Index

1. Introduction `2. Understanding some basics and SEO 3. Website Copy writing 4. Google’s free resources 5. Choosing the right web design company and software 6. Committing as well as managing your time 7. Alternative ways to market your website 8. Social Media Marketing 9. Other technical factors 10. Measure , adjust and repeat 11. Google and other advertising expenses 12. What to expect during and after 2015?

Contact details:

www.buddywebdesign.co.za

Francois Marais – 074 547 0221francois@kwikwap.co.za

Melanie Schoeman – 076 847 0492melanie@kwikwap.co.za

Kevin Fossey – 0834414660

2015

Small and Medium Business Websites – A Short Guide by Buddy Web Design

www.facebook.com/buddywebdesignwww.twitter.com/design_buddy

1. Introduction

In this short guide we discuss business websites for small and medium businesses, especially those in South Africa. It is necessary to make this distinction because the meaning of the term "small and medium "differs substantially when comparing businesses in South Africa with overseas businesses. The best available resources on the internet are mostly targeted at larger businesses, which employ skilled in-house webmasters.

This guide is designed for the small and medium businesses in South Africa, however it is not our intention to impress highly skilled web developers and programmers. We intend the information in this guide to be useful to small and medium business owners. These owners rely on a skilled web design company that addresses the more technical aspects like architecture and website design.

In this guide we explain, "that there is a fine balance between covering the most important aspects and the time available to read through a guide of this nature".

Every business person has to consider, that time and money are scarce resources. For many businesses it is expensive to obtain their own website. In many cases the return on investment is almost zero. Why do some websites do well on the internet and others do not? Should one rather advertise in online directories like the Yellow Pages or should a small business solely make use of Social Media like Facebook?

Later on we discuss these problems and questions. We also want to point out, that the internet presents many opportunities for small businesses. Major topics of this guide are to explain to you how Search Engines like Google and how social media platforms like Facebook function and most importantly how this affects the small business owner. How Search Engines like Google function and how Social Media platforms like Facebook operate and what this means for the small business owner are some of the key topics of this guide.

The cost of getting a website has decreased with technological improvement over the years. A whole new world awaits those business owners who are willing to get a website and to invest a bit of their precious time to market their business the right way through the Internet. The question is where to spend the most time on in order to cover the most important basics.

Choosing a good web design company is definitely one of the most important steps in becoming successful on the internet.

Even the best web design companies rely on their clients to provide the majority content, which is the key to having a great website. Content refers to the information which makes up the body of a website. For most small and medium businesses in South Africa this is where their focus should be.

This guide focusses on website content, as it is the key to success.

Back to top

2. Understanding some basics of websites and SEO

People use search engines like Google to find information about products and services on the internet. Search engines like Google are electronic librarians providing information they believe will be the most useful to their users as well as their clients. Alongside the search results, the search engines will also display the companies that advertise with them. These librarians are therefore opportunistic as well.

A website is a collection of individual web pages. These pages would typically be a Home Page, an About Us page, Products and Services pages, Frequently Asked Questions, Newsletter/Blog, References and Photo Galleries, as well as Contact Us.

Web pages and websites are made by web designers. Once the website has been designed and signed off by the client a web address will be registered e.g. Our company web address is www.buddywebdesign.co.za . A website address is also called an URL or Uniform Resource Locator. The individual web pages which make up a website each have their own unique URL/ address.

Search engines are websites such as Yahoo, Google and Bing that offer specific information about products and services. Google is by far the most popular search engine on the internet. It is hard to imagine a world without Google, a verb, which has been included in dictionaries. Even more astounding is the fact, that Google was only established in 1998 and already has a market capitalisation of 378 Billion US Dollars!

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a writing tool that provides you with better rankings on the internet. Search Engine Optimisation is a fast evolving industry on its own .People specialising in the industry are called SEO experts.

Google can only present pages in their search results, which have been indexed by them. A librarian can also only present you with the books, which have been indexed by the library. There are more than 200 factors that make Google decide, which website to show in its search results. These factors are also called algorithms. In this book we focus on the areas, where business owners generally have control and which have the biggest impact on search results.

Google determines what page rank of each website is, by considering the quantity and the quality of the websites, that are linking to a specific website. You could say that a link is a recommendation from one website to another. Link building was for years seen as the most effective SEO tool available and a lot of SEO services were actually link building services. Google introduced a major algorithms update called Penguin, which seeks to penalise websites that have a high number of unnatural or low quality websites linking to Google. Suddenly the same companies, which offered link building schemes were now selling link removal services!

