Yip it’s time. I’ve decided to revolutionize my blog, upgrade it and go the full nine yards. I’ve decided to utilize the power of wordpress and give us using BLOGGER although I do love my blogger BLOG – http://sa-property.blogspot.com/

So, please people, give me a chance. Bookmark me even if it’s just for 5 days, I’ll show you! This blog will rock and the content that will come from these little fingers now that I’ve dumped that crap old rubber keyboard of mine will be amazing.

Stick around, comment, feel free to tell me everything sucks but whatever you do, READ ME!

Rich Returns (article in Entrepreneur Dec issue 2008)

A few days ago, I spoke at a luncheon with approximately 500 local business leaders. I began with these words: “I have good news and bad news. The good news is you will have fewer competitors next year because many of your competitors will be out of business. The bad news is you might be one of those out of business. The bad news is you might be one of those out of business.”

I then showed them my local newspaper, pointing to the headline “Business Are Struggling”. I opened the newspaper and said, “I can tell you who will be in business.” I pointed to a full-page ad for a local appliance store. “I’ll bet money that this business will be here next year. Why? Because this business is advertising more aggressively than its competition.”

In previous issues of Entrepreneur, I’ve written about the importance of advertising and promotion. I’ve shared my rich dad’s lesson that when business drops off, many entrepreneurs listen to their accountant’s advice and cut back on advertising and promotion. That’s the worst thing you can do. When times get tough, your job is to promote more, not less.

Promotion is a six-week cycle. That means if I promote today, business increases six weeks later. Many businesses violate the six-week cycle. They promote for, say, four weeks, and because nothing happens, they stop. Two weeks later, there’s sudden increase in business. For four weeks, business remains strong. Then, just as suddenly, business drops off, because six weeks earlier, the entrepreneur had stopped promoting.

My rich dad’s lesson was to never stop promoting: Promote whether the economy is strong or weak; promote even when you may not have money. If you have no money, stand on a street corner at lunchtime with a sign hanging around your neck promoting your product or service. Not only will you meet new customers, but you might also save money on lunch, lose some weight and get suntan.

Obviously, it takes more than just promotion to do well. To be successful, a business also requires strong fundamentals and a desirable product or service. During tough economic times, though, even some good businesses fail; some businesses shrink and others grow. When a business closes, its customers migrate to the business that fights hard and stays open. Businesses that promote while others cut their ad budgets have a better change of getting bigger….even if the economy is shrinking.

Expand Marketing - SEO, PPC and Online marketing guru

We’re excited. We’re very excited.

It’s not often that you get to work with a company that’s making fast tracks in the world of online marketing. In fact, in South Africa, there aren’t that many that actually stand out from the rest. Well incase you’ve never heard of this company ladies and gentleman, I suggest, you revise your strategies, cause there people are making WAVES of change in the online world.

Expand Marketing. Expand Marketing. Expand Marketing.
http://www.expandsa.com/

Remember them, they’re here to stay and they’re here to showoff their online marketing skills. Anyway, enough of them… Lets talk about why I’m so excited.

We’ve managed to convince the team at Expand Marketing, to write 4 articles for us to post on our BLOG. These four articles will be written by their SEO, PPC and Social Media guru’s and will give some insight into their strategies and thoughts. So every week in December, Expand Marketing will release an article for us to post and promote.

Stay tuned, this ones going to be huge.

LETS GET ORIGINAL.

Aren’t you tired of seeing the same Titles, the same descriptions. Did you know that the secret to a a good click through rate when it comes to organic search results, the secret to your page being clicked on vs. Tom, Dick and Murray’s page is META data!!!

I wrote an article a couple of weeks ago about using keyword suggestion tools as the only means to getting keywords and targeting traffic. Well I stick by what I say, I believe that the secret to a good successful organic SEO campaign is originality.

Why? Well, if you’re TOP 10 on Google for a keyword and your Title, Keywords and Description i.e. Meta Data is totally original and not copied from IBP software’s suggestions and help tool, you’re probably the only person that’s going to stand out from the rest.

You may not have targeted that keyword that gives you 1000000 hits a day, but your META data is original and it looks good and it stands out…

Worth a try don’t you think?

Have you, as an SEO ever been asked what keyword suggestion tools you use? Is it something you actually use as an SEO? Is it something you base your SEO campaign and strategy on? I honestly believed that keyword suggestion tools were the secret behind good SEO… I really did. I thought if you track the most searched for terms on the internet that you would be the most successful SEO in the industry and I believe that good SEO’s still think that, marketing guru’s too. The honest truth, I don’t use keyword suggestion tools PERIOD.

