Why Font Type Matters

1st November 2017/0 Comments/in Post, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media Marketing, Website/by Site Default

The debate on whether font type matters in marketing and website design has been the debate of the 21st century. With so many different types of fonts available and variations, it can be difficult to choose the right font for your website or material. Here are a few reasons why font matters.

Differentiation of Content Type

Consistency in this manner is about making sure that the different portions of your website have the appropriate font size, type, and differentiation. It needs to be easy for visitors to spot and to understand the different segments of your website. Maintaining these differentiation helps to create a uniformity throughout your website and enhance the user experience.

Take for instance the picture below of an e-commerce site. The title is always the biggest at 20px while the description of the product is 14 px. This allows the user to automatically differentiate between the title tag and the description tags. Our brains have already been programmed this way right when you start using the internet. This is why developers never have to put the title as “Product Title” for you to know the name of the product.

Hierarchy of Importance

It is very common when marketers or content analyst use differently sized font types and sizes to emphasize a certain hierarchy. Ever seen a title that is bolded with all upper case letters? It denotes a sense of urgency and tags a level of importance to that text. Making such subtle changes can change the mood altogether and the importance of select text. A good example will be posters on ads that want to market a certain promotion such as a club like Molecue. They place an emphasis on the pricing of the beer in order to place certain importance to the text. Your eye is likely to be attracted to the price and not the product because of the placement and size.

Design Effect

If you are a company dealing with the younger generation, you might want to emphasize more on the design aspect of your website. The younger generation demands exquisiteness, a combination of elements to invoke certain emotions and the use of font to create a nice effect. There is nothing sweeter than a good balance of the perfect font and a well-placed title to invoke certain emotions. By using a mixture of fonts and colors, you can achieve that balance and soothing effect that can invoke individuals to make a purchase. Some great examples are Apple advertisements and their website. Their website is simple yet achieves the desired effect for all their products.

Our Recommendation

While it is important to understand the placement of text, type, colour and size of the font, you should always take into consideration the limitation of the performance of the font. Some fonts that are not widely available in the web might not have the performance you desire and could slow down your website loading speed. For a good selection of fonts, you can try Google Fonts. For websites, you should only ever use a maximum of 3 different fonts for the sections for your website. A font for the main content, another font for the Menu content and lastly another font for items such as your advertising materials. The last thing you want is for every page to have a different font which will ruin the uniformity of the website.

Integrating your Website with SEO

22nd October 2017/0 Comments/in Post, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media Marketing, Website/by Site Default

If you are reading this article you are probably wondering what is Search Engine Optimisation(SEO). SEO is about optimising your website to make your website show up in the search engine search results. For example, typing “florist Singapore” and your website showing up on the first page. About 50% of businesses in Singapore owns a website to help market their services and products. However, did you know that having a website is as good as placing a storefront in a non-populated estate? People who do not know about your business just have no way to find your website on the internet unless they know your business by name. In this post, we will talk about how to differentiate a website that has done SEO and which hasn’t. And also why people choose not to have their website with SEO.

Differentiating between the websites with SEO and without

While it can be easy to determine if a website that looks modern and updated, it is impossible for the untrained eye to find out if the website has done conscientious work on their search engine optimisation. Check out some of these tips below if you are unsure or our post on what onsite SEO is.

Proper Title tags and Description

One of the easiest methods to find out if a website has proper onsite SEO is through their title tags and description. An optimised website tends to have the right amount of words and characters for the title tag and description tags, Good use of keywords for each page, unique title tags and description tags for every page while poorly optimised will have duplicated title tags and descriptions and usually descriptions that do not make any sense.

