SOUTH AFRICAN WEB

by Jorge Barreto - SA Web (1998)

If you are considering Internet Advertising and are not sure of the facts, please read on ...

Print this page and read it later, it'll be worth your time.

Introduction

Today, it is common to hear discussions about the Internet and how important it is to advertise there. I am not going to tell you about the history of the Internet, let us concentrate on how it can work for you, the advertiser!

New terms are part of our lives, "Home Page", "Website", "ISDN", "Hits", "Accesses", "Connectivity", "HTML", "FTP", "DHTML", "E-mail", "Virtual E-mail", "Virtual Domain", "URL", "Browse", "Surf"... and so on.

If you are interested to know what all the above terms mean, please CLICK HERE.

At the end of the day, the only thing that really interests us is RESULTS!

If you want to advertise on the Internet you must understand it, I will try to enlighten you here as to what to do and expect, no fancy words, just the facts!

First, and most important, it does not matter how beautiful your site or page is, if people don't see it it means NOTHING!

Therefore, your first priority should be to make sure that people will visit your page, the right people!... if you are selling heavy-duty trucks you are not interested in visits from young children who are looking for the latest games. Target your prospects wisely!

Why the Internet?

People speculate about the Internet, its power, its versatility but most of all the impact it is making in the advertising and marketing world. Some even say it will affect other advertising media in a serious way.

My personal opinion is that it does not threaten other methods of advertising but in fact it is a welcome addition. It is just another avenue, another tool for the seller to reach the buyer.
I cannot see it replacing the good old newspaper, magazine or leaflet. It will never replace the powers of Television and Radio. Let us look at the Internet as another powerful tool that has the facility of instant, long distance, inexpensive, one on one communication. Let us therefore forget about replacing our present methods, instead we will add the power of the Internet and Electronic Commerce to our existing facilities bearing in mind that it does not perform miracles but has to be handled and used wisely.

Most companies presently advertising in the paper media, should definitely consider Internet Advertising.
Why?... there are various factors but the two that stand out are:

The large audience it reaches

It is quite inexpensive. One can always find disadvantages in everything if one really looks for them, we will concentrate on the advantages, on what the Internet can offer the Advertiser.

Everyone in the world who has access to the Internet is a potential viewer of your advert.

You may use full colour, animation and sound.

The prospect can reply immediately.

The client can order immediately.

You can add or remove information/pictures in a matter of minutes.

It is approximately the price of one advert, black and white, one insertion, in a good newspaper. I would therefore like to repeat: Do not replace your present advertising methods, ADD the Internet. You will increase your chances, one sale could pay for your outlay, the rest will be profit... Think about it... (and let me know).

Hits, Accesses and Impressions

People will tell you that you should put a link to your page in their website because they get x amount of "HITS" or "ACCESSES" per month.
Let us define these two popular words which, in all sincerity, have limited value.

Say for instance I design you a two page site to advertise your product or service.
On the first page I insert your company logo, a picture of your premises, a map explaining how to get to your place and a button to go to the next page.
On the second page, I include your logo again, plus four photos of your products, a photo of your Sales Manager and a button to return to the first page.

If someone visits your site (both pages) once, the statistics of your site will tell you that you got 13 hits (5 on the first page and 8 on the second).

This means that each page and each graphic file therein count as a hit.

Now, Accesses. With the same visit you will be recorded as having had 2 Accesses, one on each page. Therefore one could say that each page counts as one Access.

It is practically impossible to accurately tell how many different people visit a site or page. One can compare it with a newspaper. You can tell how many copies were sold, but you cannot say how many different people read the newspaper.
For instance, if someone is looking through your site and suddenly looses the connection, he/she will have to re-dial and return to your site, in so doing, an additional access will be recorded, which does not necessarily mean that it was a different person.

Sure, the more hits the Service/Information Provider gets monthly, the more people are visiting his site. However, please do not be under the impression that "HITS" or "ACCESSES" mean numbers of people or visitors.

Impressions or Page Views tell you how many different pages were visited.

It is therefore important to make sure that the link to your page is placed in the correct place of the relevant site. Don't put your truck advert link in a site which is dedicated to a ladies' bridge club! A ladies' bridge club getting 20 million hits a month will not sell you many trucks! A site with a popular category targeting road delivery companies will sell you more trucks.

Getting Visitors to your Site

There are several Service Providers in South Africa, some better than others, some are here to stay and some will fade away.
I am not here to tell you which is which. I am a M-Web Agent therefore I will always advise everyone to join them. The choice is yours.

To get people, the right people, to visit your advertising site/page, there are some basic rules you have to remember:

Get as many links to your site as possible.

Include your URL (the Internet address of your site) in all your printed stationery (letterheads, complimentary slips, business cards etc.)

Get your site registered in as many Search Engines as possible.

