worth making.<br />
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For another movie, it worked out that the expensive female lead the studio had earmarked for a film would not yield any more of a return than using a less expensive star.<br />
<br />
This rather clinical approach to film-making has irked some who believe it to be at odds with a more creative, organic way that they assume their favourite movies were made.<br />
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Mr Meaney is keen to play down the role of algorithms in Hollywood.<br />
<br />
"Movies get made for many reasons and it credits us with more influence than we have to say we dictate what films are made.<br />
<br />
<br />
"We don't tell them what the plot should be. The studio uses this as valuable business information. We help people make tough decisions, and why not?" he said.<br />
<br />
Despite this, the studio Epagogix has worked with for the last five years does not want to be named. It is, says Mr Meaney, a "sensitive" subject.<br />
<br />
<br />
If algorithms had a Hollywood-style walk of fame, the first star would have to go to Google.<br />
<br />
Its famously secret code has propelled the search giant to its current position as one of the most powerful companies in the world.<br />
<br />
No-one would doubt that its system has made searching a whole lot easier, but critics have long asked at what price?<br />
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In his book, The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser questions how far Google's data-crunching algorithm go in harvesting our personal data and shaping the web we see accordingly.<br />
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Meanwhile, a recent study by psychologists at Columbia University found that reliance on search engines for answers is actually changing the way humans think.<br />
<br />
"Since the advent of search engines, we are reorganising the way we remember things. Our brains rely on the internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member or co-worker," said report author Betsy Sparrow.<br />
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Increasingly, she argues, we are knowing where information can be found rather than retaining knowledge itself.<br />
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Flash crash<br />
Traders at the New York stock exchange Move over traders, there's a new code in town<br />
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In the financial markets, code is increasingly becoming king as complex number-crunching algorithms work out what to buy and what to sell.<br />
<br />
Up to 70% of Wall Street trading is now run by so-called black box or algo-trading.<br />
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That means, along with the wise guy city traders, banks and brokers now employ thousands of smart guy physicists and mathematicians.<br />
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But even machine precision, supported by the human code wizards, doesn't guarantee things will run smoothly.<br />
<br />
In the so-called Flash Crash of 2.45 on May 6 2010, a five minute dip in the markets caused momentary chaos.<br />
<br />
<br />
"We are running through the United States with dynamite and rocksaws so an algorithm can close the deal three microseconds faster.”<br />
<br />
Kevin Slavin Algorithm expert<br />
<br />
A rogue trader was blamed for the 10% Dow Jones index fall but in reality, it was the computer program that the unnamed trader was using that was really to blame.<br />
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The algorithm sold 75,000 stocks with a value of £2.6bn in just 20 minutes, causing other super-fast trading algorithms to follow suit.<br />
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Just as a bionic limb can extend a human's capability for strength and stamina, the electronic market showed its capacity to exaggerate and accelerate minor blips.<br />
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No-one has ever managed to pinpoint exactly what happened, and the market recovered minutes later.<br />
<br />
The chaos forced regulators to introduce circuit breakers to halt trades if the machines start misbehaving.<br />
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The algorithms of Wall Street may be the cyber-equivalent of the 80s yuppie, but unlike their human counterparts, they don't demand red braces, cigars and champagne. What they want is fast pipes.<br />
<br />
Spread Networks has been building one such fibre-optic connection, shaving three microseconds off the 825-mile (1327km) trading journey between Chicago and New York.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, a transatlantic fibre optic link between Nova Scotia in Canada and Somerset in the UK is being built primarily to serve the needs of algorithmic traders and will send shares from London to New York and back in 60 milliseconds.<br />
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"We are running through the United States with dynamite and rock saws so an algorithm can close the deal three microseconds faster, all for a communications system that no humans will ever see," said Mr Slavin.<br />