Why did Google introduce these "penalties"? Because Google wants to offer their users the best search results and these websites were playing the algorithmics of Google instead of focussing on quality content of their websites, which Google requires.

Google makes money by selling advertisements, appearing next to the best search results. The Google Ad Words programme sells a specific word or term to the highest bidder, who in return receives the best display results. You can select your daily budget and your bid for each keyword or

search term. Google needs to continue providing accurate search results in order to ensure returning clients.

Some of the more important general questions Google will ask when returning search results include:

How many times does this page contain a Keyword? Is the Keyword in the title? Is the Keyword adjacent to the title? Is the Keyword in the URL? Does this page contain synonyms for the Keywords? Is the page from a quality website or is the page low quality or even spammy of nature? How old is the web page? What is the page’s page rank – how many outside links point to it?

Some of the most common and important mistakes business website owners make include :

Not having a website Not including the right words (words people use when searching) Not including those right words, so search engines cannot find them. Embedding important words in images or flash, which search engines can read, but that

require too much processing power and therefore get ignored. Not making use of Google's free resources like "Google My Business "and "Google

Webmaster Tools". Not linking your "Google +"and "Google My Business" and Facebook pages to your website,

by adding your website's URL. Over-relying on search engines to market your website. having a website which is not "mobile friendly". Google plans to start penalizing websites

which are not mobile friendly from the 21st of April 2015.

Please note:

Reference is made to keyword a couple of times. Be careful not to try and fool search engines by keyword stuffing or by spamming. You are not writing for search engines but for humans, who will find keyword stuffing or spamming irritating and they will disregard your website. That is if Google does not penalize you first.

Back to top

3. Website Copy writing

On site SEO refers to the process of optimising your website's content and off site SEO will refer to practises such as getting quality websites to link to your website. Google wants business owners to focus on quality content so that other websites naturally link to their websites and not get involved in link building practises, which try to manipulate the way Google operates.

Website Copy writing is perhaps the most important tool available for white hat SEO. White Hat SEO is acceptable SEO where black hat SEO such as unnatural link building is unacceptable. Google

constantly fight against spam and black hat SEO. Another illegal practice, why you could be removed from Google's index, is by hiding website text. (Where text is the same colour as the background of the website and is not readable by the human eye but is readable by search engines.) Another practise frowned upon is keyword stuffing where keywords are stuffed on website pages without it making sense.

CMS refers to Content Management System. Business Owners who have access to manage the content of their own websites have a distinct advantage over website owners who have to rely of their webmasters to make changes for them. Simply because of the time it usually takes for a webmaster to add your content and the cost involved to get a highly skilled programmer to do the basic work for you.

Google investigates the freshness of content on websites to help them decide how relevant a website may or may not be. Fresh content could be a weekly or monthly blog/newsletter. You could also continue to list examples of your latest work and clients or add your weekly special or a new product or service.

When considering Website Copy writing it is important to consider the following basics:

Headings are important. Any page on your website can be indexed. All of your websites' web pages headings should carefully be considered.

Introductory paragraphs of your important pages are important. Your website’s home page and about us page are some of the more important pages of your website. Start off and be to the point. You can share your vision and mission and fancy English further down the page. An example would be: “Buddy Web Design designs websites for clients in Cape Town. Our offices are in Glencairn in the Southern Suburbs”

Instead of having hundreds of photographs on your website, rather have fewer photographs but describe each photograph. It is an easy way to talk in a natural manner about your business. It does help to save your photographs with an Alt tag.

A romantic writer might not be the best person to employ to do website copy writing. A person who understands the basics of how a search engine operates, would be a better option.

The best person to do the copy writing is normally the business owner, but if the business owner lacks the skill, time or confidence, then it’s time to seek the services of a website copywriter.

Do not assume that people who visit your website have a basic knowledge of your specialist field. You can describe some of the most basics and it will be appreciated by some viewers. Others , which have that basic knowledge will simply skip to the more advanced sections.