Onpage Linking

Conduct any search terms and you’ll probably find Wikipedia in the top few search results. One thing you will definitely notice is the amount of linked anchor keywords they have on just one page. Just one page can be linked to over 100 different pages and that is what Google usually likes in a website; Good interlinks to relevant information based on keywords

Loading Speed of a Website

Have you ever waited so long for a website or an image on a website for so long that you switched to another website? I know I have and it is extremely frustrating especially in this day and age to have a website load more than 5 seconds. Google feels that way too. It tends to penalise websites that take more than 4 seconds to load and they even estimate a loss of 10% of visitors for every second above 4. Pictures are one of the biggest cause for concern for websites and it needs to be optimised by compressing and reducing the resolution to make it web friendly. Don’t worry also if you want DSLR quality for your pictures. Compressing a picture takes very little detail from the picture and it is hardly noticeable to the untrained eye. Loading speed can also be optimised by using sites such as pingdom tools or thinkwithgoogle speed test

Website Content

Content is king and there is no doubt about this fact. Google takes content very seriously and often awards website with relevant and good content while penalise websites with poor content, duplicated content or short articles. Make sure that every page in your website is purposeful and contains the necessary information you need to keep the visitor reading. The key is contextual knowledge Most websites make the mistake of placing too little information on the website which makes it difficult for visitors to understand about your business. Make your website your sales associate and put the most information possible on it.

Why don’t Business Owners use SEO

Believe in the system

Business owners that haven’t been in tune with online marketing will always want to stick to something they are used to. Online marketing has existed for about 2 decades since the birth of the internet. Traditional marketing such as print media or Tv advertisements have always been the norm for such businesses and they have mostly relied on brick and mortar styled models to market their service.

This is why we created this blog to help educate website owners or businesses owners about the benefits of online marketing techniques such as Search Engine Optimisation, Seach Engine Marketing, and Social Media Marketing. There have been many success stories from owners just using Search Engine Optimisation and we hope that more people will integrate SEO into their business so that they can properly compete against website with SEO.

The Perception of High Cost

Ask any business that has dwelt with traditional marketing methods and they will tell you of the high cost it involves with little method of tracking. Print media or TV advertisements can promise the outreach number in the millions but are unable to tell you of the leads generated from the advertisement. From your website, there are many methods that you can track the leads coming from your website and the conversion rate per visitor. Whats more, SEO tends to target visitors from specific keyword request, which will result in relevant visitors every single time. SEO packages tend to cost upwards of $1000 per month and will depend on the competitiveness of the keyword. When you compared the different forms of marketing, you’ll see that SEO is actually affordable and probably will bring you better leads than other forms of advertisement.

Unknown to them

It is on us to inform businesses what is SEO and how it can benefit them. Therefore, it is essential to always educate them before selling any sort of package. Always make sure your digital agency understands your business and how the process of turning visitors into client works. We have created an article about how SEO agencies should conduct their approach with potential customers.

Using Google My Business to get more visitors

17th October 2017/0 Comments/in Post, Search Engine Optimisation/by Site Default

To achieve visitors that are looking for your service and products, it is important to use location based services to complement your website. With Google’s location based tracking, there is no better time to utilise Google’s free tools to support your business. Google My Business is one of the many tools that you can use to give your website meaningful data for you to analyse. Check out this list for a full list of Google tools available.

Google My Business helps you by placing a listing based on your location. Your business then shows up when users browse through Google Maps or in Google search when it gets triggered by associated keywords. The amazing thing about Google My Business is the amount of information you can put in order to attract users to click and even visit your website.

As a basic form, here are the fields that you can put in to add value to your website:

Pictures of your services or products
Opening and closing hours
contact number
email and website details
reviews from customers or users
You can even create 360 photos or videos to give visitors a feel of what your place looks like.

Google My Business has also been said to have an impact on Search Engine Optimisation. The more reviews and details you place on the site, the more effective your SEO will be. The reason behind this is because if more people are willing to upload photos, videos and comments to review your business, Google sees it as a signal that your website is reputable. Thus giving you a better URL rating. Find out how you can improve your SEO by other methods.

These reviews and comments are also a good avenue for you to receive critical feedback to improve your business and to communicate directly with your users.

Google My Business is also integrated with analytics which means you get a good understanding of how many visitors are looking at your site and interacting with the details provided.

What if I do not have a Website?

Google My Business provides a free tool to create a simple website to display basic information about your business. You can literally drag and drop pictures and pull information from your listing to the simple site. While it should not be used as standalone resource, it can still provide visitors with a pleasant experience, providing them information about the products and services offered.

Conclusion

Google My Business is a great tool especially if you want to secure customers using Google Maps or Google searches, It is best used in conjunction with a well updated website and supported with some of Google’s tools such as Google Analytics and Google Webmaster.

