Search Engine Optimization is a very important process after having your website designed. For our Nairobi SEO clients, we can all agree that for an online business to stay afloat, then proper SEO procedures have to be followed. Getting a website developed is not just about having a nice design and fast loading pages – just as important is how easily your customers will find your website online, on the internet.
If you want your website to be found when customers use search engines such as Google and Bing to search for your products or services then you need to ensure your website is well search engine optimized. Infinity360 Media East Africa can work with you to optimize your existing website or develop a new search engine optimized web site.
What is Search Engine Optimisation?
For those of you who are completely new to the topic, search engine rankings are how high up your business website appears when someone types in relevant keywords into Google. For example, if you were in the hotel business and someone typed in ‘Hotel in Nairobi’ your search engine ranking for this phrase would refer to how high your business sits in the non-sponsored (paid) listings and the Local Business results.
There are now three types of results shown when you do a search on Google – Natural search results (also referred to as organic results), Google Local Business Directory listings, and paid results.
The following screenshot shows a breakdown of how the three different types of results are displayed:
Your Key Words (Key Phrases)
One of the most important decisions you need to make, as a starting point for optimizing your website, is which keywords to focus on. You need to get this part right as it has a critical impact on the rest of the optimization process. The keywords are the phrases your potential customers will type into Google when they are looking for your type of business.
It’s important to focus your attention on the most important keywords to avoid diluting your optimization process by trying to cover too many phrases. As a general rule of thumb, and depending on your business, you should keep your set of keywords to a list of 5 to 10 phrases – you can always expand on this at a later date – and put them in order of importance as best you can.
As an example, if you run a hotel in Nairobi’s CBD, some of your keywords might be:
- Nairobi Hotel
- Central city hotel Nairobi
- Nairobi city hotel
- Budget hotel Nairobi
- Book a hotel in Nairobi Town
Something that many businesses fail to consider is that they are often too close to their online business to make an informed decision about which keywords to use. When coming up with a list of keywords it is useful to step back from your business and find out what your customers are using to search for your type of services online. In some instances, where the search terms are no particularly obvious from an external perspective it would be advisable to do a survey of your customers to find out what they would type into Google to find your particular product or service.
Online Marketing in Nairobi
Make sure that your online marketing targets are achievable. If you select the wrong keywords it can make your entire optimization experience essentially a waste. Choose keywords that are attainable but yet still offer a reasonable search frequency for your industry.
Again using the hotel industry as an example, targeting the word “hotel” would make very little sense but by narrowing it down to “Nairobi Town hotel” you now have less competition and a more qualified audience. Keep your online marketing targets in perspective and go after the obtainable rankings.
Google Keyword Tool
Once you have established some keywords, you can then use the extremely valuable Google Keyword Tool to help you refine your list. The tool enables you to type in a search phrase and find out the number of local and global searches performed by internet uses for associated phrases – the idea is to find out what people are searching for that is relevant to your business and then including the top phrases in your keyword list.
You use the Keyword Tool by typing in the best key phrase you can think of (or that you have discovered by surveying customers) and then performing a search on this. When using this tool, don’t be afraid to try a wide range of search terms – the tool is free to use and you might discover some hidden gems in the results.
Using an example of someone running a cloth store in Nairobi, we could type in ‘cloth store Nairobi’ into the Google Keyword Tool. As a result of performing this action, you will get a list of both global monthly searches and local monthly searches. You can resort to the results by either column depending on what is relevant for you.
Scroll down the list of results and make a note of relevant phrases that have a high number of monthly searches – these are the keywords you want to focus on as it is what people are actually typing into Google. For example, here are a few results from the list when I type in ‘clothing store Nairobi’ (sorted by local monthly results):
The actual list is much longer and you need to scroll through it to pick out the best performing keywords. You will need to try a number of original searches to do this properly.
Google Local Business Directory
One directory that you should definitely be listed in if your store has physical premises is the Google Local Business Directory. As illustrated in the diagram earlier, being listed in this directory can often result in your business being listed before others in the search results.
Nairobi SEO Expert Team
If you really want to get your website optimized for Google, leave it up to the experienced team at Infinity360 Media East Africa. Contact us now about how we can help your Nairobi website and business online.
