‘online traffic’

eCommerce has been rather slow in South Africa over the past few years when compared to that of the UK and the USA, but a report published in 2010, by World Wide Worx as a South African research company, indicated that online shopping in South Africa is picking up in pace. According to their report, the number of South Africans with Internet access grew with 15% from 2009 to the beginning of 2010.

The recent MasterCard Worldwide survey regarding online shopping trends indicated that 51% of the respondents in the survey did online shopping in South Africa, while around 95% used the Internet for email and 74% for bank access. As such e-commerce is definitely still in the infancy phase in South Africa. More than half the users cited that the most preferred products bought online are that of DVDs and CDs. Many of the users make payment through the use of credit cards while users also indicated their satisfaction with their online shopping experiences. Banking, airline tickets, travelling, and general e-commerce sites cash in on the large number of users.

Some of the most popular online shopping sites in South Africa are that of:

• Bid or Buy
• Kalahari.net
• Digital Mall
• MWEB Shopping Zone
• Netflorist
• Look & Listen
• Loot
• Ascot Direct
• Computicket
• CyberCellar
• Woolworths
• Pick & Pay Online Shopping
• Want It All
• Take A Lot (formerly known as Take2)

The MasterCard Worldwide survey results indicated that the number of users who make use of mobile phone access and thus using their phones to do online shopping in South Africa has increased considerably. This can be due to advances in cellphone technology and faster browsing systems. The number of users making use of broadband access has shown a drop from that of 2009. With South Africa being a mobile internet market, it is understandable that more people will do online shopping from their phones.

The question arises whether it is better to add your company products to an online shopping facility create a large eCommerce facility or simply allow for ordering of products at your website? With more and more users of online shopping mall type facilities, one could benefit from such a move. The surveys at this stage indicate that South Africans still use the online shopping facilities mostly for consumer items such as DVDs. Books are also rather popular while entertainment booking is big.

Concerns With Conventional Websites

Users may feel more comfortable now to make secure online payments at large shopping facilities than at for instance, a single website. Fraud is always prevalent on the Internet and many users are still scared to give their credit card details. Companies running their own shopping carts or have one product that can be ordered online, need to ensure that they build credibility with their consumers. Their users will only be willing to part with their information if they feel that the site payment system is secure enough and that they will receive the product ordered in time and good order.

User Reviews Help Sales

At online shopping sites in South Africa such as Bid or Buy, users can check the reviews of suppliers and even though they have to make payment first, they can also make direct electronic transfers or deposits in addition to credit card payments. Having user reviews of the service delivery and ratings on the products seems to help build confidence.

Online Payment Concerns

Users appreciate the idea that there is a large company monitoring the purchasing process and that they will at least be able to get a refund if they are not happy. Online payment systems in South Africa are not yet widely used. PayPal payments are on the increase with users only now becoming aware of secure online payment systems such as Setcom and Monsterpay. Scepticism regarding such can still hinders ordering directly from a website instead of buying through an online shopping portal.

According to the MasterCard Worldwide survey the majority of respondents indicated that they use the Internet to do some research before buying while the merchant website and friends seem to have a large influence on the eventual decision to participate in online shopping in South Africa.

Should a company decide to stay on its own and not link its products to a central online shopping mall in South Africa then it will be imperative to provide:

• A secure online payment system with alternative payment methods offered
• Comprehensive information about the products
• Visual presentations
• User reviews
• Rating system
• Information about deliveries
• Warranty information
• Refund policies
• Various contact  methods
• User feedback forms

Website owners should also try not to add delivery charges or any additional administration charges as such have been stated by some users as reasons for not purchasing online. Difficulty of navigation and uncertainty about the ordering process are more reasons stated for not shopping online in South Africa.

Which Option?

Should you thus add your products to an online shopping facility in South Africa and save the costs of SEO and have the online facility handle the orders or should you sell the products directly from your website? Considering the fact that users trust central online shopping facilities it may save you the costs of having to write copy, update your website and monitor the site. The downside is that your product competes with numerous other products at the same facility. The users can easily do price comparison and one poor rating can cause a severe drop in sales. The solution is to make use of both rather than only using one option.

