Registering your Domain

Getting a good domain at a cheap domain registration registration site is not to difficult. First Go to your domain registrar online and do a domain search. This will check if the domain name is available. Next a good registrar will ask you to pay for the domain name if it is available. And then you are good to go. Oops good to go to do what. Well if you need to use email then you need a hosting service lick wise if you need to make a website the you require a good web designer and a hosting service. You will be able to get free hosting service but this is usually about 20 mb this can hold about 80 emails without attachments. of course if you need both then the same person should do the hosting for both. Google has an email hosting service which is about 2 gb quite good i must say. Ke Domain Registration

Is Web Outsourcing in Africa the way to go?

I recently did a Google search for the word outsourcing and this produced millions of pages on the results page I was indeed overwhelmed by this information, Of course i quickly started going through the pages in search of relevant information and with a further refinement of my search i kept getting the same results. Numerous of companies in the West, Europe and the USA seeking for other business process outsourcing organisations to do some of the work such as banner creation, content addition, template designs etc and numerous countries in the East that is Asia and a the Far East responding or offering to do the same. Where is Africa in all this was my biggest question. It was in neither of the categories yet Africa could benefit from outsourcing in both ways companies in Africa could use thrid parties to do some of the work that does not require full time staff. And other African freelancers of companies could offer to do it at fee. Another concern was that majority of those who offer the jobs want to pay using credit cards of payment merchants such as PayPal and since most or all of these merchants are yet to extend their service to the African continent we are totally locked. When will we get there? Is the million dollar question.
Helpful Links: IT Match Online

Domain Names

I recently attended a seminar hosted by the local registry of the .ke domain. It was during this seminar that i heard of the phrase cyber space real estate and cyber squatters. Cyber squatters refers to people who purchase domain names and sit on it hoping that years down the line they will sell the domain name for a fortune. It is then i looked up in the blogsphere and came across auctions where this domain names are sold for millions of dollars online. These domain names are like location in real business life the right location of an enterprise can make all the difference. The right domain name can also make all the difference. Kenya domain names that are of premium value have note yet been snapped up yet although quite a few are already taken such as cars.co.ke, weddings.co.ke etc. So if you are interested in owing real estate in the cybersphere with a .ke now is the time as the say the early bird catches the worm, this really is true in domains now is the time.

Kenya Registry
Kenic has a list of local registrars. Domain Registration Kenya

Online Marketing and Generating Real Leads

When I first went online try my hand on online marketing I thought it would be a peace of cake. In fact I thought it would generate leads immediately. I thus embarked very excitedly did everything I could do under the sun to increase the hits to the website I was optimizing, form advertising on Google, search engine optimization, site monitoring to link exchanges and joined any social networking website etc i found. This increased my hits considerably in-fact they even went as high as 300 per day, but as the year came to a close I realized that whether the site got hits or not the result was the same. I was not selling, all those hits were useless. The next year I decided to take a break on all online marketing and advertising and let the website just sit. There was no activity for about 6 months the hits went down to about 20-30 per day and somewhere out of the blue I made two sales from one person on separate days but the same month. This got me thinking in terms of where did this sales come from. And from a little research I realized that this was due to the search engine optimization. It then dawned on me that I had to prepare an online marketing campaign. and not just trying by blundering around and trying to get numerous hits. In-fact I realized that I had rather not burn my pay per click budget on useless hits but retain it and carefully target how I was advertising in short it is better to get 10 hits per month and one sale than 10,000 hits and no sale/conversion which is what i was doing my first year.

Important Lessons Learnt on Online Marketing
1. It is a slow and tedious process, very time consuming, but inexpensive compared to traditional methods.
2. It must be carefully planned.
3. A combination of methods/ avenues for lead generation is better than one method.
4. Results are long term.
5. It is easier and less costly to work with your current customers.

