MAKING OPTIMUM USE OF

Not being a proponent of any of the social networking sites, I had only seen a thumbnail pic of Riaan and Deon Coetzee, the brother team heading up o5webdesign, the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) company that had done work for me over the years.

Then I received a call from Deon saying that he and Tania would be in Cape Town and he’d very much like to make personal contact with me. Without further ado we agreed to meet at Fraîche Ayres tea garden in the grounds of Stark Ayres Nursery in Rosebank on Wednesday April 7 – the eve of my departure for Asia.

The hour flew by. Tania is a breath of fresh air (no pun intended) with a delightful sense of humour and grasp of Life (with that capital letter). Putting a face to a name has made a big difference in my opinion of their company and it’s going to be much more fun working with Deon from now on.

Oh yes, if you don’t yet know what SEO is all about, they specialise in search engine optimisation of websites and help to increase visibility on the Internet. As Riaan explains, “The Internet has become so vast that merely having yet another website is, quite literally, a waste of time”. He tells me that in 2009 alone 49 million new websites were launched. That means www.dolphinza.com is merely a drop in the ocean and which also means I’ve got to be one step ahead of the pack baying at my heels.

It boils down to this: “If your website isn’t being found in search engines by people looking not for your business name, but for your type of services or products – and often in a certain area – you are effectively handing potential business to your competition,” says Riaan. “It’s a fact that almost 65% of all Internet users do not know the name of a business so they go online to search for what they require and if they’re not finding you – meaning your website isn’t tanking as high as possible under that first 10 search results – you are lost.”

It boils down to this: “If your website isn’t being found in search engines by people looking not for your business name, but for your type of services or products – and often in a certain area – you are effectively handing potential business to your competition,” says Riaan. “It’s a fact that almost 85% of al Internet users do not know the name of a business so they go online to search for what they require and if they’re not finding you – meaning your website isn’t ranking as high as possible under that first 10 search results – you are lost.”

The question you need to ask yourself is: are they finding your website? This makes the difference between merely having the bragging rights to say ‘I have a website’ to ‘I have a potential marketing tool’.

O5webdesign will help you with a potential marketing tool; they will also advise and assist you to go beyond just the website and use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Blogging in conjunction with your correctly optimised website to exponentially increase your overall Internet exposure thereby giving you a much increased Internet footprint in the jungle that’s out there.

Why do I punt these two pundits? Because it’s worked for me – and, oh yes, because they’re just a nice bunch of people!

riaan@o5webdesign.co.za 012-6642545 deon@o5webdesign.co.za