Back to top

4. Google’s free resources

Google's G mail is a very popular service for many small and medium business owners. It is quick and easy to view your emails no matter where you are on what device you are working from. It enables you to search for important emails that go back years, by using the search function. You can trace emails in that way, on condition that you are not using the labelling system that organises your emails. This free service provides Google with yet another platform, where they can display their advertisements. Some of our clients from Google Ad Word campaigns told us that they saw our details, while reading emails from other web designers they had approached for quotes for web site design services. Here are some of Googles' other free resources, which you have to consider:

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmasters offers tools for website owners to see how Google sees their websites. By using Google Webmasters you eliminate guess work and you can have a clear understanding on how your website is performing on a variety of search terms. You should submit your new websites site map to Google using Google Webmasters. When the content of your website has drastically changed you can ask the Google Robots to index your website, which you need to do if you want to meet Google's quality guidelines.

Google my business

Google My Business is a free Google service for businesses to list their details and appear across all search results including Google Map searches. It is a mini website, which the average person can populate within a few minutes. It does benefit your website's SEO to have a Google my business listing, by linking your "Google My Business "page to your website. Google verifies these listings by either "My Phone "or by posting a postcard with a verification code to the specified business address.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides some fascinating insights into how people behave on your website, their demographics, whether they are first time visitors or recurring, from which countries they originate, the number of pages visited by session, whether they entered your websites URL or whether they found your website via search engines, the devices and even the operating system used to browse your website. The information can even be provided in real time.

Back to top

5. Choosing the right web design company and software.

By choosing the right web-design company and software from the beginning, you can win half the battle of marketing your business on the internet. Here are some of the questions to ask:

Can you show me some examples of websites that you have designed and that are doing well in search results? (Get an idea of the price of each example shown.)

How quickly can my website be up and running? How long have you been in business? Can you provide me with a list of references? Will you come and visit me in person and offer training on site?

Will I be able to easily manage the website's content myself? What does it take to master the CMS? Do I get unlimited pages? What company back up and technical support can I expect? What contingency plans are available, if you stop doing websites? Are your designs responsive and with a neat display on most services? How expensive will it be to add shopping cards and payment gateways? How expensive will it be to change the look and feel of a website if I want a fresher look? How much do you charge for updates? Can I expect a demo website before making a financial commitment? Do we get a free email and SMS system included? Will my website SMS or email me when someone interacts with the website and enquires

about my products and services?

Back to top

6. You need to commit and manage your time well

Small and medium business owners need to spend time on their websites, either by doing it themselves or by hiring someone to do it for them. You still need to provide the website copywriter with information about your business. Explain what makes your business unique, provide your list of satisfied clients and their testimonials as well as a list of frequently asked questions and answers, etc. No one can write about your business and highlight that, which sets your business apart from the competition, without having the inside knowledge first.

Getting good results via search engines is not something which happens overnight and it is something that regularly requires and asks for permanent input. At the very minimum a monthly newsletter/blog or adding photographs, with text, of new projects need to be added to the website. Your competition is aiming for your clients as well and once they have an edge on search engines, it is difficult to beat them. Google does not condone duplicate content. Copying from other websites will result in a penalty and your website could even be removed completely from Google's index.

It is a good idea to spend time researching the websites of your competition and to see what information and sections they have on their websites. In doing so you have a realistic benchmark of what you need to change in order to appear at the same level or even higher than them on search results.

It is important to know how much you are benefiting from SEO (Free traffic via search engines) . Before you over spend time on "on site SEO exercises, (Website Content Development), you need to explore, what you can gain, if you spend that same time on improving your website's content. Certain industries like web design and tourism are so competitive, that you can literally write books of information and add it to your website and still not get the return you expect. In the web design industry we believe this is largely because Google has not cleaned itself of unnatural link building schemes yet. Google is busy fixing this problem and it will be solved eventually. In the tourism industry one is often forced to join the popular directories like Safari Now or Where To Stay, because these 2 websites occupy page 1 and 2 of the search results. These companies have professional

website copy writers in full time employment. a small or medium business owner will often be better off to join these companies, instead of having to write books of information to add to his or her website. One must realise how important a good and informative website and SEO are, but at the same time one must also consider the limits and the costs (your time ) of SEO. The solution to this problem is to find a balance between the two.

When spending time on the content of your website, and by using Google Webmaster Tools, you will be able to witness the gains thereof rather quickly. This will help you to adjust future efforts accordingly.

In the following sections we deal with alternative ways to market your business website. We also discuss which Social Media can be used to market your business .Due to all of these activities being very time consuming, we believe one should firstly spend enough time to make sure you website basics are well in place.