What is important is to keep a close watch on the return on investment. It is not as difficult as some may imagine to calculate the return on investment at your website. The ROI can be measured by looking at the cost per acquisition known as CPA, the traffic and conversion rate. The CPA entails total cost of website establishment, which is then divided by the total of conversions to sales. The higher the conversion rate, the lower the CPA will be. The conversion rate can be calculated by looking at the number of visits to the website daily and the sales made daily. If you have a hundred sales for every 1000 visits then you have a conversion rate of 10%. The more traffic your site generates, the more chances for sales and thus better conversion.

If you add your products to an online shopping facility as well and where possible create a storefront at such then you increase overall sales and will thus get the maximum benefit of online shopping in South Africa. Contact us to help you get the best possible ROI.

Marie Grey & Associates is South Africa’s top Professional Speakers Bureau. With more than twenty years’ experience in the industry they have a proven track record of successful bookings and organisation of speaker engagements ranging from conference to inspirational, comedian, sport, and futuristic speaking events.

The company is a formidable player in the public speaking industry. With a professional image and a reputation for excellence, Marie Grey & Associates select their marketing vehicles and partners with care. Since the company has teamed up with iLead Online to manage their online marketing campaigns they have moved from offline media advertising to web marketing only.

Their online success can be contributed to a number of factors including, but not limited to:

• Well designed and professional website.
• Ongoing search engine optimization.
• Flexibility in marketing approach.
• Usage of web statistics and reports for the purpose of identifying keywords, customer preferences, search behaviour, as well as strong and weak points in the marketing strategy.
• Informative and sticky content.
• Client feedback options.
• Several means to contact them.
• News and events section for freshness.
• Careful selection of content.
• Comprehensive information about services.
• Sitemap for additional navigation and for search bots.
• Facebook presence.
• YouTube presence.
• Pay Per Click advertising.
• Affiliate marketing.
• Effective online marketing mix.

iLead Online regularly provides Marie Grey & Associates with progress reports. As such the client stays updated and any changes that need to be made to ensure even better rankings can be discussed. With the iLead Online pro-active approach to search engine marketing, Pay Per Click advertising, and usage of the social media to promote client sites, we can thus identify potential opportunities and pitfalls rather than having to react to changes in search engine algorithms and Internet usage behaviour.

Company Experience With iLead Online

Marie Grey & Associates originally decided to use iLead Online when they conducted an organic search for web marketing companies. Upon reviewing the iLead Online website they found the site to be professional and decided, based on the information provided by iLead Online, to make use of our services. We have since then built a strong working relationship with the company and regard them as one of our top clients.

Marie Grey, founder of the company, has commented that they have experienced a solid increase in speaker bookings since making use of iLead Online as their SEO and web marketing company, and that the ROI rate for web marketing investment is excellent. She furthermore feels that Pay Per Click also provides a good return on investment regarding web marketing spending and will certainly recommend such as an additional channel for online promotion. On the question of whether she will recommend iLead Online as SEO company Marie answered “Absolutely, and I have done so already”.

Marie Grey & Associates has two websites for which monitoring is in place:

www.mariegreyspeakers.com

www.motivational-speakers-sa.co.za

Solid Return On Investment

Both websites perform excellent with an average of 2.85 pages visited per visitor, indicating that the average visitor lands at the website, and clicks on two more pages before making a booking, using the contact details or leaving. With the new Google Panda Algorithm in place, the time spent and pages visited before exiting a website becomes all important. As such the Marie Grey & Associates websites perform well. The average time spent at the .com website is almost three minutes which is superb ensuring no quick exists. With Google’s Panda it becomes essential to have sticky content ensuring that the visitor doesn’t leave within the first minute as such will lead to a drop in rankings at the end of the day if not addressed.

The website marketing techniques work as proven by the average total of new visitors to the site being almost 75%. As such the site traffic is growing month-by-month and brand awareness and new customers are on the increase. More than 82% of all traffic generated to the site comes from organic searches where users type in a keyword phrase and conducts a search relevant to the content of the particular website.