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As algorithms spread their influence beyond machines to shape the raw landscape around them, it might be time to work out exactly how much they know and whether we still have time to tame them.<br />
<br />
Exerts for the BBCAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-82547849904964084822011-08-15T15:52:00.000+02:002011-08-15T15:52:51.869+02:00Social Media - New Age MarketingIn the good old days customers would communicate with you via letter, phone or in person. Today things are very different. Now they can send you a tweet, post a comment on your blog or leave you a message on Facebook. <br />
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In the past if someone was unhappy with your service the 'bad press' was usually limited to a few of their friends and family (unless it was seriously bad service and the wrote to the Editor of your local paper). Now a single tweet or Facebook message could potentially be seen by millions. <br />
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Now, more than ever, you must have procedures in place to deal with social media communications. You have to think about how you will monitor them, how you will respond to both positive and negative comments and how you'll interact with your audience. <br />
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Enhancing your online reputation is essential in todays transparent culture. Here are 3 easy things you can do to make sure your company holds its head up high and shines. <br />
<br />
<strong>1. Thank you</strong> <br />
<br />
Manners cost nothing and a simple 'thank you' can be a very powerful tool. <br />
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When a follower retweets you, leaves a comment on your blog or sends a referral to you, thank them. It doesn't take a lot of effort and shows that you are listening and that you care about your customers. And in the eyes of your customers, that translates into the image of a company they want to do business with. <br />
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But you don't just have to keep an eye on your social media platforms. There are many other ways you can be talked about online so it's important to monitor the internet to find out what's being said. There are a number of tools out there such as Google Alerts which will email Google results based on your query or topic: <br />
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<a href="http://redir.ientry.com/02-22191-2048928-20656173-0-20" title="googlealerts"><img alt="googlealerts" border="0" height="112" src="http://images.ientrymail.com/smallbusinessnewz/nl_image080211.gif" width="336" /></a> <br />
<br />
<br />
Using these tools will help you keep track of what people are saying about you online so you can see how your brand is perceived and, as a customer service tool, enables you to solve issues quickly before they get out of hand. <br />
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<b>2. Blogging</b> <br />
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Loads of people blog so that should tell you its a valuable tool to use within your business. <br />
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Not only does it allow you to own more of the web, it also is a great way to add value to your customer relationships because you can offer them tips and advice that will make their lives easier. Plus it will help position you as an expert in your field which is always good. <br />
<br />
But the trick is to ensure you write stuff your readers want to learn about. If you are a building firm and blog about holidays, you're not going to be adding value. But if you wrote about important issues in your trade, design ideas etc., you would create a connection with your readers and inspire them to make the most of their homes. <br />
<br />
Take this blog for example, as an <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">online marketing manager</a> I not only write about <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">marketing</a> but also general marketing issues, social media, seo etc., which are all topics business owners find useful. Therefore not only do I get traffic to my website, the people that come also find the experience useful. <br />
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<b>3. Focus on benefits</b> <br />
<br />
Whenever you write about your products or services, always focus on your customer; why they will benefit from it. By writing for them you are showing that you understand what's important to them and want to help them achieve that. <br />
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Showing that kind of connection will identify you as a company that cares about its customers and not just its profits. And let's face it, you tend to buy from people you like and trust. So if you come across as arrogant people aren't going to buy from you. <br />
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When marketing your business it's all too easy to get wrapped up in it and lose sight of what's really important – your customers. <br />
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Make sure they are at the forefront of everything you do because without them you don't have a business. <br />
