How many startups rely on organic search engine traffic for the early push? The truth is, very few, if any.
Organic Search engine traffic does not come in quick, while new startups need to make many things happen as quickly as they can.
Majority of startups rely heavily on buzz from press releases, pitching industry bloggers and some social media promotion for the quick take-off traffic. These methods are good for getting quick traffic (they also cost money/time), but I don't believe they offer the best kind of traffic a startup should get.
Some people, especially startup founders may see the idea behind this post as a bit off the line. I am open and ready to hear your views on it right here on this blog. The new/normal belief or advice you get these days is about how/why you shouldn't worry about the search engines and that you can create a buzz or may be even success withous worrying about SEs.
PR can surely take a startup a long way, but that is as far as the startup gets. Beyond the buzz, a few percentage of the actual users the buzz attracted will still be using the startup's product.
With organic search traffic, users, the press and bloggers get to validate the idea and the product for you. The users didn't just discover you in an email or press release, they searched for what you are offering and found you, so as long as your service is good, they won't abandon you that easily. If any bloggers or press write about you without you actually pitching them or paying them (that is they found out about you through the SEs), means you have a great product and you are a great startup.
Traffic from organic search is free. Any buzz that this creates for you would be based on the actual value of your service, so with that in mind you can invest more in your idea (knowing it has value and potential for success).
PR is a great tool, however add organic SEO to your arsenal and may be try it first before spending money and time on PR.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
3 things that will make Google penalize you for pagerank or Link fraud
Cross linking all your sites or blogs: Dont try to cross link your sites or blogs inorder to boost your Google PR. Back in 2005, I had about 9 blogs. Some of pr 1, about two with a pagerank of 2 and of course some with a pagerank of 0. Inorder to raise their pageranks, I decided to link to all my blogs from each one of them. A few weeks later, all the blogs lost all their pagerank.
Buying tons of links: Never buy 500 links or submission to 150 directories because if you do, it will send a signal to the Google spam filters that your site should be in the sandbox especially if it is a new site. Focus on getting links from blogs, forums and Authority sites that are related to your site.
Replicating the same content: Google has content filters and will make sure it drops any multiple contents you have (especially if they are linked to each other, or linked to from thesame website.)
If you have to post a single article more than once, make sure you reword atleast 40% of the content, completely change the title and the first few paragraphs of the article.
Dont be lazy.
Discuss on blogs, forums, email bloggers, write and update your site all the time and do some web2.0 marketing. But DO NOT SPAM because it will come back to you.
I have a site about african entertainment which is now 2 years old. I have been link building slowly with blogs, forums and article posts, I was even lucky to be featured in some tech blogs. With the recent Google pagerank update, the site is now a solid PR 3. This is considering we haven't been sending PR releases or asking to be featured. We are totally focussed on rolling out the product.
Happy Birthday to the African TV project.
Buying tons of links: Never buy 500 links or submission to 150 directories because if you do, it will send a signal to the Google spam filters that your site should be in the sandbox especially if it is a new site. Focus on getting links from blogs, forums and Authority sites that are related to your site.
Replicating the same content: Google has content filters and will make sure it drops any multiple contents you have (especially if they are linked to each other, or linked to from thesame website.)
If you have to post a single article more than once, make sure you reword atleast 40% of the content, completely change the title and the first few paragraphs of the article.
Dont be lazy.
Discuss on blogs, forums, email bloggers, write and update your site all the time and do some web2.0 marketing. But DO NOT SPAM because it will come back to you.
I have a site about african entertainment which is now 2 years old. I have been link building slowly with blogs, forums and article posts, I was even lucky to be featured in some tech blogs. With the recent Google pagerank update, the site is now a solid PR 3. This is considering we haven't been sending PR releases or asking to be featured. We are totally focussed on rolling out the product.
Happy Birthday to the African TV project.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Change with the search!
If you have been following any web marketing firm's website or any search marketer's blog lately, you would have by now come across Google's change (or overhaul) of it's search technology.
It's time for SEO to change too. Shortly, Web companies like ours that rely mostly on organic search traffic will have to change their ways of thinking. New tests will have to be run, new analysis and more.
My company is doing well on search engines and most especially on Google, we've beaten most of the big guys to get to where we are and we get atimes more than 1500 monthly visitors from Google alone. Upto now, we haven't spent a dime on marketing, or atleast promotion.