Biggest lies from Web Marketing Agencies

14th October 2017/0 Comments/in Post, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media Marketing, Website/by Site Default

About 60% of businesses in Singapore have a static website to showcase their products and services. However, only about 10% of such businesses employs Search Engine Optimisation(SEO) or Search Engine Marketing(SEM) to boost their website’s efforts.

reputable SEO agency

The beautiful thing about developing your business through online means is it cost very little when you compare it to hiring a sales executive or advertising on traditional outlets such as TV or print media. Development of your online capabilities as a business can come in a form of developing a website, conducting search engine optimisation for a existing website or generating leads through search engine marketing. However, because of this demand, there are many unscrupulous businesses promising search engine success for a small fee and no work from you. We hope to uncover these lies and hopefully educate the public how to steer clear from such businesses.

Low Costs

While it may be tempting when you receive emails about individuals or companies promising you page 1 glory on Google, it is usually one of the triggers you should be aware of. Any reputable company dealing with web services will tell you that the man hours required to produce quality work will require a fairly substantial amount. Whether be it search engine optimisation, website design or search engine marketing. If the company can offer you a really low rate for their services, chances are you won’t be able to customise how you want your work to be done or the work was cloned from client to client. Giving you sub-standard work which eventually could be penalised by Google for duplicate content.

Understanding Your Business

Any company that just wants a quick buck will never want to meet up with you to understand your business. Understanding how your business work and the processes to secure a client is quintessential evidence that the web marketing agency wants to have a long lasting relationship with you. The agency should understand how your business works, processes that are in place and how you close a lead. This way, the web agency will be able to recommend you the best method for your business. Remember that all businesses are different and requires different methods in order to succeed. There is no 1-method that fits all.

Credibility

Credibility is one of the most important things to have as a web marketing agency. A company which can produce results will usually succeed in a long run due to the positive experience and results they bring to clients. Before you embark on any project, it is important to understand from the agency what are their past clients, what was done for them and the results as a result of the partnership. I will break down the deliverables you should be asking.

Search Engine optimisation

getting past results from clients who have done SEO is the most tangible result you can gather. You can always ask for their keywords that are ranking, the search quantity by Google and also the analytics. While the agency will have the right to mask their past client’s information due to confidentiality, you should still be able to see their work and what they did in order to achieve the search engine ranking.

Search Engine marketing

An agency that is in full knowledge of what they are doing will be able to bring you leads for a low cost. Look for metrics such as return in investment as well as overall leads generated based on the spending. Great agencies will also explain to you what is happening so that you aren’t left in the dark. Not knowing what you paid for.

Communication

communication is key

Communication is key in order for any partnership to be successful. There should be constant communication between the web agency and the client. You should always ensure that you know what the agency is doing for your website at all times and be able to substantiate it with analytics as well as reports on what was done. The agency should be proactive and have a representative that can answer to your emails or messages within 48hours.

Results that walk the talk

If you are spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on your online campaign, you should be results driven. Always check to see if the agency is working towards the deliverables given to you during the quotation. Always request for certain objectives to be delivered in order for the full payment. Most agencies will require a 50% deposit for confirmation of the services needed and the other 50% once the objectives has been met. Make sure you discuss what you want to achieve before making any formal agreement.

Conclusion

Web solutions can be expensive and it is essential for you to set specific objectives that you want to achieve with your website. Don’t jump to the best deal you see straight away be also weigh all the above points to the agency. This will give you a clearer picture whether they can be trusted. After all, these projects usually take 6-12 months to complete so getting stuck with an web agency which you like will probably be beneficial to you.

What Are LSI Keywords?

10th October 2017/0 Comments/in Post, Search Engine Optimisation/by Site Default

Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI basically means keywords or phrases that have resemblance to your main keyword. Contrary to belief, they do not necessarily mean synonyms but rather different keywords that help to substantiate what you are talking about. The reason why we are talking about this today is because Google uses LSI keywords and phrases to link your website to different keywords. This helps your website to rank better and also to rank for a bigger range of keywords in general.