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Interact with them, thank them and go out of your way to make sure they are happy. Use social media to your advantage. <br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-81207987395403846952011-08-02T07:07:00.001+02:002011-08-02T07:08:29.677+02:00The importance of website loading timesYou always hear webmasters talking about how fast their site is and how they can speed it up even more. But why is that so important?<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf9OtnZSLMJ1bu-NisYXjfc6EkbU43baA3BxD3EaG_dRhhUdOs1wEGYuMD-QAqrBnXpIO-siq0IntaVM6hjSUiurcjraxxfjudf-4oPJiDA6JunGzibvK5Cirur3tLbs0-g7bX9kxqcq-n/s1600/pageloadingspeed_stopwatch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf9OtnZSLMJ1bu-NisYXjfc6EkbU43baA3BxD3EaG_dRhhUdOs1wEGYuMD-QAqrBnXpIO-siq0IntaVM6hjSUiurcjraxxfjudf-4oPJiDA6JunGzibvK5Cirur3tLbs0-g7bX9kxqcq-n/s200/pageloadingspeed_stopwatch.jpg" width="200" /></a><b>Why Speed Matters</b><br />
If you've ever visited a website that takes forever to load, you know the answer to this. Visitors leave before you've even had a chance to convince them you have what they're looking for. Google has taken this one step further by including it in their list of ranking factors.<br />
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So, how fast a page loads does really sort of matter. Not that 1/100ths of a second will make that big of a deal, but if you can improve your load time and your code, there's no reason not to spend some time on it.<br />
<br />
<h3 class="even">Tricks for Speeding Up Load Times</h3><br />
You can do tons of little things to speed up a page's load time:<br />
<br />
<b class="even">Caching</b> -- Plugins and tools such as WP Super Cache turn PHP into quick HTML, to ease the burden of heavy files and display pages faster. It's effortless and only takes a few seconds to set up.<br />
<br />
<b class="even">CSS Sprites</b> -- If you're a little more familiar with code, or have someone available to help tweak your code, you can consider using CSS sprites. Basically, this trick combines all of your graphics into one file and positions them correctly using CSS. You can find out more about CSS sprites on Spiced2.<br />
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<b class="even">JavaScript</b> -- While pretty, JavaScript can eat a lot of resources and require a lot of time to load. By eliminating as much of it as you can, and minimizing the scripts on the page, you can quickly cut down load times. Also, because CSS can load at the same time as the rest of your site, move your JavaScript files after your CSS files. Rusty Brick also suggests delaying the loading of resources until after the visitor mouses over them. You can find out more at BetterExplained and JavaScript Guides Advanced.<br />
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<b class="even">Redirects</b> -- While often necessary, redirects can really inflate page load times. Save yourself and the visitors the time by eliminating them where possible. As an added benefit, you'll also find you can deter people from linking to the wrong URL.<br />
<br />
<b class="odd">Images and Videos</b> -- These things can eat up a lot of resources too. Get rid of any that aren't necessary (If your site is slow, a ton of ads in the sidebar is often the culprit). Then, compress and shrink them to the right size.<br />
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<b class="even">Analytics Programs</b> -- While extremely helpful and useful, analytics can take a long time to load up. Save yourself some headaches by eliminating the code for any analytics programs you're not using. You also may want to switch to an asynchronous tracking code to speed things up.<br />
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<b class="even">Hardcode</b> -- While all the gidgets, widgets, and doodads can be really nice, they can also require a fair bit of time to load. By hardcoding things like the header, footer, and sidebars, you can eliminate this time by causing it to load with the rest of your site.<br />
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<b class="odd">Databases</b> -- Just like trying to find something in a messy room, a messy database takes a lot of extra time to use. Clean it up, fix it, and optimize it regularly. You'll find plugins that do this, as well as an option to do this in phpMyAdmin.<br />
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<b class="odd">Hosting</b> -- If your host is slow, optimizing your website isn't going to help you any. And chances are if you went cheap on your hosting, it's slow. You may even consider setting up and using a proxy server to act as a go between your host server and your site visitors.<br />
<br />
<br />
For a FREE SEO scan of you website, including speed test, contact <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">Scream Media</a> today on 021 559 0800 or sue@scream-media.co.zaAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-26337818334315579542011-08-01T09:46:00.000+02:002011-08-01T09:46:28.046+02:00The importance of recruiting the right person<span class="article"><span class="fullarticle">The direct and indirect costs associated with hiring the wrong employee is seldom calculated, yet severely felt by organisations, says Jenny Venter, an Organisational Development Specialist at Softline VIP, part of the Sage Group plc. “A growing trend in the industry sees both large organisations and SME’s, placing proper job profiles and performance practices in place in an effort to attract the correct candidate in addition to retaining and developing the talent once the person is employed,” says Venter. <br />
