Ways to Boost Your Search Engine Ranking
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under SEO
According to Wikipedia, “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid search results as opposes to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion.”
The fact is, when searching the web, online users do not usually venture beyond the 10th page of the search engine results. If you do not rank in the top 10 pages, your customers will not be able to easily access your website. This can put a considerable damper on the number of site visitors and, inevitably, the number of sales you receive.
Creating a healthy web presence is key to digital success. There are several factors that increase the compatibility of your website with search engines. Your objective should be to rank in the first page of Google search results. SEO professionals look at the following website features to help boost ranking by building a SEO-friendly website.
Navigation
The navigation headers on your website should be clear and concise so these links are indexed by search engines. Flash-based websites are not SEO-compliant therefore all navigation should be image or text-based to be recognised by search engines.
Content
Content include the text and SEO-relevant keywords used throughout your website.
Multimedia
This include the pictures, videos, animation, and audio found on your website along with the text used to describe these features.
Localised Domains
Selecting domain names (URL’s) for your website that end in .co.tt or .tt (for example, www.blinkbroadband.tt) helps to boost your visibility in localised regions, in this case, Trinidad and Tobago. Helping your customers to find you online when searching for services you offer will inevitably boost your site traffic, and overall profitability.
Website Code
Meta-Tags speak directly to search engines to describe what your website has to offer. The meta-tags found in the coding of your website should be written clearly, precisely and include relevant keywords.
Web analytics
Web analytics allows you to track user trends, where your web traffic is coming from and how visitors interact with your website. This essential tools also allows you to evaluate the progress of your website and make adjustment to troubled areas.
If you own a website, search engine optimization should be incorporated into your marketing strategy to ensure that your website is receiving a healthy amount of traffic. A successful website is key to the success of any organization. The expert web developers, designers and marketers at Si can implement search engine optimized features that ensure a higher ranking and visibility in popular search engines.
For more information, please contact us at sales@simplyintense.com.
Tags: content, google, mutlimedia, search engine, search engine optimization, SEO, seo-friendly, website design
6 Reasons for Implementing Video into Your Online Business Strategy
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under Digital Strategy, Online Marketing
It’s no secret that video is still one of the most effective forms of communication but with the advent of Internet video, a host of additional benefits and uses were born.
1. Make your site more interesting: Video is a lot more interesting than plain text and images because it contains motion and sound. People are drawn to it and are more likely to watch a three-minute video than read an entire web page or blog post. Multimedia implementation (including video) is one aspect of a successful website.
2. It’s On Demand: Unlike a television commercial people can watch an internet video whenever and where they want. It’s always ready to be played and can be viewed on multiple devices such as computers, laptops, cell phones and portable media players.
3. Increase your search engine ranking: Google and other search engines index videos. Pictures and videos add interest to your web pages and search engine rankings recognize and reward this feature. Sites with images and videos are placed higher than those without. Videos also appear in search results.
The Screen-shot below shows the search results for “a lesson in wining” The first hit is a video from eZshop.tt’s YouTube channel:
Google Search: " A lesson in Wining"
4. Raise your brand image: Video can add to your credibility, create awareness of your company and help build your brand. Video can convey a depth of information that text documents or still image cannot possibly deliver. This level of communication lets your voice be heard above all the noise.
5. Provide a gateway from other sites: Uploading videos to popular video sharing sites such as Youtube can provide links to your website. You can add your URL to the description of the video or in the video itself. Internet videos that go viral can help increase traffic to your website.
6. Simplify something difficult: Complex ideas, concepts and instructions can be easily simplified with an instructional video or screencast. It’s much easier to visually show someone how to do something than to try and explain it using just words.
In this age of new media the platforms for old tools of communication are rapidly changing. Prices are down and the world is connected like never before. Competition is stiff and there is a lot of noise. For business success, it is time you add video to your digital arsenal. To find out more about video implementation and viral marketing of videos, please contact us at sales@simplyintense.com.
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Tags: internet video, screencast, search engine, video, viral video, YouTube
Tips for Online Branding Success
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under Digital Strategy, Online Marketing
At Si Media, we understand brands and how online branding efforts can achieve the results our clients expect. Using these tips to build and execute a branding strategy will ensure success for your organization.
Engage Them
Provide an engaging online environment that attracts your audience and rewards them for their time. Avoid providing too much mundane information about your company; instead draw them in by focusing on their needs and interests and educate them on the benefits of your product or service.
Consistency is Key
Make sure your online initiatives are consistent with your offline campaigns. Your branding message and approach should speak the same words in all of your channels. Consistency is key to build a trustworthy brand that your target audience can rely on.
Open Communication Barriers
There are several online media platforms that enable companies to quickly and efficiently share branded company information and build customer trust such as social media websites, blogs, and eNewsletters.