Back to top

7. Alternative ways to market your website

Besides search engines there are numerous ways to market your website:

Business Cards and Company Stationery Sharing on Face book groups. On line directories like Yellow pages, Safari now Vehicle signage Newspaper and magazine adverts (Both print and on line) Shop signage Email Signatures SMS to potential clients Promotional Items like T Shirts, Mugs and Fridge Magnets handed out to clients Talk with the Media, maybe get time on the radio You can join the Google Ad Words campaign

Back to top

8. Social Media Marketing

Social media Marketing includes social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linked In and Instagram. The most popular one is Facebook. Although we have obtained business from our Facebook activities ourselves, we still believe that time and money should first be invested in your website, before paying a social media expert to handle your social media profiles.

We do not oppose social media Marketing but we experience far too many examples, where the costs of social media activities exceed their benefits. There are some exceptions to these rules. Especially celebrities, sport stars and people in fashion and modelling industries as well as photographers. Maybe you will love social media and you will already be using it, but if you are considering using social media to market your business, than you will probably end up paying

someone to do it for you or even delegate it to one of your employees with a potential negative outcome.

We have recently seen a negative comment on a Facebook page of a Cape Town restaurant, not being attended to for months by the business owner's wife. In this case their Facebook page produced negative consequences.

The cheapest fees we have come across for social media management start at R 500 per month. These are entry level fees and you can expect to receive what you pay for. We would prefer to see small and medium business owners invest in website copy writing, professional graphics and photographs, before spending money on social media marketing.

You will basically be paying someone to be you on these social media platforms. This does not make sense for small and medium business owners. I leave an open invitation for social media marketing experts to supply me with examples of success stories.

Advertising with Twitter and Facebook is a completely different issue, but it is not discussed further in this short guide. We will only concentrate on the most popular platform, Facebook, in a little more detail:

Facebook can be a great opportunity to obtain new clients or to have a presence on the internet, but it should always compliment your business website. Facebook offers free tools like business pages, groups and individual profiles. People voluntarily disclose a lot of their personal information such as employment status, gender, marital status, places they visited as well as were they reside. This allows Facebook to have their advertisers to market towards these specific demographics.

Clever Facebook marketing can get you some free mileage even if it is through your personal Facebook profile. Facebook needs to generate advertising revenue and they actively encourage business page owners to boost their posts by paying them. Even if you can manage to get 10,000 likes for your business page, will Facebook still decide in how many of these likes your business page's post is shown.

On the down side your posts can be displayed over and over again to the same audience. Some people have started very successful community Facebook pages that focus on specific areas of interest or geographical areas. A lot of business leads can be gathered but usually these leads are controlled and guarded by the initial founders and administrators of these pages.

Individual profiles are not indexed the same way as Google indexes websites. It is always better to add information onto your website before sharing it on Facebook as the work you do on your website may be indexed by Google for your benefit for years to come.

You are automatically increasing your website's SEO, by having an active Facebook page that links to your business website.

On some community pages people ask for references of specific industry experts. I often smile when I can share one of my clients website’s as opposed to other people only being able to supply a name and telephone number.

The time and depth of involvement one should exercise on Facebook marketing depends on a number of factors e.g.:

Will people mind being tagged in your companies photographs e.g. a local nightclub or restaurant can offer prizes for people tagging themselves in photographs of social evenings.

Whether you enjoy spending time on Facebook. The type of industry in which you operate. How interesting your work is. EG. a nature photographer should get a lot of mileage by

sharing some of his work on Facebook where a dentist might receive substantially less Will you benefit by advertising to certain preselected demographics at a price?

Back to top

9. Other technical factors

We purposefully intended to write a short guide and we hope we have covered the most important basics. We discussed the factors, relevant to a small and medium business owner in the sense that he or she can have control over them. Our guide is aimed at the South African business sector. The overseas countries have a vastly different business system, especially when considering their size of economies, markets and businesses, operating in these environments.

We are supported by a highly skilled technical company, which has developed the World's Easiest Web Design software. There are a lot of factors which are automatically taken care of when using the Kwikwap Software.

This means that the business owner can now become an active partner in the website’s SEO. The business owner actually has become the most important partner when it comes to SEO.

Your website will only be as good as the content it contains.

People are not interested in the mechanics of a Television set or a DVD machine. They want to plug it in and expect it to work. This is what people expect from improved technology. People expect the same when it comes to websites. Unfortunately the one ingredient, that is good quality content, cannot simply be plugged in.

