Forget Twitter, soon everyone will be “Yammering”. Yammer is the new networking site for companies. Through private, internal communication, staff in an organization can keep in touch with one another. Pre-designated groups can also be formed to enable group conversations.

This micro- blogging service was launched in September 2008 and is unlike Twitter as messages are not available for public display. Over 70 000 companies use Yammer as a way to communicate. Only those with appropriate email addresses may join the respective networks. In February 2010 Yammer launched “communities”. This allows businesses to communicate with other groups such as clients, partners or suppliers.

The idea behind Yammer is to ensure that people inside a company know at all times what each person in the organization are working on. The founder of Yammer, PayPal’s COO, David O. Sacks, has created a platform upon which companies can improve internal communications. Research has found that people prefer short snippets of information rather than longer conversations. When information is documented it also makes it easier to refer back to points that otherwise may have been missed in a face to face conversation.

Yammer is certainly less invasive than instant messaging and does not require the effort and time that emailing involves. In fact this networking site finds itself in between the two, making it perfect and convenient for business purposes. It is less time consuming to check your Yammer account throughout the day when it suits you. Being bombarded with instant messages however is distracting and can become a nuisance.

Yammer allows for management to keep up to date with work that is completed or still being worked on. This helps to understand the progress that their business is making. It also means that fewer meetings need to be held because everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

With social networking evolving like it has over the last few years, it only makes sense that something like Yammer be created to assist the corporate world. We have all become accustomed to the terms “Facebooking” or “Twittering”. Soon enough companies all over the world will be “Yammering” each other information back and forth.

To find out more about Yammer or to sign up to Yammer, visit www.yammer.com

Popularity: 2% [?]

Landing Page Optimisation

One of the most critical factors in determining how many of your visitors will convert into sales or leads depends on the design and layout of your page and site as a whole. Without a well planned and thought out structure, you may as well throw your money down the drain. Landing Page Optimisation or LPO is a procedure within Search Engine Optimisation that aims at increasing conversions by analysing  and modifying existing key pages.

Relevant Content

Make sure that the link that the user clicked to get to the page is directly relevant to the content that is on the landing page. In other words, if your link is “Mozambique Honeymoon Specials”, make sure that you have got Mozambique Honeymoon specials on that page. Try keep word count on the page below to below three hundred as you don’t want the user to worry about what he/she is missing if they are going to skip reading the content.

Highlight important phrases and words

As many of the users will only scan the content on the page you need to make sure that certain keywords and phrases stand out from the rest of the words.

“Call to actions”

Once your user lands on the page, your goal is to convert the user into a potential sale or lead. By adding “call to actions” you are allowing the user to accomplish this. Make sure your call to actions stand out from everything else. Ensure using bright colours and enticing copy to attract the user to fill out the form or click the link.

Keep it simple

You want your user to instinctively know what to do next on the page. Keeping everything simple and minimalistic is the best way to avoid making the visitor think about what to do next.  Removing the navigation links (except the home link) will ensure you stop the user from wandering off. Make sure you remove other advertisements, distracting images and irrelevant text from the landing page.

Test, test and test again.

Create different versions of your landing page (eg. product.html, product1.html, product2.html) and run these through Google’s Website Optimizer. This will enable you to further optimize your landing pages by identifying which version of the page is converting more visitors. Once you have identified a version that is performing the best, start the whole process again. Landing page optimisation is all about experimenting with and analysing how users interact with your landing pages.

Popularity: 10% [?]

By definition LSI is an indexing and retrieval method that makes use of a certain mathematical technique known as the Singular Value Decomposition.

The theory behind LSI, however, is not of importance to us. All we need to know is how LSI works. LSI considers other, somewhat related , words on your site with regards to ranking. In other words, excuse the pun, words taken from sites considered to be “authority sites” are set aside in a database that Google references when determining how to rank that page on your site.

Hints and Tips for using LSI to your advantage

Firstly you need to work out what your hot topic words are.

You can do this using Quintura (www.quintura.com), Adwords broad-match keyword matching, Google’s new Wonder Wheel, use the Google Synonym Tool, or watch some of the little-known Google Tech Talks where they show their internal related keyword generator being used.

Once you have determined you hot topic words, you see how to rearrange your copy to have more mentions of the hot topic words closer to the beginning of the copy and how to mention them more than once without overdoing it.

Another tip would be to create a separate page for each of the hot topic words and link to and form the internally and within your page text. A perfect example of this can be found on the DiscoverSEO site (www.discoverseo.co.za), where services are listed and then hyperlinked to the page focusing on that service.

Building links another way to build page rank through social bookmarking and manual link submission.

