I actually started off working, about 12 -13 years ago, at a golf shop selling used and new golf equipment. I did that for about four or five years and while there, picked up a gap in the market to set up a golf auction website where people would go online and bid on used golf clubs. Because everyone used to trade them in and were upset with the price. So we set that up and it was working but 14 years ago people didn't really have any knowledge about the Internet and didn't trust spending money online and signing up and doing auctions - it's not like BidOrBuy today.

Search Engine Optimisation, that's optimising your website for on-site, off-site and technical. SEO is just a broad term we all use. A lot of people know the word, but they don't know Search Engine Optimisation is essentially making changes on your website that make Google happy. Funny enough, a lot of clients that want SEO don't even know what SEO is - they've heard it from someone that once you've started a business, you need SEO to be successful.

SEO complements Google Ads. Optimising your website basically pushes up your page rank for a specific page that you're targeting on Google Ads. This, in turn, drops your cost per click and helps your budget get more traffic, leading to more conversions for the same price. So it's important to have SEO and optimise your site.

I think there are a few things that are misunderstood about search engine optimisation. The first thing is that it has overnight results, or if not overnight, then very quick results. That if you hire an SEO company, within one or two months, you're going to be ranking at the top of Google. Not necessarily number one, but that you'll be on the first page and you'll get all the traffic and all the sales thereafter. But that's as far from the truth as you'll get.

I think the algorithm has changed a lot and it also changes, they say, daily. We've seen that it has now become more content-based. So, adding good content to your site regularly is something that's become the most important. It used to be solely backlinks - if you had hundreds of backlinks on different sites, that would basically give you good rankings.

I think there are a couple of mistakes that are very big. The first is that people don't think of mobile-first. They develop a website and they think it looks great on desktop, but they don't look at what it looks like on mobile, on tablet and across the different devices in Google. Now, with the new core web algorithm update called Core Web Vitals, you will be penalised if your website is not good across all devices.

I think the key element that is important is obviously your website. If you have a website that's not designed and developed properly, that's not search engine friendly, then it doesn't matter how what agency you work with.

It's important that you measure your results. There are a couple of different options to track online rankings. You get some software that you can input the keywords that you want to track, and it'll give you weekly updates of where the keywords rank.

There are some documents where Google tells you how it's done, but I think the only way to actually find what works is through trial and error. We found that over the years with our multiple clients, it's trial and error.

Search engine optimisation can be costly and take very long to see the results and get any impact online. Google My Business is something that is fairly new in South Africa, as far as optimisation goes. Getting that is key to getting yourself onto search engines and visibility as quickly as possible.