Search Engine Optimization...

All the time people are engaged with needs and wants, if they have any need they try to fulfill that, for that they follow buyer decision making process. First they identify the gap between what they really need and what they already have, and they find ways to fulfill those uncatered needs, in that they try to engage with more information relating to their subject. We can see many people engage with different information sources such as parents, friends, printed media, TV and other media. Among those sources internet search has became the top of all. Most of the people use digital equipment to do their works therefore they usually engage with internet search. They search what they need on search engine and find results to continue with the buying process.

Search engines are programs that search documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found. A search engine is really a general class of programs, however, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Google, Bing and Yahoo! Search that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web.

Typically, Web search engines work by sending out a spider to fetch as many documents as possible. Another program, called an indexer, then reads these documents and creates an index based on the words contained in each document. Each search engine uses a proprietary algorithm to create its indices such that, ideally, only meaningful results are returned for each query.

Many companies have taken steps to ensure that they pop up in the searches done by customers and the searches will show more positive content. Any company would want their company web site to come at the top of the result given by search engine for search done regarding a particular search. At this point we discuss and want to know about Search Engine Optimization. What is SEO?

 “SEO includes all technical tasks that help search engines to effectively crawl and index all relevant content of a website and; all marketing tasks that enhance the authority and relevancy of the website for a given subject, so that the website can gain high ranking in organic search results when users search for terms related to the subject matter of the website.”

Simply we can say, “This is the activity of optimizing Web pages or whole sites in order to make them more search engine friendly, thus getting higher positions in search results.”

Key Success Factors in SEO

·         Key Word Research

It is important to understand what are the key words actually used by customers in searching the products company offer. This will help you in making sure you optimize your page to the correct key words.

·         Crawlability

Search engine has got some system that crawls through your website and indexes the data in those pages. So in order to make your web site more relevant to the searches, you have to ensure that the crawlers have access to all the pages in your site. Also simple meaningful URLs will help the crawlability further. You can find out how many pages the crawlers has access to by doing a search as "site:www.yourwebsite.com".

·         Site Structure

It is important to have a proper site structure to make your web site more attractive as well as to optimize the quality. Traditionally, consumer get exposure to the product at the market place and then buy and consume the product and give positive or negative feedback. But today web site will be the place where people can get 1^st impression on particular brand. Therefore need to worry about structure of the web page.

·         Content Building

It is very important to have a considerable amount of valued content in your web site. This will be included corporate information, customer reviews, videos, etc. To be a unique brand You must use differentiate content than others usually done. It’s better to use keywords in content to optimize search results.

·         Images & Videos

It’s better to have images & videos in the web site. But when including images and videos we have to ensure that the file names are appropriate to the content and that you provide alternate tags. Because search engines can’t read images, the crawlers will view the image file name and include the web site on search results based on that image file name.

Following tools help to carry out success SEO,

·            Similar Page Checker

·         Keyword Density Checker

·         Domain age tool

·         URL Rewriting tool

·         Keyword suggestion tool

·         Backlink Builder

·         Backlink Summary

In conclusion SEO can be discussed in terms of the Sri Lankan corporate sector. Most of the Srilankan companies have got their own website to carry out the business process, but they have little knowledge on activities to be done through internet such as SEO. Still there are a few companies which, actually get the use of SEO in Sri Lanka.

As an example, when typing the “Foods in Sri Lanka” as keywords on google, we can see a few tagged images and Cargills food city in top of the search result. It’s more beneficial for the Cargills food city. Sometimes this can be a competitive advantage for the company as well.

Therefore it can be concluded that Sri Lankan Companies should focus more on getting the maximum benefit of using marketing tools like SEO at a relatively low cost to traditional marketing. 

Assessing the Usability of Hiru TV Website...

This Blogpost would be a detailed evaluation of a website from it’s usability if not user friendliness  perspective. Hiru TV website which operates under the URL www.hirutv.lk. Following is the analysis.

Accessibility

1. Site load‐time

Site loading time of the website is poor. Since it takes about 15 seconds to load after typing the URL.

2. Adequate text‐to‐background contrast

Text-to-background contrast is good as text colours have used according to the background colours except for the part in white letters on a yellow background.

3. Font size/spacing is easy to read

Used font sizes and spacing is OK. Font sizes differ depending on the importance.

4. Flash & add‐ons are used sparingly

Flash & add-ons are used. They are not disturbing but attracting attention progressively.

5. Images have appropriate ALT tags

Images do have ALT tags which gives an idea about the content.

6. Site has custom not‐found/404 page

Site does not have a customized 404 page. It automatically redirects to the home page.

Identity

7. Company logo is prominently placed                              

Yes. Hiru TV logo is prominently Placed.

8. Tagline makes company’s purpose clear

A tagline is not available for the website.

9. Home‐page is digestible in 5 seconds

Home page contains lot of information since is not digestible in 5 seconds.

