by Francois Muscat | Dec 13, 2019 | SEO
According to statistics, around 42% of South African internet users watch videos on their smartphones. It is no wonder why countless brands are turning to video marketing to really make a splash within the digital realm. While creating video content is one thing, the real challenge comes in when it is time to promote it. SEO for video marketing is different from SEO for regular content marketing. Here is what you need to know.
Focus on SEO for Your Website
Optimising a video for search is heavily dependent on the digital marketing authority of your website itself. Therefore, if your on-page and off-page SEO is great, there is a much higher chance that your video will rank better in search results.
Choose the Right Video Hosting Platform
The video hosting platform that you opt for should be decided based on what you wish to achieve with the video. For instance, if the goal is to promote brand awareness, you should consider YouTube or Vimeo. If you are striving to increase the number of visits to your website, then it is better to embed the video on your website itself. There are many alternative hosting platforms that allow for this.
Write a Transcript
Think about how many people may want to view your video but do not have their earphones handy. Also, Google is unable to ‘scrape’ content from videos effectively yet. Hence, the reason why it can be beneficial to include a transcript below the video. This will likely improve web page rankings and your video’s rankings all at once.
Need help with video marketing SEO? Here at WSI OMS, we specialise in all aspects of digital marketing including SEO, inbound marketing and social media marketing. Contact us now for more information on how we can assist you.
by Marianna Muscat | Dec 2, 2019 | PPC, SEO
Is your ultimate digital marketing goal to increase your reach when it comes to your local community? This is definitely a worthwhile objective as a focus on local search is known to boost conversions.
In order to master the art of targeting locals in your area, you will need to not only understand how the local search algorithm works, but you will also have to adjust your website’s SEO and PPC strategy accordingly. Here are the facts that you need to know.
Location
Ultimately, the biggest factor in Google’s local search algorithm is where your business is actually located. Scroll down to the bottom of a page on your website and it will often list a zip code that Google thinks you are in.
Reputation
Your local search rankings are certain to improve as your online reputation grows. The best way to boost this reputation is through your SEO efforts, such as creating authoritative content, engaging with your customers on social media, and ensuring that your website offers a magnificent user experience. The reviews that you receive online are also certain to make a difference.
Keywords
It can be very helpful to use your location as a keyword in any new content that you produce. This signals to Google that you are serious about pleasing your local customers. And, in so doing you are likely to appear more prominently in relevant Google searches by people residing in the area. A good rule of thumb is to include your location in your meta title/page title, meta description, as well as in the first and last paragraphs of your content.
Mastering the art of local search and content marketing is no easy feat, hence the reasons why countless businesses rely on the digital marketing experts at WSI OMS to do it for them. As a leading digital marketing agency with an international reputation, we are ready to help get your business noticed online! Contact us today for details.
by admin | Nov 30, 2019 | SEO
Voice search is a speech recognition application, which allows users to search by saying terms aloud instead of manually typing them into a search engine. Think Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.
The future of web search, namely voice search is foreseen to dominate 50% of all searches by 2020. So, how do you ensure that your content pulls through these voice searches and gains the traction it deserves? Here are a few simple tricks:
Create Content Which Keeps the Conversation Going
Instead of using random words, which are bound to produce a short list of results, ask a query or make a command that requires a response. ‘Alexa, where’s the best pizza place in my neighbourhood?’. ‘Siri, how many cards in a playing deck?’
Put Yourself in a Searcher’s Position
How do searchers ask questions? What are the words they would use out loud? Create clear and simple responses based on these questions to optimise your content for voice search.
Less Is More. So, Keep it Simple!
You can optimise more content by keeping things simple. Forget the jargon and use clear content to amplify your message. We are doing less typing and more talking, after all.
Cover Your Bases for Optimising All Types of Searches
Optimising existing content (with relevant search terms, familiar languages and searches) is a lot easier than creating all new voice-optimised content. The goal is to make sure that your content is optimised for all searches whether voice, mobile or desktop.
This doesn’t sound too hard, does it? ‘…Siri, how do you optimise content for voice search?’
Need help with your SEO or digital marketing? Then contact WSI OMS today.
by Marelise da Silva | Nov 25, 2019 | SEO
While SEO practices have a lot of commonalities across platforms, you also need to be conscious of the platform and devices from which your device is being accessed, and make some specific adjustments to your optimisation approach. Here are five key best practices to ensure that your site is optimised for mobile.
Optimise Your Site Design
Keep mobile at the top of your mind when designing your site and be sure to do the following:
- Use HTML5 instead of Flash. Many mobile devices don’t have the Flash plugin available, so users may not see the content you have created for them.
- Don’t use pop-ups. These can be annoying for users on all platforms, but they are easier to ignore on a desktop or notebook. On a mobile device, they could irritate your visitors and lead to a high bounce rate.
- Design with the touch screen in mind. Buttons that are too big or small can lead to accidental clicks.
Optimise Titles and Meta Descriptions
The same principles apply to titles and meta-descriptions whether you’re writing for mobile or not. However, with mobile in mind, you need to be even more concise. That doesn’t mean you choose brevity over content. Rather, you have to keep honing your ability to express the same message in the shortest possible way.
Choose Your Mobile Site Configuration Carefully
You need to make a call on whether responsive configuration, dynamic serving or separate site configuration is best for you. Responsive is the safe bet because Google favours it, but the search engine does support the other two as well. Here is a brief explanation in case you’re not sure of the difference:
- Responsive configuration uses CSS3 media queries to serve the same content to mobile and desktop users, using a flexible design that adapts to the user’s screen.
- Dynamic serving is essentially the opposite of responsive. It displays different content based on the user’s device. The set-up uses detecting user agents to determine what device is being used to access the URL and then serves the content that has been earmarked for use on that specific platform. This is a very useful tool for segmenting your client base.