Whenever you are talking about a specific topic such as cars. You will definitely dive into specifics such as doors, air-con systems, engine systems and even tyre choices. These are just simple examples of different LSI keywords that Google uses to “check” if your article is comprehensive. While on the same topic, if you are talking about insurance, accidents and coverage, Google can then link your article towards the insurance industry.

From this knowledge, you can effectively target your website for certain keywords if you spread these LSI keywords across your website. Alternatively, some people choose to cover a very broad niche. From this, you can build an authority website from a whole slew of different articles on the specific topic. LSI is part of Onsite SEO which you can implement for your website to achieve a better ranking on the search engine ranking page.

Why are LSI keywords Essential?

LSI keywords help Google identify what your article is all about. By linking associated keywords with one another, Google is then able to decipher what niche you are writing about and also score your article according to it’s relevance. Of course, these keywords most be accompanied with substantial research on the topic and readable text. In the past, people used to keyword spam in order to trick Google’s algorithm. Thankfully these methods do not work now with the level of sophistication Google has achieved.

How To Find the Right LSI Keywords?

There is a simple website which helps you to find LSI keywords for your niche. However, while it is free, it is important to take the information with a pinch of salt. As a general rule, never follow what you find on the internet without doing your own testing. If you want to experiment, always use a few keywords first to test the result. You can also use Google Webmaster or Google Analytics to see how effective you are in targeting the appropriate keywords. Google automatically generates keywords that are associated with your website once it has crawled through your website. You can also see the position of specific keywords and the impressions from searchers.

Onsite Search Engine Optimisation

6th October 2017/0 Comments/in Post, Search Engine Optimisation/by Site Default

Onsite Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the core components if you want to get your website to the top of the Search Engine Ranking Page (SERP). If you are not sure what SEO is, click here to find out more. Onsite SEO refers to the editing of content and format of your website so that it is clear to Google what you are trying to rank for. This means editing meta tags such as titles, descriptions and even forming articles that articulate the meaning behind your websites. In this article, we will discuss what are the different components to onsite SEO and how you can better optimise your website. While doing Onsite SEO will not guarantee a first page ranking on Google, at least you are taking small steps to eventually get there.

Title & Description Tags

Many things have changed since the inception of search engines, in the past, keyword tags were just as important. That was until people started abusing it and keywords stuffing their websites. As a result, Google has made changes and now makes little to no emphasis on keyword tags. However, title and description tags are just as important as ever. Title tags allow the user to know what the website page is about at a single glance. As such, it should contain a phrase that best describes what the page is about. Description tags are very similar in this case, it should contain a sentence about what the article is about. The importance of these two tags extend to searches on google where all results display both the title and description tags. If you are using WordPress or other website builders, it should be relatively easy to change these information, however, if you are coding it directly, you might want to use the example below.

Example of a title tag html should be like this in the <head> section:

<title> How to gain weight </title>

Example of description tags also in the <head> section:

URL

Making an effort to change the URL to best describe the page is the best thing you can do for your website, not only does it make it easier for users to type in the URL if they need to, it also helps the search engines to identify if the page url has any link to related pages. Most websites builders or even wordpress has a tendency to set the URL to the date it was published. If that’s the case, head to settings>permalinks and change the common settings to post name.

Picture tagging

Just like your pages, picture tagging is just as important. Google contributes over 2 trillion searches annually and a large percentage of this comes from image searches. Picture tagging refers to naming each picture that has been uploaded and also adding an alt text to the picture. This helps the picture to rank on Google images which could bring visitors to your website. Of course if you are uploading pictures, make sure each picture has been optimised in terms of size. This ensure that your website loads quickly and does not become a burden to someone else’s data.

Website Speed Optimisation

In recent years, Google has been emphasising on Site speed and how it affects users throughout the desktop and mobile platform. With such reiterations from Google, it is likely that speed will become a huge factor on the search engines. In Google’s ThinkwithGoogle site, they estimate that for each second of wait, you lose an estimated 10% of visitors. While this might be an exaggeration, I can’t remember how many times i have pressed back just because I waited more than 3 seconds for a website to load. For more information, click here to find out how to better optimise your website’s loading speed.