In preparation, I went to the Google caffeine sandbox page (not sure if that's what it is called) to test the new search technology, to see if I can notice any changes to search results. I was too late to arrive because from the message I found on the page, Google is done testing it, they think it will work and have taken it off the developer test page.
My guess is, the technology may have some LSI built into it, atleast more than what we have already seen (or atleast think we have).
If any of you has used Google caffeine in test, we would love to have your thoughts here. Just comment on this post.
It's time for SEO to change too. Shortly, Web companies like ours that rely mostly on organic search traffic will have to change their ways of thinking. New tests will have to be run, new analysis and more.
My company is doing well on search engines and most especially on Google, we've beaten most of the big guys to get to where we are and we get atimes more than 1500 monthly visitors from Google alone. Upto now, we haven't spent a dime on marketing, or atleast promotion.
In preparation, I went to the Google caffeine sandbox page (not sure if that's what it is called) to test the new search technology, to see if I can notice any changes to search results. I was too late to arrive because from the message I found on the page, Google is done testing it, they think it will work and have taken it off the developer test page.
My guess is, the technology may have some LSI built into it, atleast more than what we have already seen (or atleast think we have).
If any of you has used Google caffeine in test, we would love to have your thoughts here. Just comment on this post.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
6 signs that your startup needs a new marketing team.
Here is a post that outlines 6 different things that may be a sign that your marketing team is not fit for the Job.
1. Whenever someone Googles your startup's name, pages about your site on websiteoutlook, compete.com, alexa, about.com come up in the first results page.
This means your marketing team has only been updating a few wiki pages and checking up the value of your site instead of getting you valuable users.
2. Whenever someone googles your startup's name, they don't get press releases about your startup on the first page, and hardly one profile for your startup from either myspace, facebook, folkd and definitely not twitter.
Your marketing team is not leveraging the power of press releases and they are so web1.0.
3. Your startup is less than a year old and traffic increase has been less than 30% in the recent months.
Growth is very slow, its time you put your marketing on steroids.
4. The only links you can find about your startup are the ones you put up yourself, obviously no blogger thinks it is worth writing about.
They are not sending the right message about your company.
5. Your webmaster's inbox is always empty, seems nobody bothers to know where you headed.
They lack creativity.
6. The Google Pagerank of your just months old site is thesame after 2 Google Pagerank updates.
They have never heard of authority sites. They have been link building for a while but hardly get a link from any site that is not a low traffic directory.
1. Whenever someone Googles your startup's name, pages about your site on websiteoutlook, compete.com, alexa, about.com come up in the first results page.
This means your marketing team has only been updating a few wiki pages and checking up the value of your site instead of getting you valuable users.
2. Whenever someone googles your startup's name, they don't get press releases about your startup on the first page, and hardly one profile for your startup from either myspace, facebook, folkd and definitely not twitter.
Your marketing team is not leveraging the power of press releases and they are so web1.0.
3. Your startup is less than a year old and traffic increase has been less than 30% in the recent months.
Growth is very slow, its time you put your marketing on steroids.
4. The only links you can find about your startup are the ones you put up yourself, obviously no blogger thinks it is worth writing about.
They are not sending the right message about your company.
5. Your webmaster's inbox is always empty, seems nobody bothers to know where you headed.
They lack creativity.
6. The Google Pagerank of your just months old site is thesame after 2 Google Pagerank updates.
They have never heard of authority sites. They have been link building for a while but hardly get a link from any site that is not a low traffic directory.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Internet Marketing that has worked for me.
Tips on promotion techniques that have brought traffic to my site for free.
>>> Google.
Google will always be on top. Atleast since I don't have a Yahoo! directory listing. Back in 2004 when I cleverly got my website listed in the Yahoo! directory for free, Yahoo! used to be my biggest traffic source.
Now even if I do secure the listing, I don't expect my Yahoo! traffic to exceed the one I already get from Google. My site is doing really good on the Google SERPS with top 10 listing and even #5 listing for my best keyphrase and #1 for many other keyphrases. (Atleast 3 more).
Well incase you want to know what my secret is, content. Content is the key, build more pages, link to them from blogposts, Digg them and more traffic will come from Google.
>>> Yahoo!
I am doing decently well on the Yahoo! search, (though I don't know how well I will still be doing since they turned to Bing). The thing is, this time around my site doesn't have a Yahoo! directory listing so I don't expect Yahoo search to favour my site in it's result so much.
>>> Nairaland
Participating on the Nairaland forum has helped me a lot scoop up some home website traffic. I get significant traffic to my site from 2 of the threads I participated in on the forum.