Useful Links. Internet Marketing, Website Reviews

What is a Good Webiste

Yesterday i was meeting with a group of friends who like to play cashflow a board game that teaches you how to get out of the rat race literally. It usually calms my nerves after a busy week. Well after the game I felt I needed to let those who were present my name and what I do and thus distributed my business card. A lady whom I know mentioned what i really do to another lady who was seated next to her and within seconds she indicated she was looking for a good web designer, she indicated that she needed the images edited, and the Hotels worked on (to create a dynamic summary of each property there was already a sample). I told her that i usually prefer to have a one on one session with clients before I embark on the work the reason being that after a powerful application has been put on your site most people do not use the application and instead focus on the images and complain how they are not the ones they wanted. Also I like to tell them that a website will not market itself it is a beginning but not an end. However before I could proceed further she indicated that the site was great and was getting numerous hits. As soon as I was home I quickly went to the site I was eager to see this site that was performing optimally. Of course the template was lousy to see the least. The dynamic summary was a drop down list she was talking about. A quick website audit revealed very few hits if any, there was no optimization included on the site non whatsoever. this left me dumbfounded may be that chat i was proposing may be useful after all.

Site Statistics and Audit Tools: Stat Counter, Alexa, Backlink Checker.

Content Management System Africa

One of the most depressing situations i have seen is when a website owner has to rely on his/her web designer. The is especially so in Africa and usually the owner is held at ransom for months on end awaiting a simple change. The website therefore becomes obsolete and irrelevant with outdated information hence misleading. It is while I was exposed to such issues i decide to look for a content management system that was easy to use and had a number of useful features that would enhance a website. One the best CMS applications that i came across was Booi Booi I liked the fact that it was very use, another great feature was the SEO features i was able to put meta tags on each page as opposed to only the template, this includes a page title, description, and key words. It has a html module that allows you add javascript to any page. Among other modules the most exciting is the container module it allows you to split the template into 2,3 or as many columns or rows i would like thus i can combine script and text on the same row seamlessly I did not even discover this one until over 6 months of using the application I was too busy learning the rest of the modules.
Some helpful CMS site Joomal, Drupal, Mamabo

Web Hosting

This can defined in very simple terms where the website resides usually on a remote computer generally referred to as a web server. Hosting need not be very expensive especially if you are just starting and a shared server will do. However it must be reliable. Nothing beats a website that is not available. It is equivalent to your office being shut when customers come to your office. You can imagine if i come to your office 3 times and it is closed i might as well assume that you closed down and i will not be coming back in a very long time. Once you purchase your hosting service and a domain name of course and the website had been designed then it is ready to be uploaded on to the server. This should take just a few minutes if the site is not to large. And now your online office is open. The hosting service is usually a windows hosting service which is slightly more expensive and Linux hosting service which cost less and is less vulnerable to attacks. A good hosting service will also come with email hosting. we are now ready to start. Most people at this stage assume we have now finished with the website but we have only begun Use full web hosting sites: Go Daddy, Mydomain, Blue Host

Why a website?

Before you embark on the website decide what you want from it. Let it not be a just another one those formalities you need to do. Think about the features you would want then identify a reputable company that can assist you to achieve your objectives, research on the third parties you may need to use and how much and how long it will take. A past experience is where a client wanted a certain feature on his site and had projected it would take a day to implement, the third party involved took over six months to complete their part of the work. 1. Decide on the colours you would like to projects 2. Decide on the features. 3. Look for a reputable 4. Ask for references 5. finally ask for a proposal. The proposal should outline very very clearly what will be done , how long it will take and how much it will cost. One last word of Caution. Never be leave everything up to designer to decide put your requirements. Useful links: Kenya Hosting

Internet Marketing

I really thought i need to begin a blog where i can contribute to various topics that are IT related and what a better way to begin with my favourite topic online marketing. One way small business can survive on a shoe string marketing budget is to use the internet to expose their presence to the online community. This is very similar to traditional marketing methods however it cost much less and you are able to reach larger audience as compared to the traditional method. Some initial steps are. 1. Register a domain: There is nothing as cheap as registering you business online by buying a domain name you are good to go. 2. Get an email address with the domain you have registered. I come accros many business that seem to have a domain registered by they still use free email services. You need to show your client that you are serious, you happen to be chasing a 5000$ in orders but investing less than 10$ (ksh 500) per month on paid email is an uphill task who is going to take you seriously? 3. Get a simple website for starters this will be your 24 hour brochure where you can direct people to anytime. Whenever you give out you business card it is the first thing people check before they even call you. 4. finally check your mail. If you going to have an email address please use it otherwise why did you get it in the first place.

Domain Names