Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Malaysia

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Keyword Research

Our search engine optimization services starts with researching and recommending you the right keywords. The right baits for the right fishes always. No point achieving a high search rank with "weighing equipment" when "weighing scales" is searched far many times over.

Competitive Analysis Of Keywords

You are competing against your competitors for the same potential customers. Our search engine optimization team will research your targeted audience before recommending the right keywords for you.

Link Building

Link building, especially from other websites to your site is a complex process involving various techniques to attract high value links to help build your rankings. Search engines attach importance to the quality of links that invariably affect your rankings.

Website Content Development

Search engines are attracted to new and unique contents. But it must be written with good SEO copywriting techniques. Well-written contents are also powerful marketing tools to aid in converting potential customers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A Broader Discussion:

Having a great website is a step in the right direction. The next step is to build traffic to your website.

Let's skip the statistics about global Internet penetration, connectivity and availability. Those are non-issues. Its all about smart phones, the Pads, wireless, high speed connectivity, cloud computing and the like. And all these roads lead to the Internet. Is that not why you have a website?

We want our websites to be ranked well on the search engines so that we can pull more traffic and hopefully more enquiries. To key to get there is to apply Search Engine Optimization on your website.

We have intentionally skipped the technical SEO speak. It's more helpful to give you a layman understanding of what is SEO and how it is most necessary to help your website attain better rankings in the search engines.

Broadly speaking, SEO comprises two simultaneous processes; On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.

But first, we have to understand your business and your target audience completely. Our search engine optimization services starts with researching and recommending you the right keywords The right baits for the right fishes always. No point achieving a high search rank with "weighing equipment" when "weighing scales" is searched far many times over. Once this area is established, we execute the dual SEO processes.

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO is where we work on your entire website's textual contents with the goal to get your website indexed by the search engines. We cannot emphasize this area enough. Contents must be useful, descriptive and informational specific to your keywords. We work on your website textual content with proper SEO copywriting to make sure it has informational value not only to your audience, but to the search engine robots and spiders as well. We evaluate your content for keywords density to sit well with the search engines' criteria determining relevance.

In order for search engines to better discover your website, we make sure your website have proper Meta Tags, Page Title Tags and Page descriptions. All of these are important elements for search engines robots/spiders to crawl your website properly. Think of them as good signposts for the search engine robots.

Off-Page SEO

Off Page SEO is the other complementing process of search engine optimization. It's what we do outside of your website. We focus on various types of link building work of which "backlinks" are the building blocks to good SEO. Being a commonly misunderstood subject, we will dwell on it a bit more.

Backlinks are links that are directed towards your website. It is also referred to as Inbound links. The number of backlinks to your website is an indication of the popularity or importance of your website. Backlinks are important for SEO because some search engines, especially Google, will give more credit to websites that have a good number of quality backlinks, and consider those websites more relevant than others in their results pages for a search query.

When search engines calculate the relevance of a site to a keyword, they consider the number of QUALITY inbound links to that site. So we should not be satisfied with merely getting inbound links, it is the quality of the inbound link that matters. A search engine considers the content of the sites to determine the QUALITY of a link. When inbound links to your site come from other sites that have content related to your site, these inbound links are considered more relevant to your site. If inbound links are found on sites with unrelated content, they are considered irrelevant. The higher the relevance of inbound links, the greater their quality.

Let us use an analogy.

A word of caution- search engines' criteria for quality inbound links have gotten even tougher and don't even think of circumventing it. Stay away from deceptive or sneaky SEO techniques, such as hidden links, or automatically generated pages whose sole purpose is to provide inbound links to websites. These pages are called link farms, and not only are they disregarded by search engines, but linking to a link farm could get your site banned entirely. I am sure you get your fair share of emails from link farms soliciting your business and at ridiculously cheap prices too. They are not cheap for nothing. Please ignore them.

Other avenues of gaining quality one-way inbound links are Directory submissions, Social Bookmarking submissions, article submissions; create Social Media Profiles, Forum Postings and Blog submissions.

SEO work is continuous. Search Engines tweak their algorithms frequently and thus our SEO has to respond accordingly. Our SEO tracking and reporting tools show you where you rank across the major search engines; the volume of visitors, from where, page views etc .

Finally, please help us help you. Spare some time to sit down with us to review your SEO situation even if you are happy with your rankings. Nothing remains static forever. SEO is not only about your rankings in the search engine. It should be about how well you are marketing your brand, products and services on the Internet. And that's why we encourage reviews, sharing of ideas and brainstorming.

Web Design

Web Design Discussion

A few points to address first:

Web designers, in general, focus on the looks of a website. They have no expertise in writing good copy text for your website. And that's not their responsibility really. So, as we have seen in countless websites, there are lots of ok looking websites but lopsided with poor or scarce copy text.