Content

I’ve left the most important for last. Content. As the saying goes, “Content is king” and this cannot be understated. Content is the one key force that drives visitors to your website and allows hem to learn, engage and also share. Thus, it is important for your website in it’s own niche to be the industry leader by sharing applicable content for its own visitors. This is why so many corporations also have a blog to ensure their website remains updated with its users and also to stay relevant to Google.

The content you create should also be unique. If it isn’t, come up with a different view or even value add to existing articles in the search engines. The content you create should also have a substantial length. For a start, aim at above 300 words.

LSI Keywords

In addition with the content that you create, you should also use Latent Semantic Indexing keywords. LSI is a method to identify the relationships between keywords and concepts, this allows your website to rank for multiple keywords instead of just a single keyword. For a start, using a thesaurus dictionary will help you find these LSI keywords to better rank your site.

Conclusion

While there are many other methods that you can use to better your onsite SEO, these methods stated above are the most basic and effective to date. It is important to conduct a good onsite seo audit before you carry on with offsite SEO to build a good foundation.

White Hat or Black Hat Marketing

25th September 2017/0 Comments/in Post, Search Engine Optimisation/by Site Default

The term white hat, black hat or grey hat can be use synonymously within the IT industry. It can mean methods used to hack while also denote Search Engine Opimisation methods that help you gain a better overall ranking in the search engine ranking page(SERPS). However, today we will be talking about what white hat or black hat marketing is in the website optimisation realm.

What are white Hats or black hat techniques?

Black hat marketing or white hat marketing refers to techniques and tools utilized by different websites to give them an edge in the search engine rankings. This can be in a form of software to help automatic difficult and arduous tasks. The term “black hat” refers to techniques used to manipulate existing search engine algorithms to give your website an edge. While they can give a substantial boost, it can be easily patched by the search engines, making you lose your overall rankings or even get blacklisted. White hat SEO on the other hand refers to legitimate methods recommended according to Google web guidelines to optimise your website. To find out more about exist white hat and black hat methods, read on.

Black Hat SEO

Black hat SEO is notorious for giving undeserving websites with good ranking because of methods they used to manipulate the search engine algorithms. in the early 2000s till about 2010, this was extremely rampant due to the many loopholes in the system. This included methods such as keyword stuffing at the footer of websites in order to rank for that particular keyword or to adding spam links from websites. Below are more of such examples:

article spinning
link farms
keyword stuffing
hidden links
content automation
cloaking
link purchase

Why You Should Avoid Black Hat Techniques

Although black hat techniques can often be extremely effective in a short term, there are usually not long lasting and tends to give you negative results in a long run. Google has been efficient in patching these loopholes up with updates with code names such as Panda, Penguin, hummingbird to penalise such websites.

If you are building your corporate site or intend to monetize your website, black hat should be avoided at all costs.

White Hat SEO

White hat on the other hand refers to following Google’s web guidelines when optimising your website. White hat techniques hopes to promote better engagement with visitors and improve their browsing experience. Its the best long term approach and definitely can be used on all types of websites. By following such techniques, you will reap good ranking results without free of being penalised whenever there is an algorithm update.

Some of the techniques though not conclusive includes the following:

Speed optimisation across your website
clean site architechture
building relevant and helpful content
social media influences
- facebook pages, instagram posts and twitter updates to name a few
proper meta tags
- page title, description tags
- proper Alt title for pictures

Ending Note

Although the list of recommendations is not exhaustive, it is important to implement as many as possible. If you are not confident of making such changes to your website, hiring someone to do your search engine optimisation may be the best option for you. To find out more, do click here.

Why Google Is Important For Your Website Success

2nd September 2017/0 Comments/in Post, Search Engine Optimisation, Website/by Site Default

Google has been the forefront of online searches since its presence in the early 20th century. Google’s core business is still searches and the release of tools available to aid your website is evident of that. If you already have a website and intend to rank your website on Google, using the following tools is paramount for your success. These tools range from analytics to track how your visitor enter your site and where they exit to webmaster tools to ensure Google has all your pages on its search engines.

Google Analytics

Simply put, Google analytics is one of the core tools you need for your business no matter if you just started out or have been in the business a long time. As the name states, it handles the analytics of your website and whatever pages you have on it. Once you put the coding into your website, you can churn out information such as the amount of visitors and real time visitors that has been to your site. See their demographics if they are logged into Google or even see what countries they are coming from. You can also determine which page did they enter your website, how long they are spending on your website and which page do they exit.

