JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
Newsletter / Blog


2014-08-31
SEO Information / News


You are subscribed to our monthly newsletter because of our recent interaction regarding our web design services. If you are no longer in the market for a website then please unsubscribe using the unsubscribe link found at the bottom of this email.

We are pleased that Spring is around the corner and have just enjoyed a lovely weekend in Cape Town.

New at Google

Google uses about 200 questions or algorithms when determining which pages to present when people do Google searches. These algorithms are subject to between 500 and 600 changes per year. Quite often these changes are small but at times there are major changes and these major changes are then given a name. July saw such a major change. Google itself did not give it a name but leading SEO industry experts named the change Pigeon.

The industry itself is still trying to figure out exactly what these changes entail and how it affects websites presence on the internet.

Some of the major changes we have noticed are:

Backlinks - a "return" to the importance of high quality backlinks. (The return is part where the name for the recent update comes from.)

Importance of local - Having a Google + Page and a listing on Google Maps is becoming more and more important. (Remember to have backlinks to your website.)

Directories benefiting - It seems as if the latest change has seen directories doing better on search engines.

What website owners should consider?

Francois has written a book and created a website on the topic of SEO for small and medium business owners. The book and website can be found at www.seobook.co.za . Well as I am writing this months newsletter I am reminded by the saying " the more things changes the more things stay the same " . Website owners should primarily be focused on the quality of the content of their websites. The better the content of your website, the more likely good quality websites will link to your website.

But having said that it seems that now would also be a good time to register your business with Google Places , now called Google my business and to start developing your Google+ page. It takes time to get use to a "new" social network and with Facebook already taking up so much time of a lot of small and medium business website owners Google+ has been slow to take off but this may be an opportunity to do things right. Use social media for the purposes which they were intended. Google+ being more business orientated.

It could also be wise to buy links on directory type websites such as Yellow Pages or Where to Stay or even Gumtree. All these links are signals to Google that they are dealing with a bonafide business.

Another change which have been noticed is that Google is picking up a lot more information from Facebook Pages (Business Pages). (Not so much on individual profiles). Google does not want to infringe on the privacy rights of individuals but businesses and Facebook business pages are fair game it seems. Also noticeable is the return of entries of listings in free mega directories like Gumtree. It  seems like Google is getting it right to provide fresher and more relevant content to it's users by including these results. We have seen ourselves that our business facebook page's status updates are included in search results.

Google Advertising - Future of search engines (SEO)

We ourselves invested R3,000 last month by advertising with Google. If you are disciplined and you realise that you are getting business which you would never have had in the first place the first income from such sales should be reinvested with your Google Ads account. That means that you only once invest your own money with Google Ads. Advertising should be understood as a variable expense. The more you advertise the higher your turnover will be, provided you have an attractive and conversive website. We will continue advertising with Google.

As more and more people get onto the net the competition for page 1 exposure on Google will intensify. More and more people are having access to user friendly CMS (Content Management Systems) websites. The battle for page 1 of Google is shifting to having the best informative website. The fierceness of the battle depends on the competitiveness of the industry you operate in.

Buddy Web Design's role

It is our life's mission to help you succeed. We continously and actively monitor our own and our clients websites in terms of performance on search engines. It is in our best interest to do so. The more successful our clients the less likely they will join other service providers and the more likely they will refer business to us. But having said that it is often a case of taking a horse to the water and waiting for the horse to drink. All is not lost for lazy website owners. By getting at least a basic website you are correcting one the worst SEO mistakes, that of not having a website at all.

We are backed by skilled graphic designers and CSS Stylesheet specialist so we rest assured that we can deliver on a professional looking website. We are also backed by a skilled technical team at Kwikwap which is why we focus so strongly on helping our clients understand search engines and helping them to actively ad content to their websites. Time is often the most limiting factor but small and medium business owners need to remember that a website can actually save them time.