We don't design your websites to enter competitions. We design your website to be effective so that more visitors are converted to customers.

Don't be hung up on looks only. Looks are important but looks with substance are BETTER! The substance here is about good quality copy text. And when you have good looks and substance, you are going to get a lot of positive responses from online visitors.

Another thing about the need for good copy text in your website. You don't get it right with good SEO copywriting, your website will be committing SEO suicide. Search engines assess copy text as part (a big part here) of their ranking determination. So, can you afford not to have good SEO copy written text incorporated into your website? Can your web designer write to make sense? If not, you are paying a full price for half the expertise.

CMS (Content Management Systems) websites – Do you really need one?

In recent times, we have begun to build more, than usual, CMS websites. A CMS website, using open source codes like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla etc gives you the benefit of SELF EDITING your web pages at will, if you have the time, the desire and the bit (think BIG bit) of knowledge required. If your answer is a resounding yes, we are more than happy to build you a CMS website.

Self-edit means having control and managing your website. We all find the notion of having control a very seductive proposition. But in reality, and this is where you have to ask yourself some hard questions - Do you have time, knowledge and the consistency, to self-edit your web pages? Don't you find it ironical that web designers strongly propose that you go for a CMS website and then also add an accompanying maintenance package (like charging you for uploads etc) to it? So what are you self-editing? So why are you paying more for a CMS website? We have experienced enough cases of clients coming to us because they have problems "self editing" their CMS websites and whose original builder deemed it no longer profitable to hang around especially if a maintenance package is not in force.

Everything has its place. It's also not about one system better over another. It's about either a system suiting you or you suiting the system.

We can fill up a few pages on this topic alone, so we have appended a must read link http://www.taoti.com/content_management_systems.php for your education.

Web Design – with looks and substance!

Your website IS the first impression customers see of your company. Your potential customers like all Internet surfers have pretty short attentions spans. And they are spoilt for choice given the tons of websites out there competing against yours. Stand out by going simple, clear and precise. Your audience will appreciate it.

Each business is different and therefore each website is unique. But the fundamentals of a good website remains the same no matter the industry. A good website is not only about looks. That's really the easy part. It's about presentation. We often hear clients lamenting the lack of enquiries despite their site ranking high in the search engines. But they balk at re-designing, updating, revamping or freshening up their five-year website. Look back at old photos of your hairstyle and you get the idea.

So what kind of websites we like to design and build? Simple ones with good quality ingredients!

Let's start with good quality ingredients.

A picture tells a thousand words". They need not be top magazine standard but they must be decent. It says so much about your company, your pride in your products etc. These days, good and easy to use cameras with all types of pre-sets are affordably available to us. A bit of effort is all it takes. Isn't your business worth the little effort? And if indeed it is too much trouble, then spend a few ringgit to get it professionally shot. We have an in-house photographer who can help out on a time plus fee. Please stop this lazy habit of shoving bad photos to your designer and expect photo shopping. They are designers and not magicians.

Agreed, copy writing is a highly specialized skill. Just like you are a specialist in your field. Most if not all web designers are not writers. You notice your web designer will talk you blue about photos, layout, colours, flash, cms, css, etc etc but have no comment about your contents or lack of it? They went to design school to learn about designing not writing. But now you know that good copy content is not only important for search engine optimization, but it is also useful information to your audience and they will appreciate it.

We have staff copywriters on board to write company profiles and other copy text in a clear and precise way. And we charge nominal sums only because we treat it as a much-needed value add.

So what is good presentation? In our opinion and in one word? Simple. A well-presented layout should be uncluttered. Don't squeeze everything into one page. Worst still, don't have too many clickable links on a single page. Why sabotage yourself by distracting the visitor?

Colour schemes should not fight with each other for attention but should instead complement each other. Think of a well-framed picture.

Poor typography or fonts is another common problem with most websites. Either too many diverse types of fonts are used or they are just plain old-fashioned like the Times New Roman here. Or text in different colours!

And do not interlink your pages too much. It gives the impression that your website, like a house with many rooms and therefore lots to explore. Wrong. It serves to irritate. A visitor finds he is going round and round the same old rooms through inter-connecting doors. He is fatigued so he gets out of your house.

The flow or navigation of your website should be seamless. Please no long and twitchy drop down menus. He gets into your site. Your home page is probably the first page he sees. It gives him a feel of your business and he immediately forms a perception. Good, bad or indifferent. He goes to the next page which is, probably about your company profile. He scans through quickly to know more about you. Only your competitors read everything. More perception building. He now goes to your products and services pages to determine if those are what he is looking for. If they are, then he wants to browse the photos, read up whatever useful or interesting descriptions you append along with them. When he has sufficient information, he is ready to act. He would probably send you an enquiry to know more etc.