Checking the page rank of your website pages regularly is also important for you to monitor the progress of the SEO work you do on your site and to make the necessary adjustments accordingly.

That is the long and the short of LSI. All the best!

For more information on how DiscoverSEO can assist your business in extracting maximum value out of your web solution, contact us TODAY – (011) 807 6149 or visit DiscoverSEO – www.discoverseo.co.za

Popularity: 5% [?]

On 19 March 2010, Google released its real time indexing feature in South Africa. What this means for you is that you will now have the ability to search for content that was posted a few seconds ago. This is a major step forward for Google as they continue to dominate the market by systematically throwing out innovative features on a continuous basis.

How did Google do this?

This real time feature is made possible by using the open PubSubHubbub Atom protocol. To explain what PubSubHubbub is in short, it is a simple program that automatically pings subscribers of your website every time you post new content. This lets the subscribers know when they are needed to come crawl the site rather than the crawlers coming to your site intermittently looking for new information.

Real time indexing in Action.

I have to give Google credit here as I only refreshed the search a few seconds later whilst saving the first screen shot. With one of my tests conducted yesterday, Google had indexed my tweet around 3 seconds after posting it.

How do I see real time content in Google?

It’s easy enough. Go to Google, type in your search term or phrase. Once the results page is loaded, click on the “Show Options” link just above the results. Click on the “Latest” link and watch. Google will automatically refresh the results page as it finds new, real time content.

How do I get the content on my site to be indexed in real time.

If you have a WordPress blog hosted on WordPress, your site is already real time enabled. However, if you have a WordPress blog hosted on your own server, you will need to download a plugin called PuSHPress. This automatically sets up the PubSubHubbub protocol on your blog in order to make your content “real time enabled”.

If you do not have a WordPress enabled blog, but rather a normal site such as a company website, this would be more challenging. I have not tested this yet, but what I predict you would need to do is hire a web developer to automatically create and refresh the XML feed for your site every time there is new content.  You would then need to locate a central hub for the feed in order for the aggregators, such as Google to subscribe to your feed via the hub. This may sounds Greek to you at the moment but I will cover this in more detail with my next article.

With everything moving at such a rapid pace on the internet these days, its getting harder to keep up with the constant flow of information while the world is getting as small as the office you are sitting in. I for one, am really glad to see Google finally introducing real time results. This changes the game for SEO companies as once again, (fresh) content is king.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Building a website within SEO best practice guidelines is the first step to getting your site crawled, indexed and ranked by major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

The important points here to remember are to :

1. Submit your URL to the search engine (like this for Google)
2. Ensure that your sitemap.xml has been submitted (like this)

These 2 steps ensure that the search engines know that your site is there to be crawled and searched. Once this has been done though it takes a while for the bots to get to your site and actually crawl it.

The process of getting it indexed can take anywhere from between 2 and 4 weeks; but there are a few ways that you can “speed” up this process and take you to the next level.

Ranking, the second step after indexing

Inbound links to your site act as lead ins to your site which Google and other search engines will follow to your site. As soon as they have followed the link and arrived at your site they will begin crawling; indexing and ranking it. Google enjoys finding a website through links as it already confirms popularity of the site (which is closely related to relevancy).

The ranking process is the really important one as this determines where in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) you will show up. Apart from on site optimisation techniques such as title tags, H1 tags, keyword relevancy, code, etc. it is the process of link building and marketing your site that will greatly improve where you rank.

Cementing your site rank with link building

By having your site linked to by other sites which are directly related to your site and in fact in the case of article syndication, to article directory sites that are not directly related to your site. These back links are the cement with which the page rank for your site is built and it is this page rank which ultimately determines where you show up in the SERPS.

JD Consulting is an Online Marketing Consultancy based in Johannesburg Gauteng. For over 10 years we have been assisting our clients with their online strategies from the design of their website through to the marketing online thereof. For more information on how JD Consulting can assist you with our online marketing strategy and implementation needs, contact us on business@jdconsulting.co.za or visit our website at www.jdconsulting.co.za

Popularity: 58% [?]

JD Internet Consulting and DiscoverSEO are proud to announce their latest achievement attained by the SEO department.

Over the past couple of weeks, the SEO department consisting of Jonathan Houston (Online Marketing Manager), Megan Trow (SEO Specialist) and Nick Duncan (SEO Specialist), have been hard at work preparing for the Google AdWords Professional Qualification by engaging in the online tutorials, group discussions and working with client accounts.

Recently, the team then completed the GAP exam individually online and qualified with the following results:

Jonothan Houston 92.27%
Nick Duncan 90.91%
Megan Trow 90.61%

Congratulations!

For more information on how JD Internet Consulting can assist your business in extracting maximum value out of your web solution, contact us TODAY – (011) 807 6149, business@jdconsulting.co.za or online at www.jdconsulting.co.za.