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Recruitment practices are influenced by the supply and demand of the labour market, economic conditions, competitor practices and technology. It is a dynamic process that differs from industry to industry. This has never been more relevant then in the space which <a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/">Scream Media</a> occupies <br />
</span></span><br />
The urgency to recruit more cost effectively and more accurately measure the output of employees after appointment can, in part, be attributed to the economic downturn. “Although South Africa was somewhat shielded from the global economic crisis, the SA National Treasury reported that near to a million jobs were lost as a result of the economic downturn. Despite the over-supply of applicants in the job market, talent remains limited and many industries still experience skills shortages,” explains Venter.<br />
<br />
A survival syndrome has however become evident amongst the labour workforce. “Most employees are less likely to job hop and many retrenched employees are willing to accept positions where they earn less than in their previous position. Due to a need for security and a decrease in vacancies, employees are willing to put up with more frustration depending on the scarcity of their skills. Organisations should however still endeavour to be an employer of choice and actively engage employees, or they may find their top talent exiting as job recovery starts to set in,” Venter warns.<br />
<br />
Another trend that is prevailing in the Recruitment industry is the increasing number of organisations that have taken their recruitment function in-house. “The majority of recruitment policies adopted by organisations state that they must first recruit using internal resources. This does not only refer to sourcing talented employees within the organisation, but also extends to using formal and informal professional networks, employee referral programs and social media such as Facebook to source skilled employees. Some larger organisations are headhunting recruitment consultants from agencies that allowed them to secure specialised in-house recruitment expertise,” says Venter.<br />
<br />
HR Information Systems have also become increasingly sophisticated, says Venter. “It enables recruiters to process large amounts of applications by using HR technology to screen candidates that do not comply with the minimum job requirements. It also manages the different phases during the recruitment process and provides valuable recruitment metrics.”<br />
<br />
Does that spell doom for the formal recruitment industry? “External recruitment services are still utilised, but we do find that more and more organisations are using this avenue as a last resort. For this reason many recruitment agencies have begun to diversify their service offerings to include other HR Services. External recruitment agencies that specialise in sourcing scarce skills, especially in the finance, engineering and building and construction industry still remain popular,” concludes Venter. - <i>Curtsey of Gauteng Business News</i><br />
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<span class="article"><span class="fullarticle"><i>Scream Media is currently looking for an intern to join our marketing department, contact us on 021 559 0800 for more details.</i></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-88267882654054987162011-07-12T04:59:00.000+02:002011-07-12T04:59:06.395+02:00Social Media and SEO<a href="http://www.h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/search-engine-optimisation.php">SEO experts</a> have spent the last decade preaching a gospel of optimized page-level elements and inbound links. Those things are still important today,but getting real SEO results these days requires not only a technically optimized website and relevant inbound links but also a strong, vibrant Web presence that supports your overall brand. Which is where social media comes in.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8GGOJFPf7HqP7Sm5X8cRE-4_0wGevOoZg97_POfBHvZevPRIRcqMd5pQkix6mUX_kttvOKr00qrXqzMYIac-Uk3p4emUAo_k5ry829MbzfiVh9kEROO5OvOq-4wn4sUFdIVR1uQGDh4_2/s1600/seo-social-media-in-love.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8GGOJFPf7HqP7Sm5X8cRE-4_0wGevOoZg97_POfBHvZevPRIRcqMd5pQkix6mUX_kttvOKr00qrXqzMYIac-Uk3p4emUAo_k5ry829MbzfiVh9kEROO5OvOq-4wn4sUFdIVR1uQGDh4_2/s320/seo-social-media-in-love.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Promote your content at sites like Facebook and Twitter.</span> Search engines use shares and tweets as a factor when ranking content—so be sure to publish your most recent how-to articles and blog posts where readers can express their approval.<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Interact with your fans and followers.</span> You can't just dump content in social networks and expect it to go anywhere. If you don't have many engaged followers on these social media sites,there won't be anyone to help promote your content via shares and re-tweets.<br />