Social Media Networks
Social networks are the perfect web tool to communicate with your audience. Popular social media networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook allow you to connect with your market, share information and respond to their feedback to build consumer trust. One notable company that has been sharing information, responding to feedback and actively communicating with their audience is eZshop Caribbean. This progressive company has set up an eZshop Trinidad Facebook page as well as a Twitter profile to help open communication barriers and keep their target market informed about new products and promotions.
Company Blogs
Having a blog allows you to provide company information, product updates, and events information to your audience. A blog differs from your corporate website because it gives you the opportunity to be less formal, yet speak directly to your customers on a regular basis. Blogs also allow your customers to interact with your Blog posts by providing feedback and sharing information with other users.
eNewsletters
Relying on your audience to visit your website for news and updates is not always practical. eNewsletters allow you to build a database of client information and update your audience via branded emails. It gives you control of who sees your information and in what timeframe.
Banner Advertising
Banners ads are the perfect tool to build web visibility. There are several advertising platforms and local websites that offer advertising space. The type of website you chose to advertise on will depend on your company’s location and industry. Simply Intense offers advertising opportunities on several Microsoft platforms including MSN Home, Hotmail, and MSN Messenger. The beauty of advertising on Microsoft is that you can target your ads to be viewed based on the online users age group, gender, and location so the right person sees your branded message. These online spaces offer high visibility to your audience to build brand awareness and encourage viewers to visit your website.
Providing engaging content in the right web spaces is key to building you brand. The above tips will help any organization spread information and get your customers talking. Good luck!
Tags: banner advertising, blogs, Branding, branding strategy, online branding, Si Media, Social Media
eZshop.tt – eCommerce in the Caribbean
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under Events & Happenings, eCommerce
Si Media recently launched a localized eCommerce portal for eZshop Caribbean that enables the buying and selling of retail products to the masses in Trinidad & Tobago. We have created the technology to enable multiple wholesalers to manage their own online stores. This is said to be the most complex digital management system in the Caribbean region as it is facilitated by the latest in technology advancements. Consumers in the Caribbean now have the oppportunity to shop online and get products delivered to their frontdoor – which was a limited service in the T & T up until recently.
The website offers nifty products for boys, girls, men and women, so we’ve created the eZ Family known as “The Zee’s” to represent ezShop’s product categories and appeal to the market in the Caribbean. The Zees are the first Caribbean animated family to exist which is an exciting adventure for us and our partners. This project, once again demonstrates our teams creative skills and technology background that can redefine business, as we know it locally.
Meet the eZ Family – Emily Zee (daughter), Eric Zee (son), Liz Zee (mother) and Earl Zee (father)
Please check out eZshop.tt….it bess!
Tags: caribbean online shopping, eCommerce, ezfamily, ezshop, ezshop caribbean, ezshop.tt, online shopping, online shopping in Trinidad, T&T, Trinidad and Tobago
How Google Analytics Can Help You
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under Digital Strategy, SEO
Web tracking tools allow you to plan and redefine your business strategy and make appropriate changes for the purpose of continuous improvement – a necessary practice for any business. Si Media offers Tracking and Reporting Management services helping to save our clients time and preparing data for easy reading and analysis.
Although there are a number of tools available in the market, here we focus solely on the Google Analytics Tool; our web performance tool of choice. Google Analytics offers an array of features that enable companies to achieve their short-term and long-term objectives by measuring key performance indicators via graphs and website traffic data.
Benefits of Google Analytics:
1. Free Service – Google Analytics is a free service that offers the same features compared to other website performance tools that are provided at a cost.
2. Site Comparison – Google Analytics allows you to compare the performance of your website with sites of comparable size.
3. Website Optimization – The data provided in your web analytics reports allows you understand what pages your visitors are visiting the most and plan ways in which you can to better optimize the less popular pages (copywriting, incoming links, etc.). This allows you to plan your marketing strategy to enhance incoming traffic and sales.
4. Measure Traffic – With Google Analytics you can compare whether your website traffic has increased or decreased over different periods of time. This data gives you valuable insight for optimization purposes and helps to measure the impact a marketing/PR campaign had on your traffic.
5. Track Visitor Activity & Behavior - You gain the ability to track the pages and links that your visitors clicked on and measure whether optimization is needed for the less popular web pages on your site.
6. Measure Bounce Rate – According to Wikipedia, “bounce rate is a term used in web site traffic analysis. It essentially represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site. The formula used to calculate bounce rate is: Bounce Rate = Total Number of Visits Viewing One Page ÷ Total Number of Visits.”
7. Track How Visitors Find Your Site – Google Analytics allows you to find out how visitors find your website (via a search engine, link on another site, typing your URL into their browser, etc.). You can also view keywords that online searchers used to find your website on search engines. This data also provides insight for website optimization purposes.