Ask yourself as a customer. How many times we get out of a site because we are put off by it and not because they do not have the products or services we need? The same logic should apply to your website.

SEO Copy Writing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Copywriting

Why is SEO Copywriting important?

 

SEO copywriting is the art of writing search engine friendly content and placing your keywords at the right places. But our view goes beyond that. Use good SEO copywriting techniques to create good contents for your online visitors. They rely on information to make buying decisions. Customers need to be persuaded, remember? Good copy content will always "impress" the search robots and spiders that in turn will reward you with higher rankings. Think of it as you making it easy and compelling for them to reward you with better rankings.

"It's important to note that search engine robots do not rate the aesthetics (beauty) of a website but instead appraise the keyword connected contents of the web pages."

We have seen innumerable cases where websites are stuffed with keywords and key phrases in the overall page text, anchor and header text. If only SEO copywriting was that easy, there would be no need for SEO copywriters. We suspect web designers, who have misinformed ideas of what SEO is all about, took this strategy thinking they are helping their clients. To be fair to web designers, they went to web design school to train as web designers, and not copy writing especially SEO copywriting.

Most clients, as is evident in their websites, are not proficient in commercial writing. And that is neither your job nor concern. Your expertise is in your field of business. Now that you are educated to the importance of good SEO writing, entrust this area to people with the right expertise. The benefits you reap as a consequence is well worth it.

Simple Internet is a full service Search Engine Optimization and Web Design company. To derive any benefit (and there are plenty) from the Internet, these two areas are inter-dependent on each other and you must get it just right.

Photography

A visitor's perception of you is formed the moment he or she enters your website.

To elicit a good perception, the design elements of your website, like graphics, colors and fonts are important but is the key ingredient.

You have three options available to you.

Stock photos
One can get beautiful photos from numerous stock photography sites. But please select photos that relate to your brand and your overall website style. Yes, stock photos cover most subject matters but you have to choose those that are at least congruous to the image you projecting. We see lots of local websites, in the hope of projecting an international image, use photos of a Caucasian (white) person wearing a telephone headset, manning the reception. It's stereotypical and downright silly. It's just does not seem authentic. Use stock photos sparingly.

Professionally shot photos.
You have already committed the expense of having your website designed and developed. There is a need to press home the point that good photos make all the difference. At least it demonstrates to your customers that you bothered with the effort to showcase your products properly. It demonstrates your pride.

Yes, professional photography is not exactly cheap. We are in the business so we know. We also know that most of our clients do not require GQ or Vogue type photography. Just good, clear and sharp product shots. And here's where we can help you. We have a photographer on staff, who do just that and at a budget that won't make you wince.

Shoot-it-yourself photos
One can shoot decent photos with any of the camera brands out there. And most come with easy to use settings. It can be fun and rewarding if you can spare the time.

But don't hold up the web development process because you haven't found time to shoot. Then get us to do the photography.

Hosting / Domain

Hosting / Domain

Hosting Services

We do not own hosting servers. We work with a Hosting partner that has proven reliable for years.

We undertake hosting for clients primarily because our search engine optimization work requires us to gain access to the backend of clients' websites at will. Think of it as you giving us a key to your house without having to ask you for it every time we need to work on your house.

If you are comfortable with your existing hosting vendor, then provide us with your website's FTP and we can work from there. Not the most efficient way, but nevertheless still some sort of solution.

The other benefit, to you, is that we can quickly and easily accommodate your photo uploads, changes request etc very efficiently.

Hosting is not our revenue contributor. In fact and ironically, we are like a hosting rent collector for our Hosting vendor but suffer the abuse. Seriously!

Our hosting fee is very much within the market ballpark. But there will always be a guy willing to go yet lower like RM188, with good luck thrown in. So we have been posed this question of pricing many times over. If the lowballers provide good hosting specs and support you with the level of reliability and service mentioned above, then you are in luck.

There are plenty of hosting sites that can be found easily on the Internet. Our advice is to do your research, evaluate the comparisons etc and then only decide.

Domain Registration and Renewal Services

This is another service provided by us. We act as your domain custodian meaning we interface with the Domain Registrars on your behalf etc.

More importantly, we advice you on the right domains to register once we know more about your business and your business objectives. We also advice you on domain naming and phrasing that not only is easy to remember and catchy but also helpful in your Internet initiatives.

A domain is like your signboard, for all to see. It would probably be with you for a long time, so we advice careful considerations.

We have experience with other geographical domain registration stipulations (like .com.cn etc) so it an area we can help you with.