When developing a new website or redeveloping your current website you can save yourself a lot of time and money if your SEO consultant is involved from the start.  Involving an SEO consultant from the planning stages will ensure that your new website’s information architecture and content is properly optimised and user-friendly.  As a full-service agency, we find that clients who implement our recommendations in the development stages see results on search engines more quickly and easily that those who don’t.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when developing your website to ensure that it is SEO friendly.

Content architecture

Create an information map that indicates the various pages that are going to present on the website as well as the relationship between pages in terms of content, links, relevance and so forth.

Keyword strategy

Create a comprehensive keyword strategy.  Tools like Google’s Keyword Tool will help you identify lateral keywords and key-phrase combinations that can be used.

Web copywriting

When writing your website copy keep in mind that reading online differs from reading a book for instance, reading each line from left to right.  Instead, online readers tend to scan copy and have short attention spans.  Keep your copy short and to the point and bold the keywords that you want readers to pay attention too.  Remember to include clear calls-to-action within your website copy.

Flash

If possible, avoid full Flash pages.  Even though Flash websites are very attractive and interactive they are not search engine friendly.  If you want to include Flash pages on your website, consider including an HTML version too.

Test the speed of your website

There are various tools available to test the loading time of your website.  A fast-loading website is essential in order to retain visitors, if your website takes forever to load it is likely that visitors will click away from your website and find the information they are looking for elsewhere.

Lastly, check your website’s appearance in different browsers to ensure that it is compatible with at least the most well-known browsers.  Browsershots.org is a good tool to check if your website appears broken in certain browsers.  A website can be your most powerful sales and marketing tool so it is worthwhile to invest time and resources in its development and optimisation.

At the beginning of this month a media frenzy broke loose when Cell C announced that Trevor Noah was going to be their new ‘Customer Experience Officer (CEO)’.  The uproar was not because Trevor is famous and well-loved, but because of the way the campaign unfolded.  Here is a short overview of the campaign thus far and how it developed.

At the end of July, a recording of one of Trevor’s stand-up performances was uploaded to YouTube.  In the video, Trevor makes fun of all the South African mobile service providers, including Cell C.  Take a look for yourself.

The following Sunday (01 August 2010) an apology in the form of a full-page advert from Cell C’s CEO, Lars Reichelt, to Trevor appeared in the Sunday Times and Rapport.  The letter included the promise that Cell C is committed to ‘great customer service’ and that Cell C is ‘serious about turning things around’.

The following week Cell C held a press conference to reveal their new branding and announced that Trevor Noah was their new ‘CEO – Customer Experience Officer”  - and that the preceding events were staged, from the YouTube video to the apology in the Sunday papers.  They also announced that as part of their new campaign Cell C clients can visit www.telltrevor.co.za to tell Cell C how they can improve their service.  Some consumers felt that the campaign resembles astroturfing and that Cell C tried to ‘fool’ their clients.

Some call Cell C’s campaign a ‘stroke of marketing genius’ while others refuse to do business with Cell C again.  On the other hand it seems as if Cell C is determined to make a success of the Tell Trevor Campaign.

The campaign is aggressive, with radio, television, print and online channels being used.  Their Twitter profile seems fairly new but they are very active on it, and unlike Vodacom they don’t post generic responses to @ replies.  Cell C’s online reputation management campaign is on the ball, with responses from Lars Reichelt being the first comment on many of the articles (see the list of articles below).

Lessons that can be learnt from Cell C’s campaign:

• Don’t fool your clients or make fools of your customers. The truth will (eventually) come out
• Generally news spread fast via social media but bad news spreads like a wild-fire. If you want to pull off a risky campaign make sure that you have enough resources to respond to the questions, backlash, comments and tweets.

For me, in the end, it’s Cell C service delivery that matters.  As the saying goes ‘the proof is in the pudding’ and we’ll just have to wait and see if Cell C is going to deliver on the promises they have made through this campaign.

Read more about the Cell C campaign:

Analysis: Cell C, Trevor Noah and the cunning stunt that got everyone talking | The Daily Maverick

Cell C is preening its feathers | TimesLive.co.za

Cell C revamps | ITWeb.co.za

Noah-gate: Lessons learned from Cell C’s controversial ad campaign | Memeburn.com

Why do you think I’m stupid, Cell C? | Tech Leader

When a company buys ad space in a magazine, they’ll choose one targeted to the same demographic they want to sell their product to. The same rule applies to marketing in general – it’s most worthwhile to advertise your product to consumers who are likely to buy it. In traditional advertising, these categories are often quite general – for example, Clinique would advertise a line of anti-aging cosmetics in a magazine like Elle (since both are likely purchases for, say, women in their thirties). A particular woman reading Elle, though, may or may not actually be interested in buying high-end anti-aging products. As an individual, she might feel that she’s too young to need it, already have a loyalty to a different brand, not have extra money to spend, or just not be particularly concerned about her skin.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM), however, offers marketers a chance to narrow the demographic reach of their campaign to people who are interested in buying what they are selling right now (or very soon). For example, someone who is looking to buy high-end anti-aging cosmetics right now would Google “anti-aging products,” browse the first page or so of results, and likely make a purchase or find a retailer to visit after doing a small amount of online research.

For this reason, among others, the company’s ROI for the SEM portion of their marketing is likely to be higher. First, PPC and SEO involve marketing to a tailored audience of people who are likely to buy – they have, after all, expressed interest by searching for a relevant term. Second, SEO does not involve paying per impression (or approximate impressions), as buying ads generally does. Rather, designing and updating an optimised website is a long-term investment. Additionally, measuring ROI for SEM is much more straightforward (using analytics tools that measure traffic, clicks, conversions, etc.), whereas it can be rather ambiguous for traditional advertising.

However, traditional ads are valuable in terms of creating general brand awareness, especially for products that consumers are more likely to choose on the spot (for example, groceries or toiletries). On the other hand, though, for companies selling items that are more considered purchases (cars, insurance, specialty equipment, high-end items, etc.) or that consumers are likely to buy online (books, shoes, cosmetics, clothing, etc.), an SEM campaign is far more valuable. As a result, particularly in the case of small businesses with limited marketing funds, it makes sense to invest in SEM before worrying about purchasing traditional ads.  If you would like to know more about the possibilities and advantages of Search Engine Marketing, contact the AlterSage team.