Popularity: 14% [?]

If you don’t already know, duplicate content can have a hazardous effect on your SEO efforts, and we were lucky enough for Google to tell us about it in February this year. Google released an article hinting that you should specify your preferred version of your page(s). And when Google “hints” something, you’d be stupid not to make it a standard in your procedures! By using canonical links, you are telling Google which page is the “original” or “preferred” page, of a page that can have multiple variations that are identical or very similar.

What is a canonical link?

A canonical link is a <link> element specified in the <head> section of your duplicate page(s).

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/products.php?prod=tyres” />

Give me an example!

If you have a page listing all the tyres you are selling, such as:

http://www.example.com/products.php?prod=tyres

and another page listing the same information, but sorted differently, such as:

http://www.example.com/products.php?prod=tyres&sortedby=brand

You would need to specify your preferred version of the URL on the duplicate page. Therefore, if you would like the first URL to be your preferred page, insert the canonical link pointing to that page into the duplicate page. When I mention the term “preferred page”, this indicates the page that you would want Google to list in the SERPs.

What most don’t understand.

This works perfectly well for the example mentioned above, but did you realise that even if you dont have an e-commerce site and you believe that you do not have any sort of duplicate content on your site. Chances are, you do! The URLs below are all different in the eyes of a Google bot.

http://www.example.co.za

http://example.co.za

http://www.example.co.za/

http://example.co.za/

http://www.example.co.za/index.html

http://example.co.za/index.html

And did you realise, your PageRank™ is probably being spread between some of them? This is due to the fact that others link to you differently. Its a given that you cannot control how others link back to your site, but you need to let Google know what your preferred URL is so they can transfer the properties accordingly. Inserting some code into your .htaccess file to accomplish this is a very good idea. You should also keep in mind not to have contradicting URLs in your sitemap.xml, and using Google Webmaster Tools to specify between “www” and “non www” is another must do.

Conclusion

Google is not the only search engine using this standard, Yahoo! and Bing have both incorporated this into their algorithms and you can read their press releases here and here. So in the hope of increasing the efficacy of your SEO knowledge, keep this listed at the top of your “SEO to do” list.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Having just attended the 2nd Annual Social Media Conference in Johannesburg I thought it pertinent that I blogged about Social Media and how it is affecting people, business and marketers alike.

We have become a society fixated with immediate results and instant gratification…

The evolution of the internet itself has fueled a lot of this transformation in information consumption.

The first “version” of the internet was basically a directory and if you were listed there you were doing well… You spoke; and the masses had little choice but to listen.

Then the Internet changed and people were able to talk back… Conversations started between companies who were ready and willing to engage and their consumers who were more than ready to give them their thoughts…

The third “version” of the internet we find ourselves in at the moment is commonly referred to as the “social web” as it is no longer about 2 way communication between a website and a consumer, but the interaction of the consumers themselves about your company or product  where  most of the time you are not expressly invited to the conversation.

The beauty of social web though is that while you are not being engaged 1 on 1 with your consumers conversations, you are more than welcome, nay, encouraged to listen to what they are saying and then respond.

The key lessons there are ‘listen’ and  ‘respond’…

Censoring and gagging your consumers who are talking about you – especially when it is bad – is possibly the worst thing that you could do for your brand. It shows that you are frightened about what the public generally thinks about you or that you are arrogant in believing that their thoughts are not worth listening to… Listening to your consumers, and more than that, offering them a platform on which to speak about their interactions with your organisation – both good and bad – is the first true step in understanding and utilizing social media to your advantage. Listen to them and learn from them.

Responding is the next and equally important lesson. When people are talking negatively about you it is far, far easier to simply ignore what they are saying and hope like hell that they are going to go away and the issue will be forgotten…

Not Going To Happen..!

As what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, similarly, what happens on the internet, Stays On The Internet…! The negative comments are not going to go away, they are not going to be forgotten and with the advancement of Search Engine Optimisation, and the stance that Search Engines are taking, user generated content, the same content that you are trying to ignore, the search engines are giving value to and are 9 times out of 10 ranking highly on prominent search engines.

Probably higher than your website itself…!

This means that you need to respond quickly and effectively to any negative and indeed, positive comments that are being made about you online.

Claiming ignorance is no longer an option as access into these conversations has never been easier and the information is readily available 24 hours a day, begging and pleading for your attention… And if you are not going to give it your attention, your competitor is and they are going to turn your unhappy customer into their happy customer!

Combining these 2 very important aspects with a way to integrate your social media strategy with the rest of your marketing strategies is a guaranteed way to success, not only in avoiding alienating your current customers, but also in winning new ones.