Here are some tips for participating on Nairaland.
- Respond to threads that have lots of activities, with responses into the hundreds.
- Some Google PR of 1 or 2 would do.
- And please say something reasonable. (it's ok to include a link on your response or add a sig file).
>>> Twitter
As long as you follow the right people and get followed on twitter, you will get some traffic to your site and lot's of mention about you. participate in discussions, send @replies, follow the right people and update your status regularly. Just logging on and listening to what others are saying will give you the idea on what to say.
>>> Digg
Digg it, don't spam it.
>>> Stumbleupon
Make friends with people on related industry, stumble their favorites and make sure they like you so they stumble yours too.
>>> Hubpages
This is really a great service. all you have to do is write and publish articles, ping them and add them to other social bookmarking sites and watch the traffic grow and Google Pagerank rise. You can publish a good article and it can reach a Google Pagerank of 2 in a few weeks. You can also network with people in related industry so they know when you publish a new hub. You can publish weekly, though publishing monthly isn't bad at all.
>>> Blogging
I started blogging early, probably around thesame time that blogging experts like Yaro Starak started. It was really great then back in 2004-2005 doing wonders with blogs and pings.
Well blogging is not like it used to be. I have had blogs with close to a thousand daily visitors. But now apart from this blog, I only use blogs for some link building.
>>> Reciprocal links
links I requeted from other webmasters.
New techniques I will be using
Press release
article marketing ( I have done this to some extent, but not big time).
squidoo lenses
paid ads
>>> Google.
Google will always be on top. Atleast since I don't have a Yahoo! directory listing. Back in 2004 when I cleverly got my website listed in the Yahoo! directory for free, Yahoo! used to be my biggest traffic source.
Now even if I do secure the listing, I don't expect my Yahoo! traffic to exceed the one I already get from Google. My site is doing really good on the Google SERPS with top 10 listing and even #5 listing for my best keyphrase and #1 for many other keyphrases. (Atleast 3 more).
Well incase you want to know what my secret is, content. Content is the key, build more pages, link to them from blogposts, Digg them and more traffic will come from Google.
>>> Yahoo!
I am doing decently well on the Yahoo! search, (though I don't know how well I will still be doing since they turned to Bing). The thing is, this time around my site doesn't have a Yahoo! directory listing so I don't expect Yahoo search to favour my site in it's result so much.
>>> Nairaland
Participating on the Nairaland forum has helped me a lot scoop up some home website traffic. I get significant traffic to my site from 2 of the threads I participated in on the forum.
Here are some tips for participating on Nairaland.
- Respond to threads that have lots of activities, with responses into the hundreds.
- Some Google PR of 1 or 2 would do.
- And please say something reasonable. (it's ok to include a link on your response or add a sig file).
As long as you follow the right people and get followed on twitter, you will get some traffic to your site and lot's of mention about you. participate in discussions, send @replies, follow the right people and update your status regularly. Just logging on and listening to what others are saying will give you the idea on what to say.
>>> Digg
Digg it, don't spam it.
>>> Stumbleupon
Make friends with people on related industry, stumble their favorites and make sure they like you so they stumble yours too.
>>> Hubpages
This is really a great service. all you have to do is write and publish articles, ping them and add them to other social bookmarking sites and watch the traffic grow and Google Pagerank rise. You can publish a good article and it can reach a Google Pagerank of 2 in a few weeks. You can also network with people in related industry so they know when you publish a new hub. You can publish weekly, though publishing monthly isn't bad at all.
>>> Blogging
I started blogging early, probably around thesame time that blogging experts like Yaro Starak started. It was really great then back in 2004-2005 doing wonders with blogs and pings.
Well blogging is not like it used to be. I have had blogs with close to a thousand daily visitors. But now apart from this blog, I only use blogs for some link building.
>>> Reciprocal links
links I requeted from other webmasters.
New techniques I will be using
Press release
article marketing ( I have done this to some extent, but not big time).
squidoo lenses
paid ads
Thursday, July 30, 2009
4 reasons why Nigerian startups are not funded
1. Traffic does not hold value. No analytics to specify value of each and every website visitor, advertisers are acting blindly.
2. The issue of online scam or 419. reminds me of my post where I said this lies on the back of the netpreneurs, It's time we start seeing b2b startups in Nigeria that solely address the problem of security.