I’ve been a firm believer that the secret behind a successful SEO strategy and campaign is NOT in targeting the most searched for phrases on the internet. Do you honestly believe that Google doesn’t know when people are targeting top search phrases??? Then you obsiously don’t believe in big brother!

I write content. Whether it’s good content or not, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that it’s original! I write original content. I then post the content live. I setup sitemaps and analytics and once that’s up and running I wait. I play the patient slow, pain staking game of waiting….. It’s worth it! Once you know what people are then searching for to find that original content, you now have a great target for building a SEO campaign.

In doing so you may not get the 10000000 hits that “home equity loans” or “insurance” gets on a daily basis but you’ll get 30 hits of well targeted well converted keyword traffic!

Ask youself this question, would you rather have 10 000 hits a day of people coming in and then moving off your site, or would you, as a business entrepeneur spending R15 000 a month on a SEO campaign rather have 30 hits, where 15 of them convert to potential business???

The trick is not volume, the trick is getting Google and more importantly people to believe that your site is the site they want their business from.

Think about that tonight!

Ivolution SEO – Search Engine Marketing and Optimization Specialists

Was doing my morning rounds, checking top keywords on all my sites and I noticed something unusual this week. In the South African search results I noticed that fewer and fewer South African sites are showing up in the TOP 10…

I don’t mean searching in South African only, I mean go to http://www.google.co.za/type a keyword in, search normally and see. Now, not only does this have me worried but if makes me realise that the couple of companies and people in South Africa that are doing SEO are going to see amazing results while other are farting against thunder against some of the world biggest Internet sites.

I think the main reason behind the sudden increase in search rankings for international sites on our local pages boils down to the fact that people, ordinary people, who know a little about SEO know that links are KING! What they don’t know is how to BUILD LINKS and that linking to international and getting links from international sites for the sake of getting links when you’re not monitoring them and not constantly looking out for sneaky SEO tricks, means you’re getting NO link juice, and they’re getting yours!

South African companies generally get 90% of their business from South Africans, so why are South African companies getting links for international sites? Simple really, it’s easier to fill in link exchange forms on 1000 sites than contacting people in your area, in your industry and related South African sites to start building some good link campaigns.

So what can you do to increase your chances of getting TOP 10 rankings on Google South Africa:
1. Submit your sites to local directories – ananzi.co.za, startpage.co.za, easyinfo.co.za etc… (Remember Google is your friend)
2. Find the TOP 50 sites in South Africa related to your topic or business field i.e. Cars – carfind.co.za, carfin.co.za, autotrader.co.za etc…
3. Related sites could have slight variations – Cars – Car Insurance, Car Finance, Selling Cars, Car Auctions etc….
4. Look for social networks & blog sites, build a good social network campaign and participate on these networks – Amatomu.com, Muti.co.za, Amagama.com etc…

South Africa’s internet community is thriving, but without a Good SEO campaign and a good SEO company you’re going to struggle to get the results you need to utilize this amazing marketing source.

Googletu!!!

Search Engine Optimization Professionals- Ivolution SEO

We all know what it’s like. We’re sitting at home, moping feeling the brunt of mortgage crisis collapses. We’re feeling the brunt of an ever increasing interest rate, an ever increasing fuel price. Food prices escalating at a rate of knots and well, we’re not making more money. So where to from here?

Well, I’m no business GURU and I’m know financial genius, but I am in the forefront of technology and believe that this is where you should start!

It’s a funny thing business. A couple of months ago in South Africa, real estate companies, mortgage companies and real estate investments companies were growing a rate of knots. In fact South Africa’s real estate market had taken over from the agricultural sector and the biggest income generating sector of our country! Now let me tell you this is a scary thought considering mining & agriculture was the start of our country! Sorry getting side tracked there…

During this time I started punting my SEO business, the reason being I had some ties in the real estate markets and I’ve had a pretty good success ratio with real estate and mortgage sites. Funny though, EVERYONE was making money and business was falling into their laps, so when I eventually sent them the quotes(and they were interested in what I had to say) they laughed. “HOW CAN YOU EXPECT US TO PAY R15 000.00 a month for this service?” What in the world could you give us that we’re not already getting without having to promote our business in anyway!!!!! So a couple of weeks and I mean weeks go by, and all of a sudden there’s a change in the property market. Business is not longer falling in your laps and money now needs to be spent on marketing. TV ads are unaffordable to most. Radio ads too. News papers only reach a certain percentage and in order for people to see and remember that AD, you need to get them on the right day!

This week I got 7 calls alone from mortgage brokers and real estate companies asking for SEO work to be done on their sites! The problem now is that you’re trying to jump in when others did it a year ago, and trying to play catchup to an already popular advertising median is never easy!