The realm of social media is still a new and scary place to be, which is why many businesses and marketers are hesitant to get their hands dirty as they relinquish all control that they had by pushing messages one way, and have to succumb to the masses thoughts and opinions.

It is precisely this reason why we need to get involved in social media and be forever vigilant as to what is being said about us online and ensure that  we are adequately prepared to embrace the challenges and successes that social media brings.

Popularity: 24% [?]

I have recently been developing mobi sites for some of our customers and after an immense number of hours researching, I have yet to find a South African mobi website that validates. Can someone point me in the right direction please?

Before we go any further, let’s define the term “Validation“:

1. To declare or make legally valid.
2. To mark with an indication of official sanction.
3. To establish the soundness of; corroborate.

After some time, I managed to validate the 2 mobi websites I have been busy with and to be honest, it was somewhat of a challenge. Rules and guidelines have been laid out by the W3C to ensure (or try to ensure) that websites (including mobi sites) keep to the best standards of practice. This ensures search engines can actually crawl your webpages and it maintains universal understanding between browsers and users. For more information on understanding the phrase “Validating a website” please refer to the first half of this wordpress post.

With mobile validation, your validation score is represented by a number, with the maximum being 100 at the top of the scale, and the opposite side can go into negatives. I have taken a look into some of the most well known SA mobi sites and can say that they do not score well at all, they range between -13 and 77.

Some common errors included the following:

• Extraneous characters (whitespaces or comments),
• The document does not validate against XHTML Basic 1.1 or MP 1.2,
• The Table contains less than 2 tr elements,
• Page weight errors,
• Embedded external resources,
• Nested tables,
• Cache control,
• Incorrect character encoding,
• Incorrect Doctypes,
• Broken links,
• and the list goes on…

It is imperitive to source a web design/mobi design company that complies with the W3C standards. This will ultimately save you thousands in the long-run when you decide to hire a SEO company to market your site online.

For those of you that don’t know how to validate your site, visit the W3C Mobile Validator page to try yourself, but once you have pulled enough of your hair out, consider JD Consulting.

If anyone knows of any valid mobi sites, please send me the details.

Popularity: 82% [?]

To be able to actively generate more traffic to your own site or blog, there are a number of methods you can follow. An important means of creating instant traffic and instant link juice is by firstly, posting relevant articles to your site or adding posts to your blog consistently, and secondly, by submitting these articles / posts to a number of social media and social bookmarking sites.

Social bookmarking (SB) has made this entire process more manageable and successful which results in generating website traffic that is both more consistent and more targeted. By posting your articles to social media and social book marking sites, which have large user bases, you are increasing the exposure to your article or post and thus increasing exposure to your site and its content. This in turn increases direct traffic to your site, improves Alexa ranking and is effective in creating valuable backlinks.

Social bookmarking sites such as digg.com, reddit.com and stumbleupon.com provide quality backlinks as they are deemed important and relevant by Google and come up at the top of searches. So by submitting your articles to these sites, you are indirectly gaining link juice and organic search results from Google searches.

You do however need to be careful as to what bookmarking sites you are submitting to as not all of them will generate traffic even though they provide backlinks. Here we are mainly referring to sites where articles do not get instant exposure once posted.

The social media and bookmarking sites you want to submit to are those where your content appears instantly once submitted under, for example, the “new” or “latest” category – where users can read and then rate or vote on those articles to keep them current. An example of where this occurs is South Africa’s muti.co.za.

Certain social media sites require you to categorize the new submission and / or to submit tags which pertain to the content of the post. Relevancy is of utmost importance here.

You also need to be careful not to be a spammer. This is where you submit irrelevant content or submit the same content over and over. Also your content needs to be of a high quality and standard as well as informative and value adding. If this is not the case your site will lose credibility with readers and will ultimately result in a decrease in traffic to your site.

Take Action Now

So what are you waiting for? Take some time (at few hours at least) and create accounts for all these social media and bookmarking sites to which you wish to publish your new content. You then need to publish posts and articles consistently to your blog or website and then submit the new content to all these social media accounts. This will then in turn increase exposure and traffic to your site.

Alternatively contact us @ DiscoverSEO and we can save you the time and energy by handling everything from writing the relevant keyword dense content to uploading it to your site and then to submitting it to at least 15 social media and bookmarking sites for you. This can be done on a regular basis to ensure optimum results.

Call us now (011 807 6149) or contact us for a quote >>

For a list of links to DoFollow and Nofollow sites and their page ranks refer to this article below:
http://blog.opencircle.co.za/social-networking/dofollow-nofollow-social-bookmarking-list/

http://www.directoryroll.com/social-bookmarking-list.php

Popularity: 100% [?]