3. Infastructure. see the post "can we build silicon valley in Nigeria?" well, do we have the infastructure.
http://www.sturvs.com/Science_Tech/Startups_Nigeria_-_Can_We_Build_Silicon_Valley_in_Nigeria/
4. Absense of a developed ecommerce system. Most startups have to run on the ad revenue model. The question is, how many companies want to advertise online in Nigeria? Since no one is buying online.
2. The issue of online scam or 419. reminds me of my post where I said this lies on the back of the netpreneurs, It's time we start seeing b2b startups in Nigeria that solely address the problem of security.
3. Infastructure. see the post "can we build silicon valley in Nigeria?" well, do we have the infastructure.
http://www.sturvs.com/Science_Tech/Startups_Nigeria_-_Can_We_Build_Silicon_Valley_in_Nigeria/
4. Absense of a developed ecommerce system. Most startups have to run on the ad revenue model. The question is, how many companies want to advertise online in Nigeria? Since no one is buying online.
Friday, June 19, 2009
June so far
This month has been the busiest since we started out online TV startup. I just sent a draft copy of a paper I am supposed to present in a conference in November, and ot looks like we have finally secured a technology partner.
I can't remember the last time I blogged here, it's probably been about 2 months. I am hoping I will post a few things before the month ends including a review of a hot new Nigerian startup.
The month is still not over and I am looking forward to reaching deals with about 5 content owners before the month end or early next month.
I have to go now, I have think and respond to an email.
I can't remember the last time I blogged here, it's probably been about 2 months. I am hoping I will post a few things before the month ends including a review of a hot new Nigerian startup.
The month is still not over and I am looking forward to reaching deals with about 5 content owners before the month end or early next month.
I have to go now, I have think and respond to an email.
Monday, May 4, 2009
I am not a travel blogger, but I blog when I travel.
I have not been on here for a while, I have been away. I really miss blogging but don't have the energy to write.
Anyways I am enjoying my trip and hop to blog something good from the trip.
Anyways I am enjoying my trip and hop to blog something good from the trip.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Why and how you should find a co-founder for your startup.
I have been working on startup ideas for a long time (close to ten years), and I've only seen significant change by working together with a partner (co-founder), someone with equal determination and vision as mine.
The co-founder is there to fill in your weaknesses and having one gets you through the lows as Sep Bishop said to Entrepreneur TV, "if you are looking to start your own business, from my experience, I've always felt that having a partner is a good idea. You tend to find that entrepreneurs usually have big egos and seem to think that they are good at everything and know the answer to everything."
He said " Daniel and I were quick to recognize that we have weaknesses in certain areas, mine was fund raising, Daniel had a huge amount of experience in that area and he particularly didn't have any experience in advertising which I brought."
He continued, " In startups, there will be incredible highs and incredible lows, and having a partner in those times when particularly the lows, you will need somebody to pick you up. At some point a lot of entrepreneurs are willing to give up."
Seb Bishop later sold his ad company Espotting for $186 million.
So many startups were started by 2 or more founders. Yahoo, Google, Myspace, Youtube, Facebook and the list goes on.
Having a co-founder with same passion and some set of skills or chracter that you may lack increases your chances of building a successful startup.
Look for people that are very good at what they are doing, open-minded, ready to learn and who believe in what you are doing.
They don't have to be people you know personally or in the real life. Micheal Cerda founder of Jangl met his co founder Ben Dean on Craigslist.
I met my partner in the Startup I am working on now on Spidgit. I went through some of his posts, I knew he knew what he was doing and he was good at it. I approached him and we exchanged emails.
The co-founder is there to fill in your weaknesses and having one gets you through the lows as Sep Bishop said to Entrepreneur TV, "if you are looking to start your own business, from my experience, I've always felt that having a partner is a good idea. You tend to find that entrepreneurs usually have big egos and seem to think that they are good at everything and know the answer to everything."
He said " Daniel and I were quick to recognize that we have weaknesses in certain areas, mine was fund raising, Daniel had a huge amount of experience in that area and he particularly didn't have any experience in advertising which I brought."
He continued, " In startups, there will be incredible highs and incredible lows, and having a partner in those times when particularly the lows, you will need somebody to pick you up. At some point a lot of entrepreneurs are willing to give up."
Seb Bishop later sold his ad company Espotting for $186 million.
So many startups were started by 2 or more founders. Yahoo, Google, Myspace, Youtube, Facebook and the list goes on.
Having a co-founder with same passion and some set of skills or chracter that you may lack increases your chances of building a successful startup.