Back to content

10. Measure, adjust and repeat

Having a business website and using it to market your products and services should be viewed as an ongoing process which is why it is vital that you are able to measure actual results and act accordingly.

You need to understand Google Webmaster Tools and maybe even Google Analytics. You can also test your own websites presence on the internet by using your computer to search for search terms you would like to be found for. Please remember that your search results can be influenced by your computers cache (memory of websites visited frequently) as well as your Google+ circles.

If search engines do not mention you, keep on studying the websites of your competition and see where you can do better than them, especially when it comes to the quality of information on their websites. It could be that you should consider the number of websites linking to your website in comparison with your competition. Be careful with unnatural link building. We are still expecting some industries to be cleared of unnatural link building schemes.

Please realise that it takes between 1 and 6 weeks for search engines to index new content, which has been added to your website.

By diligently adding new and relevant content to your website, you should see an increase in your website traffic in time. It also should happen that other companies naturally start linking to your website, which could increase your page rank as well as your number of website visitors.

When your website is generating new business, it should become part of your activities to improve your website's content and to monitor the results by using Google's free tools, on a permanent basis. Be careful not to spend too much time on SEO related activities, if operating in an extremely tough competitive environment.

Back to top

11. Google and other advertising expenses.

We have mentioned before, that time means money. That’s why we have to ask how much time and money should be spent on your website. After all, for most businesses these costs are simply advertising costs.

The scenarios vary considerably from one industry to another. If you are serving a niche market or a captive market or if you are the only supplier of a special product or service then you will easily do well with your own website and you will not need to worry too much about competition or advertising with Google. If however you are a guest house in Simons' Town, where there are 60 other guest houses, you will have to consider a whole different strategy. Maybe you can just get the website as pretty and converting as possible and forget about spending several weeks to boost ranking and receive more organic search. You might be much better off if you advertise with Google or other directories like Safari Now or Where To Stay.

All businesses should consider advertising with Google. Chances are your competition might already be advertising with Google. If they are doing it shouldn’t you consider it too? What’s great about Google advertising is that your website is presented at the same time, when a potential customer is considering to buy.

You should also consider advertising on Facebook.

Your time is your money and you should consider spending more time on your website in order to get more website visitors.

How much should you spend? This applies to time and money.

We very often receive that question. The answer is not so simple. When you advertise with Google or on Facebook or when you spend time on your website or if you are combining all of the above,

you will receive income, which would not have existed otherwise. Those people, who respect that very principle will also understand, that they need to re-invest some of this additional income in their advertising expenditure in order to generate more income.

You should try and calculate what your gross profit per client is and then try and measure the cost of getting the client to visit your website and buy. These figures will tell you how much money you should spend on advertising as well as how much time you should spend on your website.

Gross profit is calculated by subtracting your direct expenses from your income, generated from a sales transaction. This calculation will give you your gross profit percentage. If you are not able to do these calculations your accountant might be able to assist. The answer to this question should be a calculated financial answer.

It is also important to note, that when you are attracting new clients you are simultaneously adding goodwill to your business. Goodwill is an intangible asset, which can be included in the selling price of your business, should you decide to sell.

Any new business should budget a large amount for advertising.

These expenses might seem very high, but one must bear in mind, that they are actually investments, made into your future success.

Back to top

12. What can be expected during and after 2015?

Websites which are not mobile friendly can expect to be penalised in favour of websites who are mobile friendly from the 21st of April 2015. The growth of the mobile internet industry in South Africa has widely exceeded most of the expectations and it is rated to become the biggest growing segment. Nowadays anybody can access the internet via a smart phone, tablet or I Pad. For this very reason has Google decided to favour websites, which have been adapted for viewing on these devices. It is advisable to have a look at your own website, when using these devices. Failing to do so, will lead to more potential business loss as well as search engine penalties.

On the design front, trending designs are newcomers. They have been designed to scroll more easily by touch screens. It is expected that they will stay on the market permanently.

It is expected of Google, to get rid of spam and black hat SEO, like unnatural link building. A lot of these practises are still abounding. Google representatives have advised people not to partake in any link building schemes during live webinars, but rather to focus on quality content instead. How Google will suddenly ignore one of their most important indicators and rely on self-determining the quality of content on websites is another question. The days of artificial intelligence are here. It can reasonably be expected that search engines will get much better at judging quality content using their ever improving technology.

Back to top