- The separate site approach entails the creation of a parallel site for mobile users.
Watch Your Page Speed
This is one of the most important things to perfect – if you want to make sure that users stay on your site. Minify code, leverage browser caching to speed up load times, reduce redirects and optimise images.
Don’t Block Anything
There was a tendency in the past among web designers to block CSS and Javascript because mobile devices couldn’t support them. Images were often blocked too. Nowadays, this is not necessary and you don’t want visitors to miss out on any content as a result of those blocks. These elements are also necessary to enable Google to recognise and categorise your website and to determine whether your site is responsive, dynamic or has a separate URL for mobile users.
WSI OMS stays on top of all the SEO trends to keep websites coming out on top of the SERPs. Contact us for help with your SEO strategies, whether for desktop or mobile.
by Marelise da Silva | Oct 24, 2019 | SEO
Everyone wants to rank number one on Google, which is exactly why everyone cannot rank number one. That’s where SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) comes into play.
A keyword doesn’t need to be a single word. For example, when a user searches for ‘WordPress themes’, he may be expecting a search engine to display various perspectives of WordPress themes, such as: What is a WordPress theme?, From where can I download it?, How to install it or upload it to a website? or How to design WordPress themes? As you can see, there are multiple things that are covered in the broad keyword phrase of ‘WordPress themes’.
The shorter the keyword, the broader the range of results will be. In other words, shorter keywords are typed into Google much more often and are, therefore, more competitive.
Let’s look at the next example, which is the following keyword phrase: ‘WordPress themes for a blog’. This is a somewhat lengthy or long-tail keyword, but it is too specific or narrow in terms of ‘meaning’. This lengthy keyword tells a search engine that the user needs ‘WordPress themes for a blog’ and not for a ‘portfolio site’ or not for some ‘news website’ or ‘review website’.
A very long-tail keywords phrase would be ‘Free responsive WordPress themes for blog’. This is too specific or very narrow in terms of targeting the audience.
These three different search phrases show you exactly why long-tail keywords are critical to your SEO campaign if you are looking for highly targeted traffic. When you search for ‘WordPress themes’, you will get a lot of unrelated results compared to when you search for ‘free responsive WordPress themes for a blog’. If your company is trying to market free responsible WordPress themes for a blog, then your content should be SEO’d to reflect this.
Need help with your SEO, content marketing or link building strategy? Then contact WSI OMS today.
by Francois Muscat | Oct 23, 2019 | SEO
SEO efforts have largely been concentrated on Google – and with good reason. The search engine has exerted a nearly unshakeable dominance for a long time, and its grasp on the lion’s share of the market doesn’t seem likely to loosen soon.
However, over the past year or so, other search platforms have started to increase their share of the world’s searches. According to 2016 figures, Google still holds over 60% of the market. Bing comes in second with around 33,5%. In the specialised area of product searches, Google faces a very real threat in the form of Amazon. According to the same research, a third of online shoppers go directly to Amazon to find their products, rather than starting with Google. In 2016 alone, Amazon product searches saw a 73% growth. In the years since then, the online retailer’s growth has continued.
Apple has also thrown its hat into the ring, and continues to increase its strength in the fight, despite its market share being considerably lower and more niche. Then there’s also Facebook and WhatsApp to consider.
Google still dominates the search engine market. But, what do these very credible challengers for the crown mean to us as SEO marketers? The short answer is that it may be worth taking them into account with your SEO strategies, and leveraging the smaller, more targeted audiences of these engines to achieve your marketing aims. Here are some key points to work into your strategy:
- The algorithms that operate Bing (as well as other search engines like them) are not as complex as those of Google, which means they require a little more work. However, if you put in the extra effort, you can build your rankings quite nicely. You need to be both more targeted and more specific, but this will quickly move you upwards in the rankings.
- Google does not take meta keywords into account for its rankings. Other search engines still do. This means that if you include relevant keywords, along with all the combinations of synonyms and misspellings that could lead to your site, you can work your way manually to the top of the rankings. Your efforts in this area could distinguish you from your competition.
- Google uses Latent Semantic Indexing to rank web pages. This allows you to hit the SEO marks without always having to use the exact keywords on your page. With Bing and the like, you need to be more specific and accurate with your choice of on-page keywords. Always place the keyword in both the h1 and h2 headings and write strong meta descriptions that also include the precise keywords you have chosen.
- DuckDuckGo is an increasingly popular search engine due to its emphasis on user privacy. To build your presence on this platform, you need to focus on strong link building. Also, link back, as often as possible, to high-quality sources with a high trust and recognition factor. Wikipedia is one example of a source that has DuckDuckGo’s trust.
- Google does not like flash websites – those built with Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). This means that content from these websites does not get indexed on Google. Bing is absolutely fine with these websites, however, which means you won’t get sidelined if your site(s) makes use of RIAs. However, your primary RIA data still needs to be readable to make a difference to your rankings, so you may want to include a text-based description to help the bot out.
So, why would you want to go to all this trouble when Google is bigger and faster? Well, no investor ever puts all their money into a single fund. They offset risk and facilitate growth by diversifying their portfolios. Doing the same with your SEO strategy could reap dividends too. Particular sectors and niches can be targeted more precisely and narrowly on search engines such as Bing, which would enable you to reach more of the right audience for your business. Industries that can be targeted especially well through Bing include education, telecommunications, business and finance as well as travel and retail.
While Google will almost always help get more traffic, other search engines might just bring you better traffic, depending on your business and target market. Why not give them a try?
WSI OMS are experts in SEO. Contact us to discuss your SEO strategies, and how you can perfect and future-proof them.
