SEO stands for search engine optimisation and is about optimising ones’ website to get it ranking on the first page of Google as well as other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo.

SEO assists your website in gaining more visibility on Google and other search engines. This aids in getting more exposure to your website. Also builds in credibility and authority on search engines. SEO is like the engine to your website.

SEO is not an exact science as Google changes its ranking algorithm a few times a month and does not notify anyone on what the actual changes are – we have to figure them out. The major changes are however released publicly but Google still does not notify us on how to optimize.

Search rankings are dependent on the Search Engines. They do not share their algorithms to the public so we use our experience in what works and what does not work to best get you to the top of your chosen keyword search page. Like we said, this is the wild west, and we are the guys laying down the railway.

We will first conduct a SEO audit on your website where we unpack the issues from a search engine’s perspective – this is done when sending you the SEO proposal.

We then conduct SEO analysis on Google as well as other search engines, and this includes keyword analysis, competitor analysis and trends. This process takes roughly about 40 – 80 hours (depending on the size of your website and the competitiveness of your industry).

Once the analysis is complete, we use the insights gathered to create the SEO strategy, which then gets implemented onto your website via onsite optimisation. We generally do not send a report for the SMME packages, but should you require one this can be arranged at an additional cost.

There is no magic wand. Just hard work. But once the foundations are solid, the sky is the limit.

Ranking on search engines takes up to 1 month. Getting to a decent page rank is at least 6 months. First page you are looking at a year at least. If someone promises sooner, you should be skeptical.

There are many factors that influence rankings such as:

• Domain legacy plays a large part, the older your website the more time Google has had to crawl it.
• How well made your website is currently made – This is our strength as we are web designers so we understand best practices.
• Does your website have a lot of current traffic
• Written content is what Google crawls for keywords. So an image based website over text will have to add written content (copy).
• Is your content relevant to what users are looking for?
• Duplicated content is not good for anyone.
• Websites that have been hacked or had viruses can be kicked off of search engines. SO website security is important.
• Hosting is a factor for speed and up-time. So choose your hosting wisely. Please consult us or advice before you even buy a URL.
• Mobile Responsiveness is essential in modern website design.
• If you are currently under the spell of a Dark SEO Wizard using black hat tricks. Prepare for the Google storm to rain down.

Firstly we need to see what is on going on. How your website is built and what level of care was taken in that. Once we access that we will create a plan of action and timeline to get things sorted.

A good SEO plan is always built around a solid website build. Each page must be tagged correctly, image size optimized. Page speed is essential to SEO so finding what is slowing down your site. This can take up to a month with a plan in action to sort out these back end issues before anything else can be done.

CONTENT IS KING – SEO companies that say they do not ask you to create a content plan are a warning sign. Google algorithm updates change certain aspect but the fundamental anchor to all things SEO is fresh, relevant content for your users. Blog posts are excellent at providing client education (what are your services used for, why yours are the best etc) which at the same time allows you to use keywords within these posts to let Google find your services. SEO, Public Relations and marketing are beginning to fall into a very similar category. Early adopters in this will see the benefits.

We ensure Google indexes every page of your website correctly per month. With around 6 hours needed for a ten page website. We will access which keywords users are placing into Google to find your website. With this information your marketing department is able to then access our proposed digital marketing plan to line up to your marketing and business plan. Pages that are indexing correctly will not be toyed with.

Offsite Optimization time varies. Wait, what is Offsite Optimisation?

Backlinks and Off-site SEO

Backlink creation is at the centre of offsite SEO.  Search engines see links from website almost a a currency. The more a site is shared, the better their content must be, so that is why it is important to keep content well written. A website with many high value backlinks (from reputable websites) will usually rank better than a website that has less or lower quality links.

There are three main backlink types, which are defined by how they were earned.

• Natural links are editorially given without any action on the part of a page owner. Such as a food blogger adding a link to his or her favourite item on your store. You just got linked to because your content was excellent. This is always a win.
• Manually built links, acquired through intentional link-building activities. This includes things like asking customers to link to your website or asking digital influencers to share your content. With many companies under our SEO umbrella that have websites with high quality scores, we are able to share content among a network of great company website.
• Self-created links, created by adding a backlink in  forums, directories, blog comment sections or even a press release that has anchor text palced into it.  THis is a dangerous area as spamming comment sections is seen as a black hat SEO tactic and that might put you in the Google naughty corner.

Firstly we enjoy discussing the process with our customers so that they are informed as to what it is we do. We sign minimum year contracts, not because we want to lock you into anything, but because in order for this to work we need to have buy in from you. We require content, information from your marketing team. Ideas to be shared and expanded upon. We are an outsourced department of your company that needs attention to succeed. And we have found that clients that want a quick fix or a 1 month SEO booster are not who we resonate with. Results take time, you can ask all of our successful clients and they would be happy to vouch for us. Its a partnership, and to be successful we need time with you.

To access your website we require website login details and hosting company details as well.

Traditional Methods

Our research into your brand and services will bring to the fore the main keywords in your industry that are being searched on a month to month basis. We look at trends over 6 – 8 months and will decipher which work for your brand.

We prefer to focus on at least 20 keywords and then long tail keywords (which are different in that they may not be exactly what you are offering but have a connection to your brand and are beneficial in the long run).

What we do differently

We like to control the narrative of a brand. A keyword plan will be created with your services in mind. Sometimes users don’t know what they are searching for, so we need to create the awareness and then own the Keyword. Our partnerships in PR assist us with this via editorials in online publications. Creating new buzzwords that we then have control over digitally and via search.

Yes, if your services are based in an area, ranking in another area is not worth it. So we choose to focus your SEO ranking in an inside out model. Start close to home and grow from there. If you aren’t ranking near your base of operations, it’s not a great start. Certain brands though require different strategies and even global strategies.

Do you know that if you type “Landscaping Services”into Google in Cape Town and then in Johannesburg, you will get two different sets of results. 

So yes geographical locations are important!