10. Clear path to company information

Yes. There is clear path to company information and it’s really easy to find out. It’s located as the 2d tab of the main menu.

11. Clear path to contact information

Contact information can be obtained through company information page itself. But since there is no sign at the home page about contact information user might get bit confused.

Navigation

12. Main navigation is easily identifiable

Main Navigation is Easily identifiable with the availability of sub tabs under the main tabs.

13. Navigation labels are clear & concise

Navigation lables are clear and Concise. For example : Home, Asia Broadcasting Home, Uploads, Top 20, Teledramas, Movies, etc.)

14. Number of buttons/links is reasonable

There are too many buttons/links which would lead to confusion.

15. Company logo is linked to home‐page

Yes. Hiru TV logo is linked to home page.

16. Links are consistent & easy to identify

In the home page there are many links to TV programs, facebook, Gamezone, Music Videos, News, etc. This can be too much of information for the user at once.

17. Site search is easy to access

There is no Site search option. But a Site map is available.

Content

18. Major headings are clear & descriptive

Major headlines are clear because of the difference in font sizes and colous but not very descriptive.

19. Critical content is above the “fold”

Yes.  The main Navigation Bar is at the top of the page.

20. Styles & colors are consistent

The Site mainly uses Yellow and Black which are theme colours of Hiru TV and white for the body of the page consistently.

21. Emphasis (bold, etc.) is used sparingly

Emphasis is used sparingly where very important information has been highlighted in bold.

22. Ads & pop‐ups are unobtrusive

There are no Pop-ups or outsider Ads.

23. Main copy is concise & explanatory

Main copy uses many videos and pictures to convey the messages therefore it is concise in terms of distributing loads of information in a understandable way to the user.

24. URLs are meaningful & user‐friendly

www.hirutv.lk is easy to remember and meaningful too.

25. HTML page titles are explanatory

Yes. It contains the relevant page name. Eg: http://www.hirutv.lk/top20/

www.hirutv.lk is a reasonable website which contains lot of interesting facilities such as Listening to music, watching music videos, teledramas,etc. Not only that the moving news line of the website is eye catching. However it can be concluded that Hiru TV website is user friendly forgetting the poor loading time and bulkiness, given the content it carries for it’s users.

The Digital Marketing Revolution. Is Sri Lanka Ready?

According to Wikipedia Digital Marketing can be defined as follows.

“Digital marketing is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cellphones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing or it is a marketing process which leads to the development of any organization or brand by using a variety of digital channels such as email, social networks etc.” 

In the global context Digital Marketing has created a huge trend and is growing at a much faster pace. The Digital Marketing Revolution is initiated through the increased usage of Digital equipment. It is when the Marketers identified a much easier way to reach their target audience than traditional marketing, with the use of advanced digital technology. With the introduction of Smart Phones Digital Marketing Stepped into a new era, where the Marketing efforts can be expanded to a mobile device that would be more of a personal assistant to the customer.

Sri Lanka as a country moving towards Digital world. Since Sri Lanka’s internet penetration is 15% and it’s further growing it is apparent that in few years time Sri Lankan consumer would response more actively to Digital Marketing than to traditional marketing.

When discussing about going Digital, Social Media plays a huge role. Facebook is the most popular social media network in Sri Lanka currently. There are 1,526,360 Facebook users (SL Digital media Fact Sheet – March 2013), out of which most of the users happens to be teenage and youth crowd. Most of the young people in Sri Lanka considers having a Facebook account as a necessity and this trend is slowly reaching the matured population too.

Therefore Sri Lanka would be an opportunity for Digital Marketing to count on since today teenage, young crowd would replace the target audience of most businesses in a few years time.

The companies established in Sri Lanka are also have identified the trend towards Digital Marketing. Many multinational companies have already stepped into extensive Digital Marketing Campaigns. Not only that most of the companies maintain a creative website to attract and communicate with their target audience taking it’s 24x7x365 availability feature into consideration.

For an example Unilever maintain a popular and active Facebook pages for their individual brands as well as to communicate career opportunities at Unilever's (Careers at Unilever Sri Lanka), While maintaining a website and launching successful Digital marketing Campaigns for their Brands. 

Further Companies including medium and smaller scale businesses maintain at least a Facebook fan page to communicate with their target audience since ‘just one click on share tab and you have reached your target audience , which can be identified as a positive sign towards Digital Marketing.

Even though Sri Lanka is slowly moving towards Digital Marketing, still there is a few companies/marketers who prefer Traditional Marketing to Digital Marketing because of the risk factor. Here is little thought for them,

Today Sri Lanka's Internet penetration is 15% and it might be 75% in a few years time at the rate it’s growing. Therefore if it is a Digital Marketing Campaign failure, isn’t is OK with 15% rather than with a whole 75% of your target audience???