8. Measure KPI’s – Google Analytics allows you to measure success indicators of your website including increased/decreased visits, sales, and conversions. These key performance indicators provide valuable insight to website owners and marketing professionals enabling them to tweak their website for better performance ratings and search engine rankings.
9. Visitor Segmentation – Google Analytics reports allows you segment your traffic by location/geography, new or returning visitors, and how they found your website, enabling you to plan and coordinate targeted marketing strategies around the trending of your website.
Tags: analytics, conversions, google analytics, Si Media, web reporting, web tracking, website perofmance, website traffic
Business Benefits of an Online Community
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under Online Marketing, Social Media
According to Wikipedia, “a virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as newsletters, telephone, email, internet social network service or instant messages rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes”.
The influence of an Online Community can greatly benefit your business in a number of ways:
1. Customer Service – An online community allows you to interact directly with your clients and customers, helping your business to build relationships and strengthen customer loyalty.
2. Marketing – Promoting your products, services, and/or ideas to a targeted audience is very easily achieved with an online community.
3. Search Engine Optimization – Online communities lend a hand to the concept of search engine optimization or SEO, which results in increased traffic to your site and more positive interaction (comments, feedback, etc.) from visitors.
4. Market Research – Online communities allow for instant customer feedback helping you to better understand the likes and dislikes of your target market and lending a hand in your company’s idea generation process. Customers will feel empowered to know that your company values their opinions.
5. Public Relations– Online communities help to strengthen word-of-mouth, build support among your followers and manage the reputation of your business.
6. Employee Communications – Your employees will be provided with a platform within which they can interact and quickly share information.
Simply Intense Media offers a community management tool called the SiCommunity. Si Community enables you to harness the power of our CMS with key functionality and features that enable you to manage your own online community. With loads of standard features and many progressive social networking tools built in, SiCommunity is your answer to engage your audience.
Tags: e-community, Marketing, online community, PR, Si Media, SiCommunity, simply intense media
The 7 Key Aspects of a Successful Website
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under Digital Media, Digital Strategy
The Seven Key Aspects of a Successful Website include:
1. Design
2. Development
3. Search Engine Optimization
4. Content & Copywriting
5. Social Media Marketing
6. Digital Advertising
7. Multimedia
Clean web development, engaging design, and quality content are important from the birth (or rebirth) of your website. Search engine optimization (SEO) plays an important role in most key aspects, but especially when it comes to content and design. SEO content is created in a way that allows online searchers to easily find your website via search engines.
SEO must be applied when writing the Title, Description and Keywords Tags of your website. Each web page on your site should have a unique title and description that clearly illustrates the content of the page. This shows up as the text on a search engine results page and explains to online searchers what your website has to offer.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) refers to the use of social media websites and networks as well as blogs, online communities and other internet media platforms for the purpose of sales, marketing, PR and customer relations. Popular Social Media platforms include Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Si Media offers a Social Media Marketing Management Program (SM3P) that combines knowledge of marketing, the Internet, social media and interaction design to generate ROI for clients and help them achieve their goals in the digital space.
Whether you are advertising on Facebook, Google, or your local newspaper website, your Ad content and graphics must also utilize the concept of SEO to attract visitors. PPC or Pay per click advertising is now a popular and affordable form of Internet advertising being adopted by companies of all sizes. PPC allows the advertising company to pay only when an online user has clicked on their ad making it an attractive advertising option.
Finally, the use of web-based multimedia such as video, sound, and animation can make a huge impact on a visitor’s experience. Multimedia helps to create a memorable and engaging experience for online users, which positively influences your site traffic, which includes new and returning visitors.
Following the above mentioned tips will truly make an impact on your audience and provide the results you desire to achieve your business objectives. Feel free to visit our website for more information on our products and services that can boost the performance of your website.
Tags: content, copywriting, digital advertising, multimedia, PPC, search engine optimization, Si Media, social media marketing, Web Design, web development, web traffic
Si Media Celebrates World Tourism Day 2009
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under Events & Happenings
It was a day for us to come together to celebrate diversity in Trinidad & Tobago and discuss ways in which creativity can be embraced in the Tourism Industry.
Simply Intense Media was selected to present on behalf of the Internet and New Media Industry at the Chaguaramas Convention Center on September 29, 2009 in the presence of the Minister of Tourism, Joseph Ross. The topic at hand was entitled “Doing Business in The Cloud”.
Miles Abraham, Head of Strategic Planning and Creative at Si Media presented ways in which Digital Marketing, Interactive Media, and the Internet benefits the Tourism Industry. He highlighted the fact that the Internet generation now uses the Web to research travel destinations, book flights, and make other their travel arrangements (accommodations, tours, dinners, and so on). With that in mind, he discussed the importance of having quality content readily available on the Web to enable online travelers to achieve their goals, thereby encouraging tourism in our country.