Having said that, it’s the way to go. The great thing about Internet marketing and advertising is that you’re constantly their to capture an audience when they’re looking for you. People no longer have to scrounge around looking for that advert in one of the 50 magazines they read in the last 3 weeks. They hop onto Google and TYPE in “Property sales in South Africa” and VOILA up pops your site.

This is what I’m tryig to get across to our South African business culture! The internet is the future. It is the way you can reinvent your business in a slow and quiet market. It’s a very cost effective way to advertise your business and if you don’t have a website, it’s time you WOKE UP!!!!

Contact Ivolution Today! Your search engine marketing and search optimization specialists.

Yesterday we wrote a little article about forums and how we need to clean them up. I strongly believe that with all the rubbish on the forums and I’m talking mainly about SEO forums  (won’t mention names but there’s not that many big ones left anymore) we’re looking at the demise of the FORUM so too speak.

A possible reason for the rubbish we find on forums these days, could be the introduction of social bookmark sites such as DIGG, REDDIT & The latest greatest SPHINN. Social bookmark sites have become a super duper highway of information and all they’re really doing is what the old forumsused to do, and that’s reference good articles and stories relating to specific topics. I belive that more topic related social bookmark sites such as SPHINN will make it easier for people to search end find topic related articles, but whom I to judge sites that bring in 30 000 000 visitors a month.

Which brings me back to my article yesterday…
So maybe the demise of the good old internet forum is Social Bookmarking!

What are your thoughts?
Ivolution: Revolutionizing The Internet – Search Engine Optimization & Marketing Professionals

It’s something that I’ve been pondering about alot lately. This article may be a little old as well in it’s thinking but it’s true. Since the beginning of internet time forums have always been around. I mean working in IT for a couple of years, forums were the only thing that kept me in my job as an IT administrator when the SHIT hit the fan. In fact in the good old days when asking a question in a forum, the answer would normally be a link to external site and normally that site was number 1 in google for that search. 99% of the time rightly so as they deserved it and that’s probably how they managed to keep their site top of the rankings too.

But lately, forums have become crap! They’re no longer the informative incredible, quick responding platforms they used to be and to be totally honest the rubbish you read on them and specifically SEO forums is just not worth your while.

When I logon to a forum and a question is asked: “How do I generate links to my website”. Dudes and Dudesses, if I read “By submitting your site to free directories” once more on a forum I think I’m actually going to scream. The problem now is that you get 400 people replying to the same article and because the forums got some good link juice ranks for every SEO keyword and search phrase under the sun.

I have no problem with that, but when the content is just so full of nonsense it’s a waste of internet space!

So in an attempt to avoid the plain rant and rave, I’m going to attempt to bring back some calmness and order to forums. I only hope that some good forum administrators read this article and help clean up the rubbish on our net!  Lets do away with the 400 comments, per post. Lets start giving references to older posts, and other articles that people have written so that we can avoid the millions of duplicate content sites that we have spread across this vast world of ours!

See our SEO Competition

Ivolution – Attempting an Internet Revolution.
Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Services

Today for the first time I realised how changing the structure of a well ranked site affects your rankings. Let me just say that before you decide to design a website, and before you decide to go live with your amazing new site that’s SEO’d from head to toe, think, think, think and think again! Make 1000% sure that the structure you’re using is the one you want to stick with.

My site ranked in the TOP 10 for most of it’s industry related terms. I changed the structure of 2 section sof the site in other words, I moved two pages from one directory to another. My site rankings on 1 week dropped from TOP 10 to TOP 50.

What I did wrong:

I did not think about my site structure when first designing my site. Why?? Well I didn’t think I’d actually be able to compete in the industry that I compete in. Silly, I doubted myself but you learn. LESSON 1. Always make sure you know what structure you want and you stick to it throughout your site!

I moved the existing files to another directory and deleted the old ones from their original locations. I also changed all the internal links to point to the new page location. IDIOT!!!!! By removing the old files I lost all my PR form those pages i.e. 8 months of work down the drain. PLUS all the PR that I was giving other pages on my site from those pages dropped in the SERPS too. LESSON 2. When moving a site make sure that you redirect the page using a 302 redirect to your new page. This will ensure that PR is transferred to your new pages and your site rankings are not affected.

External links, those darn things that you work so hard to get. I lost all the incoming links to my site by not checking if there were incoming links. Incoming links and especially deep linking links are an essential part of your SEO strategy. LESSON 3. Make sure that all you incoming links to the old page are either changed to your new pages or that you use the 302 redirect explained above so that you don’t loose it all.

Those were my mistakes, I’ve learnt from them and decided to share them with Y’ALL!
If you could pleas shed some light or give us a little more information on what you’ve experienced please do so.

Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Specialists: Ivolution SEO