A couple of weeks ago we were invited to the launch of “Google Engage” South Africa. We obviously accepted the invitation because we are in the habit of finding better solutions for our clients.

What Google Engage is all about is not as technical as one might think but rather a program that empowers agencies like us with the knowledge and tools to enable our clients to run efficient “Search Engine Marketing” (SEM) campaigns.

We had a good understanding of Googles’ SEM but what astonished us mostly were the statistics they presented. We were not aware that small business in South Africa had such a negative view of the internet or should I say lack of understanding.

Our strategy going forward is to educate small business in South Africa on the value the internet has to offer and the lost opportunities.

One of my very first posts on the Blog was about how many business opportunities go by without even knowing they exist.

As an example we did an analysis yesterday on the keyword “electrician” did you know that for that single keyword there are 49 500 searches per month on Google? That is 49 500 missed opportunities for the guy that does not have a website or not advertising on the internet.

Now I don’t know about you guys but if my sales team had just 0.1% (49.5) of those prospects to close, at a closing ration of 20% that is 10 new clients at an average of R5000.00 per client. Do the sums!

Small business in South Africa drives our economy, why are some getting and others not.

I rest my case.

 Getting search engines to index your site properly and to come up when someone searches for you products is not an easy task.

We all hear about the importance of keywords and finding the right keywords to use, well there are dozens of tools that can assist with finding the right keyword for your site

In our experience there is a lot more to optimizing once you have decided on the right keyword to use. And we should opt more for key phrases than key words.

The most popular are the right ones to use because they are being searched more often than any other but be wary because you will have strong competition for that specific key word or key phrase. Try finding some that aren’t being used but have a good chance of being used by a prospect.

We are ranked on the first page of Google for “Wed Design Randburg” but for the key phrase “Web Design” we are on page 8. For “Android” we are nowhere but for Android development we are on Page one, Twice. For “Search Engine Optimization” we are on page 3 but for “Search Engine Optimization Randburg” we are on page one twice.

Selecting key phrases is important and it is not easy to optimize the website with key phrases that are in high demand.

So how many keywords or phrases should you be selecting, to optimize a page using 30 key words or phrases is almost impossible so we suggest you take four main key phrases and concentrate on those.

The second most important aspect of the SEO is to get good reliable, topical back links linking to your website from popular websites. This is time consuming and the result are not immediate it could take between six to twelve months before your sites back links are found, analysed and ranked by the search engines.

And last but by no means least, social networking plays a very important role in SEO and for promotion of your business.