Search Engine Optimisation has never been more important for businesses, than it is in 2020 in South Africa.
The same applies to South African businesses.
Why, you might ask?
The marketplace in South Africa has grown and expanded in the past years. According to the study Doing Business in South Africa 2018: “A wave of optimism continues to wash across South Africa as the country benefits from renewed political stability and improved global economic conditions.”
Now, a lot of the South African marketplace has moved and is still moving online. Or, at least occupying online space along with physical properties. As a business owner that is striving to succeed in the marketplace of 2020 – Search Engine Optimisation is a necessity.
You might think – “Ah, I can get by without SEO” – and you might. However, you will merely get by – barely.
Instead of thriving, succeeding, and overrunning your competition.
Unless your business too, has an online presence – it is likely to fall behind its competitors – who do have one. However, this alone won’t do – your business needs more than just an online presence to compete and overrun its competitors.
It needs a strong online presence.
Especially, if you are a business doing business in the three strongest marketplaces in South Africa: Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.
Who decides which businesses are stronger online?
Users and search engines. You probably already know the search engine Google, and you might have heard about the less used Yahoo, and Bing engines. More and more people, globally, and in South Africa, are finding out about businesses by doing searches on search engines.
Google, alone, reports 63,000 searches every second. Which is 2 trillion searches every single year. All those people are looking for, and finding, information or products online.
What is great about search engines is that small businesses can compete with large businesses. And, it’s not hard to do. If you have a new business – the online space gives you a lot of opportunities for you to gain profit. It does not favor anyone.
So, let’s say you are a newly opened coffee house in Johannesburg. How do you make yourself stand out in search engines? You need to convince users and search engines of the worth your business with your website and online presence.
How do I convince users and search engines to choose my business?
All you have to do is have a good website design, a well SEO optimised website, and SEO strategies in place. With these, as a small business, you have a lot of chances of outranking your competitors online – even larger businesses. As a large business – you still have a lot of chances to keep ahead of competitors.
Let’s say you have already built your online website. You have a pretty good modern design to it and it runs fast. Here you can find out more about what makes a good website design.
Now, despite this – your website doesn’t do that well in Google’s organic search results. Which are the lists of domains and links that Google shows when a user has a search query. So, you’re just not ranking very high – although you have a pretty solid and authentic business.
Here we go into search engine optimization to try and fix that.
How does SEO in South Africa work?
Just as in any other country on the planet. Search engine optimization is a simple process – if you know the ins and outs of it. Which is what a good SEO company with experienced SEO professionals knows. The ins and outs of SEO.
Search engine optimization is basically optimizing your online presence so that you get listed 1st, or as close to 1st as possible, in search results shown to users.
Content is king.
You might have heard this phrase before. Let us tell you what it’s all about.
There are many reasons why your website is not ranking high in Google or other search engines – from an SEO perspective. Your website might have content, but it’s not written in a way that’s easily read by search engines.
Remember, your website needs to convince both users and search engines of its value.
If you write only for users – search engines might not fully understand. The other way around applies too – if you write just for search engines – your users might not fully understand. Your content needs to be balanced for both humans and machine.
That’s why keywords are important – however, they need to be part of the content in a natural flowing and unexaggerated way. Which means – no keyword stuffing.
Your consumers won’t like your website very much if all they see are keywords when entering your website. They will click away from it. When they do this – leave and not spend time on your website – it tells Google that your website is just not that good. It’s not what they are looking for.
Is SEO just content?
No, it isn’t. Below you can see a pie we have drawn that goes through the all SEO services we, Codepilot, offer our clients.
SEO services that all are part of a successful SEO strategy and process.
As you can see SEO starts with website analysis.
To understand why your website is not ranking high on Google, you need to find out why. You can’t know why unless you analyse your website first.
Secondly, keyword research is mandatory. As we’ve said above – search engines need to understand what your website is about. One way it does this, is by noticing keywords in your content.
Then, when a user searches for something online that contains one of those keywords – Google shows them your website or webpage.
From there SEO goes into competitor analysis, webpage or onsite optimisation, social media integration, blog presence, press releases, article presence, directory presence, quality link building and monthly reporting of how your business is doing in organic search engine results.
Does SEO offer a return on investment?
Once all of the parts of an SEO process are taken care of – in time, you will see an ROI for your business. The SEO process can be a long one – however, it is one that pays off.
With search engine optimisation the new coffee house you just opened – will gain the online visibility it needs to bring in customers. As many as your competitors – or more.
Succeeding in South Africa – SEO is a must.
As a business located in any of the largest cities in South Africa: Johannesburg, Durban or Cape Town – you need SEO to survive and succeed.
All of these three cities have businesses that are pushing the limits – one way they do it, is with their online presence. And with an intelligent and creative SEO strategy that encompasses all the SEO services they can use.
Many businesses choose exceptional SEO companies with exceptional SEO professionals to handle their SEO strategy. Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town are hubs for some of the most innovative digital work going on in all of South Africa.
Missing out on that innovative digital work – means missing out on potential consumers. It means missing out on more profit.
We at Codepilot consider ourselves one of the best SEO companies in South Africa. We guarantee we have the SEO professionals, SEO knowledge, and the tools to drive your business to the top.
We want businesses in South Africa to reach the top. We want your business to reach the top.
We’re based in Johannesburg. Reach out to us today.