The low bounce rate of the site, the increase in bookings experienced by Marie Grey & Associates, and the time that users spend at the site indicate that the keywords selected and the content generated have been well aligned, and are effective as well as relevant to the user requirements. Just fewer than 8% traffic comes from referring sites which include links, directories and affiliate sites while direct hits account for 11.78% indicating the users already familiar with the web address and returning.

Traffic is sent via search engines through an average of 405 keywords which indicates that the Marie Grey & Associates website is well optimized and rank well for several keywords. Another important consideration when analysing the performance of a website with search engines is the target audience response. Most of the users of the website come from South Africa, which is rather important since the company’s target market is mainly South Africans.  The South African users visit more than three pages on average per visit to the website and with a low bounce rate; it becomes apparent that they find what they are looking for.

Complete Online Marketing Mix

iLead Online follows a complete online marketing mix to ensure maximum exposure, relevant and targeted traffic and an increase in business generation for Marie Grey & Associates. Some of the techniques used include that of:

• Monthly addition of new informative articles to the website written by professional copywriters;
• Strategic link building and additional Google exposure by way of the iLead network of sites;
• Regular sitemap updating and submission to Google; and more.

Marie Grey & Associates is a top performing company and iLead Online takes pride in the development of their online presence. From the information provided it is clear that the SEO and online marketing techniques used by iLead Online provide the desired ROI for client companies. Contact us today to help your company gain a competitive edge in the online world.

YouTube is the new hotspot for website marketers. With around 1.8 billion video views at YouTube already recorded, it has become the best possible way to get loads of traffic to a website fast. The days of driving traffic to a website by means of text based content only, are gone. Thanks to new search engine indexing abilities, which include searches for videos, it is now possible to drive insane amounts of online traffic to your website with the use of YouTube marketing methods.

People can now watch streaming video because of broadband technology. The most watched videos on YouTube are, however, still under five minutes, something worth remembering when you create your YouTube marketing videos. Although certainly not the only video channel site on the Net, YouTube is by far the most popular and ignoring the value of visual promotion may cost more than you think.

Anyone in the entertainment, education or marketing industry should consider YouTube as a main online traffic generator. Small businesses hoping to compete with the big Internet marketing gurus out there will especially benefit from informative, viral, short and interesting videos placed on YouTube. Getting the videos up is not the problem. The biggest obstacle is getting noticed when you have to compete with more than six million other videos on YouTube for the attention of viewers.

A few of the YouTube marketing strategies that you can use and the steps in setting such up are shared below to get you started. The assistance from a professional online marketing company, however, will ensure even better results.

Subscription Ensures Return Visits

Just as an opt-in application at your website will help to get subscribers to your newsletter and return visits to your website, a subscription option for videos will help you reach a wider audience and get your website name, business brand, products, and services out there without having to pay thousands for a TV ad. In this way you will be able to update subscribers when you add new videos. People are curious creatures and if the topics relate to their interests they will visit your site, and where relevant, YouTube for the latest videos.

Allow For Embedding Of Videos

You may have noticed that some of the videos at YouTube cannot be embedded into your blog or website. The ones that do get even more online traffic and generate loads of links to your site, however, will be the videos that are embedded at other websites and blogs. Thus – allow for embedding when you upload your videos to YouTube. If for no other reason than getting more links to your site, you should make it a priority to allow embedding and also sharing of the videos.

Ads should be viewed many times and if you offer informative content about for instance, Excel spreadsheets, the chances are that an educational site will feature the embedded video. It is a valuable incoming link and besides with a short message of more information available at your site, you will be able to get their visitors to your site. Offering for instance, full Excel courses at your site, with videos at YouTube showing the type of instruction that the user can expect, will give credibility to your course content.

YouTube Channel For Marketing Purposes

Create stunning short videos about the topics of your website which will be useful to the viewers. Now create a YouTube channel. Don’t fret. It is easy and free. Once you create your YouTube account, you will automatically receive a channel. A YouTube channel will enable you to arrange content at a central location with a unique YouTube address. In addition, you can create a profile of your business and the content offered at your site, all which link back to your website.