Make your site attractive but effective and fast to load.

Once a viewer gets to your site he/she should be able to get the message in seconds.

Although text makes a site faster and gives more information, most people are reluctant to read too much whilst on the Internet (reason for suggesting that you print this page and read it later off-line). It costs money (a long phone call) and it may be boring at times.

Don't run anyone down nor try to force people to accept your opinion or statement.

Make it easy for people to make an enquiry or a request, people are not fond of typing too much (in other words, make simple, easy to use reply forms and/or application forms)

Put yourself in your prospect's place and give them what you would have liked to have.

Be patient and make sure you reply every enquiry, as trivial as it may seem. A successful Internet site wasn't built in a week.

If you promise that you will update your information, DO IT!!!

These are some of the most important points to remember, there may be others, but if you follow these guidelines you stand a pretty good chance of success with your advertising on the Internet.

What is: Homepage - Website

I believe that there is a bit of confusion in some people's minds as to what the difference is between a "Homepage" and a "Website".

I would thus like to try to clarify the matter for the benefit of those who are in doubt.

Briefly:

A homepage is, in this context, one advertising page by itself or the first page of a series of pages (website). The homepage is normally more expensive than the other pages because it is the first (or only) page that a prospect sees and from it flow the other pages, links, categories etc..

A website consists of 2 or more pages. The first page is often called the "homepage".

A "page" is normally an A4 size or portion thereof. Some webmasters may consider that a "page" can be of any size. Most Service Providers specify, not the length of the page, but the amount of space it occupies in their system (bytes).

Search Engines

We would all like to be the first company to appear at the top of the search result page of search engines whenever someone types in the name of the product we sell.

Sites must be physically registered with Search Engines. There are hundreds all over the world. The most popular are perhaps, internationally, "Yahoo", "AltaVista", "Infoseek" etc.. In South Africa we have the ever popular "Ananzi" and also now M-Web's "Za Zoo".
If you advertise with certain Service Providers, they will register your site with a few search engines, if you wish to be registered with more, you either have to do it yourself or get someone to do it for you.
There is no standard fee for this, it depends on the time spent doing the work.
One can actually download software from the Internet to do this work, some will register in hundreds of search engines. Very useful if you are targeting international markets.

As an example, I've registered SA Web and clients of ours in two popular international search engines.
Please go to either of them, type in the word: Portafrica then click the "Search" or "Submit" button, whichever is applicable. The Search Engines are "Yahoo" (www.yahoo.com) and "AltaVista" (www.altavista.com).
Have a look at the response, you will have more that 150 links to visit, all part of SA Web and our sister site "Portugal Commercial", a Virtual/Cultural Community site which is kindly being hosted by M-Web.

An important factor in the search for pages and sites are the "meta tags" included in your pages. These are a series of keywords which are placed in the code of your page by your webmaster. These keywords are detected by the search engine and have priority over other pages without these tags.

Virtual Domain

A Virtual Domain is your own "personalised" site for example: www.yourcompanyname.co.za. The "co" meaning company and the za meaning South Africa. You can also have edu for education etc. For the equivalent of about US$100.00 extra, you can register www.yourcompanyname.com (.com instead of co.za).

If you only have one or a few pages it is most probably not worth paying for a Virtual Domain, you can have someone else host your pages. In the case of SA Web, your URL (Internet Address) would be www.saweb.co.za/yourcompanyname.

To register and host your own domain is quite inexpensive, it would cost you a small set-up fee (once off) and as little as only R200.00 per month. The fee will increase depending on the size of your site, in other words, the amount of disk space your site will be occupying.

Web Hosting

To host your own site, means that you have your own space in the Service Provider's system. You can have only one domain (www.yourcompanyname.co.za) per hosting space.

You can do whatever you want with your space, host your own site, hire it out, set up e-mail facilities for your staff (Virtual E-mail), sell advertising space etc.. The space is yours and you can use it as you wish (within the law).

For a reasonable sized site this is definitely the way to go.

Selecting a Webmaster

There are thousands of great websites on the Internet!
There are great webmasters (here I am referring to people who design, write the code and maintain websites/pages) all over the world and South Africa is producing outstanding sites. We have the people to create anything you want.

No one can claim to be the best. One simple reason, tastes differ! What is attractive to me may not be attractive to you.
This is what most webmasters keep in mind whilst developing sites. A webmaster may advise, but not force a certain design to a client. After all it is the client that pays and it is his company that will be exposed to the world. Surely, a webmaster has the right to refuse to do certain things that he/she may think ridiculous, immoral etc. The webmaster may also omit his/her name from the page if the feeling is that the layout or content is not up to standard.

In South Africa there are numerous individuals and companies who will develop a great website for you. Take your pick, ask for references, shop around, do anything... as long as you contact us as well... after all... that is why I am writing all this!

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