He also suggests driving engagement with tactics like these:<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Use keyword research to drive content development. </span>The keywords that visitors use to find your site provide a good indication of the content they want to read. "Look for areas of high search volume, and develop content around those subjects," <br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Use historical keyword data to exploit seasonal trends. </span>For example a client's traffic spiked on the term "motorcycle safety" in May. After discovering May was Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, we prepared content ahead of time so it would rank well during that period.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Po!nt: </span>Socialize to optimize. Social media matters to search engines—and that means it matters to you.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-22245206331964502592011-06-15T03:42:00.000+02:002011-06-15T03:42:07.145+02:00Improve your sales online with SEO<div class="firstPar"> <a href="http://h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/seo-benefits.php">Search engine optimisation</a> is something that a lot of small, medium and large businesses will already be familiar with. The idea behind the discipline is to tailor business marketing strategies to the online world and this is a positive move for a number of different reasons. </div><div class="secondPar"> Clearly there must be some clear motivation for the worldwide increase in internet marketing. The simplest explanation for the rise is that businesses are working hard to keep in step with the attitudes and behaviour of their customers. The internet has become more and more of a domestic resource in the last few years and thanks to social media, email and internet search, the general public now has a plethora of reasons to get online. </div><div class="thirdPar"> Businesses that ignore these trends are likely to miss out on a huge amount of potential traffic. However, it is important to note that having an online presence is not all it takes in order to profit from public fondness for the internet. </div><div class="fourthPar"> Without an effective search engine optimisation strategy, businesses often find that they don’t get the results they expect from their websites. This is particularly the case for enterprises that are just starting out, but it is also relevant for established businesses, because other companies that are especially adept at SEO have every chance of getting ahead of the competition. </div><div class="fifthPar"> The clear business value of using an <a href="http://h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/seo-benefits.php">SEO company</a> is they constantly keep a track on the trends and changes in the search market to help maximise ROI. An example of the scale of these changes known as the “the Google Dance” can be seen by Google announcing it plans to make around 500 tweaks to the algorithm that it uses to rank web sites in 2011. Some of these may be small with little affect but others can dramatically change your web sites rankings.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="55" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQXkviT3fZyepKurs1AEUqfO_PNj3pcnpmg1s1ES89kJE_D2ccUKUytjTVzWNLFjjoJs1Z75yjDJCe1eT7ec6KkbTmTfa3mixY8XA6ILLeHhZRQ_JLLcJQjFIUurzhTk328ho0ujRLsyPs/s320/get-quote.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Contact us today on 021 5590800</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div>It is possible to put a certain level of SEO into practice without professional help, but if you want to muscle in on the major players in your area, then it makes sense to involve <a href="http://h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/seo-benefits.php">SEO experts</a> in your campaign. Professionals can lend their own expertise to your company website in order to snare more traffic and secure greater prominence on globally recognised search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!. <br />
Obtaining a higher ranking from these search facilities is an excellent way of making sure you reach a wider audience – especially in the mobile age where prospective customers have uninterrupted access to the internet.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0Cape Town, South Africa-33.9248685 18.424055299999964-34.3691365 18.075444799999964 -33.4806005 18.772665799999963tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-23533731001756770992011-06-14T03:52:00.000+02:002011-06-14T03:52:09.782+02:00Guaranted Google RankingsMany SEO companies entice new potential clients with the allure of guaranteed Google rankings. This type of guarantee seems attractive to the client because it appears to decrease the client’s risk. However, we believe guaranteed rankings are actually a very risky bet<br />
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3 reasons why guaranteed <a href="http://h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/search-engine-optimisation.php">SEO services</a> are a red flag:<br />
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1) Worthless Rankings<br />
Most of the time when an SEO company guarantees rankings, they’ll rank the client’s website for random keywords nobody is searching with any frequency. That means there’s no real competition for the rankings, so it’s pretty easy to gain exposure. But the reality is that, because very few people are searching these keywords, these types of rankings are virtually worthless for the client<br />