Although T&T has a creative, rich, and vibrant culture, this is hardly represented on the Internet for the world to see. We are lacking informative and attractive websites and web content to influence travelers’ decisions when it comes to vacation planning. Mr. Abraham discussed the importance of building upon this content and using Social Media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to promote and market Travel and Tourism in Trinidad & Tobago.
Si Media strongly believes in the role that the Internet and Digital Marketing plays when it comes to building and bettering the Tourism Industry. We thoroughly enjoyed celebrating World Tourism Day ’09 and look forward to bringing you lots more fresh information and facts in 2010.
World Tourism Day is commemorated each year on September 27th, dating back to the early 1980’s.
Tags: Tourism Industry, Trinidad & Tobago, World Tourism Day
Digital Experience Design: Getting That WOW Factor
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under Web Design
The term digital experience refers to the user experience on a website and is created by interaction design. It is the mixed case study of production, design, computer-to-human interaction and aesthetics to create an emotional response from the site user. The objective is to create positive emotions in online users, while also building credibility and trust.
Si Media is your Interactive Digital Agency that offers inspiring and innovative digital experience design. Click here to view a powerful example of our Digital Experience work.
5 Benefits of Digital Experience Design
Providing an excellent user experience can be the key influencing factor affecting a client’s decision to work with your firm or to select a competitor’s products/services instead. There are a number of benefits that your company can obtain from providing a memorable digital experience, including the following:
1. Enhanced Site Usability: Digital experience design offers an easier user interface and encourages online users to delve deeper into your website. This consequently results in higher conversion rates.
2. Powerful Online Branding: Digital experience not only influences online users to visit again but also encourages them to share your site with friends, family, or coworkers. Building your brand online helps increase the reputation of your business.
3. Competitive Advantage: The design of your website can help differentiate your firm and its services from your competitors. In other words, providing an excellent digital experience can increase your competitive advantage.
4. Customer Retention: A truly memorable and empowering digital experience results in greater consumer trust and satisfaction. In the long run, this allows you to build credibility and form lasting relationships with customers.
5. Increased Revenue: The above mentioned factors – enhanced usability, online branding, competitive advantage, and customer retention – all lend a hand to increasing the profits of your firm.
Si Media specializes in creative and engaging Digital Experience Design; please feel free to email us with inquiries and questions.
Tags: digital experience, digital experience design, interaction design, website design
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
Posted by SiMedia | Filed under Online Marketing, Social Media
Although Social Media Marketing (SMM) efforts first began in the late 1990’s, the concept is still advancing to this day. With that said, the good news is that it’s not too late for your company to jump aboard the social media marketing bandwagon. Let’s take a deeper look at the concept of social media and how SMM can benefit your company!
What is Social Media?
Social media, in its broadest sense, is the collaboration of internet technology and social interaction to create meaning and value. Popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, allow users to create online profiles, build a list of friends or business contacts, and share information, pictures and videos. In essence, social media is the creation and sharing of user-generated content made possible via the building of online relationships.
SMM utilizes social media websites to gain publicity, promote products/services, and seek out business opportunities for revenue building purposes. Si Media provides an exclusive social media platform, the Si Community that offers key functionalities enabling businesses to manage their own online community and engage in SMM. Find out more info here.
Company Benefits of Social Media Marketing
1. Increased Traffic = Increased Profit: Social media marketing strategies are focused on increasing website traffic by reaching out to a larger audience, which in turn increases the likelihood of gaining new business and client prospects.
2. Build Your Brand Identity: a successful SMM strategy gets online users talking about your brand. The more they talk, the more your brand reputation grows among prospective clients… It’s the online mirror of word-of-mouth advertising!
3. Enhance Search Engine Ranking: Social media marketing inherently increases the number of links pointing toward your website, which greatly influences how you rank in search engines and how easily web searchers find your site. Search engine optimized websites get more links which results in more traffic.
4. Cost Efficiency: SMM campaign rates can be the fraction of the cost of conventional marketing and advertising in the long run.
5. Direct Customer Contact: Social Media websites allow companies to share news and information (promotions etc.) with consumers almost instantly, whereas traditional forms of marketing could take weeks to get before the eyes of the target customer.
6. Gain Consumer Trust: Consumers feel more confident buying from a company that other people recommend and trust. Social media websites allows consumers to provide feedback and recommendations about your company and its products/services, which allows prospective consumers to read and be influenced by.
Interested in exploring the world of Social Media?
Si Media specializes in the innovation of internet marketing and social media campaigns. For more information please feel free to check out our website or you can email us here.
Tags: internet marketing, SEO, SMM, socail media, social media marketing