Goals

One of the most useful tool i use in Google analytics is the goals, Goals are basically specific terms you can set to determine if your website has completed the objectives. For example, a goal is completed if someone completes an inquiry form or if someone checks out an item in your e-commerce store. With this tool, you can determine how many percent of your visitors are actually converting into customers and you can tailor your website to convert more. This can mean by improving a certain page with more visitors to convert them.

Google Webmaster

As smart as Google is, Google cannot find your website at its creation. It needs to receive hints or information from other websites that your website exists, once it receives “news” it will send it’s robots to crawl through your website to gather more information about your website. Google Webmaster is a tool which you can use to speed up that process. Webmaster is also an invaluable tool for diagnostics for viruses or malware lurking in your site.

Tracking your websites on search terms your website is ranking for will also help you get a good idea of your website standings in the SERPS and your SEO efforts. With Google’s new markup on information displayed via structured data, you can also measure how your website is doing.

Speed Test

Website speed is one of the biggest factors the search engine giant uses to determine for the search page rankings. Google PageSpeed Insights is a great tool you can use to test your website for both mobile and desktop versions. They will also tell you tips to speed up your website to better serve your visitors. As a general rule, your website should load within 3 seconds. Go above that timing and based on Google’s historical data you lose about 20% of potential visitors per second.

Guides

If you still can’t wrap around the different terms on how to improve your site speed, there are also guides available to help you out. Better yet, you can also look for our services to help improve your site speed or even SEO/SEM Services.

Google Business

If you don’t even have a website but still want to list your business on Google, you can do so via Google Business. Google Business is a neat tool which allows you to put your company on the local maps. Adding a business has never been any easier. Once you have applied for this service, Google sends you a confirmation mail and once you’ve verified your business, your listing is automatically placed on Google maps. You can then receive reviews from your customers or place important information on Google maps such as contact details, opening hour or even picture associated to your business.

In addition, Google businesses tends to show up first on many search results which can be a great way to convert new visitors.

Search Engine Optimisation

31st August 2017/0 Comments/in Post, Search Engine Optimisation/by Site Default

More than 50% of visitors from mobile

23rd August 2017/0 Comments/in Search Engine Optimisation/by Site Default

Research has now shown than more than 50% of visitors come from mobile. This is to be expected especially when we heard last year from several Google workers that mobile has already taken over desktop searches in 2015. With such a trend and probably more to come in the upcoming decade, it is all the more important to pay attention to your mobile friendly website.

The misconception of a mobile friendly website is common and people have the impression that as long as their website can be view online, it is automatically called a mobile friendly version. This can be further from the truth.

There are 4 key features of a mobile friendly website:

Visible and touch friendly call to actions

visible call to actions is definitely needed for mobile-friendly sites in order to convert. Where a desktop will excel in precise clicking and can easily navigate through a page, mobile devices are tiny and in comparison, require a visible button or call to action in order to convert sales.

Call functionality

statistics have proven that conversions occur within 3 minutes of navigating of a site and also that visitors often at times are just looking for a number to call easier to make the purchase. It is essential that your number is thus visible throughout the website and has the code to automatically bring the visitor to the dialer at a single tap.

Simple Navigation

Navigation can be really tricky if your website is not mobile friendly. The need to scroll to the left or right in order to reach a page is frustrating. Websites should have simple navigations with a large font which makes it touch friendly. Structuring your website to allow visitors to reach where they want to within 3 clicks is also a huge bonus

Scale according to size

If the war between Android and Apple is anything, you’ll know that screen sizes vary greatly within different brands. mobile websites should be able to scale perfectly according to any size you throw at the visitor be it tablets or mobile phone. Your pictures and navigation should also scale accordingly to give visitors a unified look throughout the board.

Conclusion

With the uprising of mobile searches, mobile sites are a definite must for any website to succeed. In addition, speed is also a key factor especially when your mobile device has significantly slower internet speeds than your wired or home connection. It is also important to conduct separate tracking for both your website and mobile view so that you can determine what works for your website. Check out this article if you would like to find out how to make your website load faster.