The "worthless rankings" scheme is the most common SEO scam. The unsuspecting business owner is proud to have gained some rankings in Google, but isn’t attracting any new customers as a result. Instead, the client is only lining the pockets of the SEO company.<br />
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2) Promises They Can’t Keep<br />
It’s unethical for SEO companies to promise that they can rank a particular website #1 in Google. <br />
He explains, At the end of the day, SEO firms don’t decide – Google decides who is going to be on top. Of course at Scream Media we’re usually able to secure very profitable rankings for our clients. But we can’t predict or guarantee that Google will rank our client’s website on top<br />
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In fact in our experience, no serious SEO professional would guarantee rankings. "If you’re speaking with a SEO consultant who is offering guaranteed rankings, there’s a good chance that person doesn’t really understand how search engine optimization works. The fact is that there are no guarantees when it comes to Google’s current or future search engine ranking algorithms"<br />
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3) A Sign of Desperation<br />
The third reason clients should avoid "<a href="http://h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/search-engine-optimisation.php">guaranteed SEO</a>" is because this offer may be a sign of desperation on the part of the SEO company. <br />
"Whenever we see an SEO company offering ’guaranteed rankings,’ we assume it’s because they’re simply desperate to take on new clients. I imagine they’re doing whatever it takes to sign up a new client – and that would be a big red flag for me, if I were a prospective client"<br />
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Are All SEO Guarantees A Bad Idea?<br />
There are certain guarantees an SEO company can make to its clients without being deceptive or creating conflicts of interest.<br />
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<a href="http://h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/search-engine-optimisation.php">Scream Media </a>provides the following guarantees to its SEO clients.<br />
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1. Timely. "We’ll get the work done on time and according to the specifications in our proposal"<br />
2. Transparent. "We’ll be up-front and transparent with you about what we’re doing to help improve your website’s ranking in the search engines"<br />
3. Accountable. "We’ll provide detailed reporting to show you what progress we’re making and to keep us accountable"<br />
4. Reachable. "We’ll make ourselves personally available for a conference call every month to discuss your SEO campaign and answer any questions you have"<br />
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"We believe this approach to ‘<a href="http://h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/search-engine-optimisation.php">guaranteed SEO</a>’ is professional, ethical, and much more effective for reducing risk for the client guaranteeing specific search engine rankings"Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com2Cape Town, South Africa-33.9248685 18.424055299999964-34.3691365 18.075444799999964 -33.4806005 18.772665799999963tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-38629845956501314772011-06-03T13:12:00.000+02:002011-06-03T13:12:56.182+02:00Twitter versus Facebook<b>Twitter Aggressively Expands Strategy, Should Facebook Be Worried?</b> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4uXv-LuqaxN6QReL1iIEuGFoeAbcNcHlYEeA4E2mYcrWILhlzCkycIQtYUIiaTKC8gMV5DF_p1jBhO5qDGZc9MCXCQ0hQ7Vy4AK9pC7o417RjuAHVS9ZuROWQwWieu1ptf7Lr4xbQO8Y/s1600/facebookVStwitter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4uXv-LuqaxN6QReL1iIEuGFoeAbcNcHlYEeA4E2mYcrWILhlzCkycIQtYUIiaTKC8gMV5DF_p1jBhO5qDGZc9MCXCQ0hQ7Vy4AK9pC7o417RjuAHVS9ZuROWQwWieu1ptf7Lr4xbQO8Y/s1600/facebookVStwitter.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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Let me preface this by saying that in the end, this is not just about Facebook and Twitter. Both companies provide services and features that overlap with plenty of other players out there - companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and others. We tend to think about Facebook and Twitter, however, as the frontrunners when it comes to social networking. <br />
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<strong>Can Twitter give Facebook a run for its money? <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ScreamMedia">Tell us what you think</a>. </strong><br />
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It would appear that Twitter is getting more serious about competing with Facebook. Obviously there has been a lot of overlap between the two social networks (though neither actually likes to be called "social network"), but Twitter is getting a lot more aggressive in its strategy. <br />