Make use of the YouTube customisation features under the channel settings to create a custom feel and look. The content of your profile and videos can be edited and you will be able to select the most prominent videos to display on the particular profile.

Select an appropriate account upon sign-up. If you are in the music industry, the obvious choice will be a musician account. There are several choices such as Director, Comedian or Guru. If you are offering courses or knowledge for sale including accountancy services, etc. the Guru account will be the way to go. Most businesses will make use of the Guru account.

By selecting a specific channel account, the chances of getting noticed increase. Related sites will link to your channel and user feeds for embedding your videos in their sites. The idea is to narrow the competition. Instead of competing against millions of videos to be noticed you will now only compete against hundreds to thousands. The bottom line is that you want your videos to get to the top of the user searches. As such you will want the videos to appear in a specific category.

Tag YouTube Videos

People seem to ignore this step and with dire consequences for their YouTube marketing efforts. The tags should be carefully selected. You want your videos to form part of a niche group to narrow down online competition further. It is extremely important to select the right categories for tagging.  Do a keyword search related to your topic and review the manner of tagging used for the top results. Tag in a similar manner for optimal results. Use as many keywords as you can and connect them to other content as well.

Playlist Creation

Your next step is to create playlists by selecting the relevant clips from your YouTube account. By grouping clips you make it easier for viewers to get to the clips that are relevant to their interests. You can even get clips from other users and embed them. Simply make sure that you group the video clips and as such drive more traffic to your site. If you use other user video clips, you must ensure that the videos have not been viewed thousands of times. The idea is to get fresh content which will drive traffic. Clips watched multiple times have been offered by other sites already.

Make Use Of The Self Promotion Tools Offered By YouTube

Finally, get the desired online traffic with the free tools offered by YouTube including the YouTube emails and video-sharing facilities and leaving comments at the videos of other users which are relevant. Make sure your postings are at the top – thus leave a comment before others do. Join a YouTube video sharing group or start your own. Turn on the Active Sharing facility which will allow the display of your username every time you visit a video for about 30 minutes right next to the video clip. The other viewers may then click on the videos you have recently watched or click on your profile. They in turn will be shown on your profile page and the links to your site will also show up.

Make the most of YouTube marketing to get online traffic to your website and drive sales without having to spend thousands on marketing. Get even more traffic by making use of expert web marketers.

Although social bookmarking sites are effective vehicles for getting a blog noticed, bloggers can also use guest blogging as part of a blog marketing strategy to drive online traffic to their blogs. Guest blogging is often used as a last online marketing tool when indeed it should form part of any blog SEO and online marketing strategy. In essence then one should not attempt blog marketing without also using some form of guest blogging to get a wider audience, establish the blog name in the blogosphere, and to drive insane amounts of relevant traffic to a blog.

Guest Blogging As Blog Marketing Technique

Guest blogging as a relatively new, and rather ethical blog marketing technique, involves two things:

• Blogging at another blogger’s site relevant to the content of your blog.
• Allowing other guest bloggers to contribute to your blog through guest posts.

Steps Involved In Guest Blogging

Whereas blog marketing in the more traditional sense includes image building in the online environment through bookmarks, guest blogging entails the writing of informative and useful content. It thus takes more work.

• First you need to find a blog related to your blog which allows for guest posts.
• The second step is to review the content of the blog and ensure that the contribution you make will be of value to the blogger.
• The third step involves contact with the blogger to request permission for the guest posting.
• The fourth step involves the submission of the post. Normally the blogger will allow you to put a link or two to your site on the specific topic and also to introduce yourself to the readers of the specific blog.

Why Accept Guest Blogs

When thinking of guest posts you may be concerned about the outgoing links, but since blog marketing is all about the online building of links, you will need to give something back in return for top quality content, and of course, also a link back.

How Effective Are Guest Blogs As Online Promotion Techniques?

Blog marketing is an ongoing process and, whilst you simply cannot ignore the value of submission to blog search engines such as Technorati, bookmarking of blogs, and general optimization, guest blogs provide valuable exposure to new readers, several incoming links, creditability as an expert on the relevant topic, good standing in the blogosphere as well as tons of new online traffic to your blog.