Frequently asked questions
What is a Search Engine?
A computer program used to find specific websites on the Internet or to find desired information on the Internet. Google, Yahoo and Bing are an example of search engines. People very seldom use the good old-fashioned “business listings” book, instead they find it easier to simply type in their desired search to find what they are looking for. Search engines writes programs and formulas (algorithms) to determine which web pages provide the best information for your search.
What is a domain?
Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages. For example, in the URL https://www.yourcompanyname.co.za, the domain name is yourcompanyname.co.za.
What is a Webpage:
A Webpage is not the same thing as a Website. A website is a collection of webpage’s. A webpage is an individual HTML document with an unique page address, known as a URL.
What is a Website:
A Website is made up of individual webpage’s. Each page carefully structured to tell you more about the company, organisation or product. A website typically consists of a Home Page, Contact Us page and many other pages applicable to the type of website.
What is a URL:
Uniform Resource Locator typically known as URL. A URL is a formatted text string used by Web browsers, email clients and other software, to identify a network resource on the Internet. Network resources are files that can be plain webpages, other text documents, graphics, or programs. Each webpage has its own unique URL!
An example of a URL is: https://www.pemarketing.co.za/
What does CMS stand for and what is it?
Content Management System or CMS. CMS is a computer application that allows publishing, editing and modifying website content, organizing, deleting as well as maintenance from a central interface. CMSs are often used to run websites containing blogs, news, and shopping. Many corporate and marketing websites use CMSs.
What are Crawlers, Robots and Spiders?
These are programs and automated scripts that “crawl” through the web (the Internet) and collect data from websites and anything else on the Internet that they can find. Search engines crawl your website to collect data and index it. Search engines look at Meta data and content as well as other information about webpage’s using robot technology.
What are links?
When you are browsing the Web and you see a highlighted and underlined word or phrase on a page, there is a good chance you are looking at a link. By clicking on a link, you can "jump" to a new Web page or a completely different Web site. Images can also serve as links to other Web pages. When you move the cursor over a link in a Web page, the arrow will turn into a little hand, letting you know that it is a link. Links also assist search engine crawlers (robots) to find your website. They follow links on pages and then follow the links on those pages and so one.
What is an Anchor Text?
Anchor text is the text used to describe a link when turning it into a hyperlink using HTML or XHTML coding. Instead of having a URL string as your hyperlink, you can turn a word or a phrase into anchor text, and that will work just like a normal link would. Anchor text is a valuable search engine optimization tool because the word or phrase used in anchor texts can pertain directly to the landing page content, or be one of the major keywords that the web page is trying to rank for. Anchor text is also heavily weighted in search engine algorithms, as algorithms look for the most relevant results for a search query and anchor texts are frequently relevant to the content of the landing page.
What are Backlinks / Inbound links?
Backlinks or Inbound links are links coming into your website form other websites.
What does Page Rank mean?
Page Rank is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank websites in their search engine results. Page Rank was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google. Page Rank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. According to Google:
“Page Rank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.”
It is not the only algorithm used by Google to order search engine results, but it is the first algorithm that was used by the company, and it is the best-known
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of manipulating aspects of a Web site to improve its ranking in search engines. Various approaches are taken to achieve that goal, such as submitting the Web site to directory services, and addressing Web site architecture and quality content. Making sure there are no broken links and that your website is crawlable. Things like structured data, schema, Meta tags, keywords and Google Analytics all play an important role. Linking your business Facebook page and your Google+ page to your website as well as people linking to your website are also part of SEO. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en
Can Google+ assist my Search Results?
Yes, Google+ has a strong effect on Google search not only because it is a product by Google but due to the construct and the power of it. Google+ entered into the social media race not just to compete with other social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook but to improve search engine results.
What are Algorithms?
These are programs and formulas search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, use to rank websites. These algorithms (usually with animal names) can either propel your website to the top or send it plummeting to the bottom of the search results. In short...You want the answer, not trillions of webpage’s. Algorithms are computer programs that look for clues to give you back exactly what you want. http://www.google.com/insidesearch/howsearchworks/algorithms.html
I have heard about White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO, but what is this all about?
Search engine optimisation, as with all things in life has a good, wholesome, fair and right way of doing things and a bad, unfair, downright naughty way of doing things. To describe the two SEO methodologies the terms “White Hat” and “Black Hat” SEO were coined. http://www.pushon.co.uk/articles/top-5-white-hat-and-black-hat-search-optimisation-techniques/
My website must be “Crawlable”...what does that mean?
To be crawlable, a webpage has to be able to take a visitor someplace else. Visitors must be able to navigate to either another one of your webpage’s or to an external site. Bad or broken links reduces the crawability of your webpage’s. Other considerations for determining webpage crawlability are the existence of text on the page that can be indexed. And, whether or not the links on a given page are good, bad, or are being ignored by Google. Remember that Google has chosen to ignore graphic hyperlinks without alt text image tags.
What is the fuss about Social Media Marketing?
Social media are platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn and many more. Marketing your business, products or services on these platforms is what Social Media Marketing is all about. Although they allow free advertising, you can always benefit from the many paid advertising options available. Online networking with potential clients and informing your followers of what you have to offer is an excellent tool for any business.
Do I need to be on every site?
Not every social network is right for every business. Each network has a different set of users. For example, while Facebook users are 60 percent female, almost 80 percent of Pinterest users are women who are more likely to have more education and higher income. Businesses should strategically choose platforms based on the target audience and goals.
What is the process for content development?
No social media strategy can work without having quality content to post consistently. We have a strategy in place to find the type of content that target audiences like the most, and then spread it either organically or through paid promotion. Content strategy should include quality pictures and videos, because these types of content outperform text posts and links.
Social networks are also, moving toward a more visual based standard with sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Snapchat all focusing on the use of images and video.