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Facebook has certainly become a lot more Twitter-like over the years, particularly with its news feed feature, but Twitter has done little to become more Facebook-like. However, this week alone, Twitter has launched the new "follow" button which can already be seen right alongside the Facebook "like" button on many sites. It has also announced a new photo upload feature and search revamp to make results more relevant - both things Facebook offers.<br />
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There are way more people using Facebook than Twitter, but Twitter use is growing. A new report from Pew Internet finds that 13% of adult Internet users have used Twitter (up from 8% in November 2010), and that Twitter use is spreading to a wider range of ages. Those between the ages of 25 and 44 have experienced notable adoption growth since late 2010, though the younger the generation, it appears, the greater the adoption. <br />
Facebook and Twitter both serve as online IDs, providing log-in integration on numerous web properties, and ID is really what it's all about. Google wants to be the ID too, and former CEO Eric Schmidt has been talking about the company's shortcomings in this department this week. <br />
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Watch to see how the online ID and mobile payments elements of our lives merge in the future (an area where Google is making bold moves with Google Wallet). This is another potential area where Facebook and Twitter could clash down the line (again, putting aside the rest of the players for a minute). Facebook already has its Facebook Credits. But Twitter for payments? Well, there's already TwitPay (which Eric Schmidt has reportedly invested in). And let's not forget that the recently returned co-founder Jack Dorsey does also run Square (which recently unveiled a very interesting way of paying with its card case). Things are moving much quicker and more aggressively at Twitter since his return. They've already got the ID part. It doesn't sound out of the realm of possibility for Twitter to get into payments does it? <br />
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Facebook wants to be considered more of a journalist tool and resource for news in general. It certainly can be both, but the mainstream news media is sure all over Twitter (and Twitter is all over the mainstream media). Twitter, and its more public nature simply seems to attract more of the breaking news - not only from actual journalists, but from citizens. This is nothing new, but it's one area where Twitter has an edge over Facebook. <br />
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Twitter is also making more moves in the monetization area. In fact, just this week, the company acquired two thirds of the AdGrok team to add to its revenue engineering team. Ironically, the other third went to Facebook.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7966606574321091657.post-77405642694695379512011-05-11T11:23:00.001+02:002011-05-11T11:24:23.133+02:00Alt Tag Those Images...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWxHvtydTcuDM29KgClfVTMuuRTqHBV1Wh301zQBvFpk9S4m1qenebuWHvuR85bLh8md3hFjNixuxkAM36OBD9dVgiJum3yMjlqRU3hdAVHhcXXa0O9n1z9Ut5MaWjpfB-TSYcwuvysgpd/s1600/A+Pictures+Is+Worth+A+Thousand+Words+06.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWxHvtydTcuDM29KgClfVTMuuRTqHBV1Wh301zQBvFpk9S4m1qenebuWHvuR85bLh8md3hFjNixuxkAM36OBD9dVgiJum3yMjlqRU3hdAVHhcXXa0O9n1z9Ut5MaWjpfB-TSYcwuvysgpd/s320/A+Pictures+Is+Worth+A+Thousand+Words+06.JPG" width="244" /></a></div>Ever wonder how much meaningful traffic or links could come your way if you search-optimized your images? The answer might be, More than you'd expect. <br />
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Thanks to Google's universal search results, images can help you show up on the first page—or, in some cases, even at the top—of results lists. In the process, you can increase click-throughs, ad views, and AdSense impressions. Best of all, optimizing images could help you complete more leads.<br />
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Here are five ways to get your images to rank like a star:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Filenames.</span> Use "jpg" or "gif" files, and include keywords in the image file names.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">ALT Text.</span> Use ALT Text for its intended purpose; but wherever appropriate, also incorporate keywords as signals for the search engines.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Headings and Bold Text. </span>Optimize important images by using boldface or a heading tag with your targeted keyword, in the text immediately preceding the image.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Image Captions. </span>When possible, place the search term at the front of the caption.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Image Size.</span> For best results, use images that are larger than 100 x 100 and smaller than 1200 x 1200. Linking to a larger picture with thumbnails can also be helpful.<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Po!nt: </span>Don't overlook image optimization. By applying a few <a href="http://h2lonlinemarketing.co.za/search-engine-optimisation.php">SEO tactics</a>, you can actually make a picture worth a thousand words!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17733121989856075720noreply@blogger.com0