Look for people that are very good at what they are doing, open-minded, ready to learn and who believe in what you are doing.
They don't have to be people you know personally or in the real life. Micheal Cerda founder of Jangl met his co founder Ben Dean on Craigslist.
I met my partner in the Startup I am working on now on Spidgit. I went through some of his posts, I knew he knew what he was doing and he was good at it. I approached him and we exchanged emails.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Been busy lately, but will soon reap the benefits.
I am just squeezing some time to write this post. I don't want the blog to seem quite even if it's for a day. Sometimes you just don't feel like typing and even if you have already typed posts, you just may feel too lazy to copy and paste especially after long hours of work with very little sleep.
I have a long list of upcoming posts with lots of tips for the Internet startup guys like me. I haven't been writing lately but I have been reading and doing a lot, so look out for my latest tips on startup ideas and some stories too.
I love blogging and I won't hold out any thing to myself, I just feel free and write everything here, and most of the things I write here are those that I have tested myself. I am very careful at writing what I have not tried out myself.
Anyways, this blog is not meant for my personal news or news about my Startup, still I feel I should share this good news with you guys. I am about to close on my first partnership deal for my startup. The only clue that I am going to give here is that the company I am in talks with is from Kenya. It's going to be a great partnership, let's all hope that it will go through.
I have a long list of upcoming posts with lots of tips for the Internet startup guys like me. I haven't been writing lately but I have been reading and doing a lot, so look out for my latest tips on startup ideas and some stories too.
I love blogging and I won't hold out any thing to myself, I just feel free and write everything here, and most of the things I write here are those that I have tested myself. I am very careful at writing what I have not tried out myself.
Anyways, this blog is not meant for my personal news or news about my Startup, still I feel I should share this good news with you guys. I am about to close on my first partnership deal for my startup. The only clue that I am going to give here is that the company I am in talks with is from Kenya. It's going to be a great partnership, let's all hope that it will go through.
Monday, April 6, 2009
No reviews so far, only tips.
I wanted to build this blog around reviewing Nigerian Internet startups. There are many of them, this means I have so much to write about.
After reviewing Nairaland.com, I made a review of some online payment sites for nigeria and since then I haven't written about any startup reviews on this blog. Rather I have been blogging tips on how to create a startup.
I have a lot of tips that I feel happy sharing them with everyone. There will be more tips coming. So fellow Nigerian cybreprenuers and everyone, make sure you bookmark this blog. The best is yet to come.
After reviewing Nairaland.com, I made a review of some online payment sites for nigeria and since then I haven't written about any startup reviews on this blog. Rather I have been blogging tips on how to create a startup.
I have a lot of tips that I feel happy sharing them with everyone. There will be more tips coming. So fellow Nigerian cybreprenuers and everyone, make sure you bookmark this blog. The best is yet to come.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Today's Startups Type (conclusion)
The 3 startup types we talked about in the just finished series, all signify one thing. the shift to cloud computing and that many large corporations and startups are betting on that.
We see many of the large corporations buy a stake in or aquire these startups. (Newscorp acquired Myspace and Microsoft has a stake in Facebook).
Theses Startups especially the ones in the recent post have been very successful and most Valued in the tens or hundreds of millions and a few like Youtube and Facebook valued into the Billions.
If you are interested in starting a startup or working on your own startup, you should take a serious look at these startup concepts, not the services but the model. They are all about user generated content, sharing, remote hosting (taking your desktop with you) and simplifying everything for the end user.
If your startup idea falls within these criteria, then with some hardwork you will surely realize your dream and you can also in the process create a market for your startup product or service even if the market doesn't already exist.
Now I want you to go back from the beginning of the "Today's Startups" series of articles and read them again till you grab the concept or the big picture behind all those startups combined. And you will surely figure something out for yourself.
Good luck! and don't hesitate to drop your comment.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Today's Startups Type 3: You run the show (and sharing is caring).
Many Startups of today are about you, the user. They are all about the users on the driving seat, running their own show while sharing everything they do with the general public or their firends.
Most of the biggest sites today all rely on user generated content, the content may be text, video, audio, or pictures.
flickr is an online album for user uploaded photos.
Twiiter is a micro-blogging platform where users add and share status updates, twitter asks "What are you doing now?" what ever your answer, it is shared with other twitter user and your followers.
Users upload and share everything from comments, pictures, videos and more.
There are Community built and user generated online encyclopedia like Wikipedia.
Users share their bookmarks on sites like Del.icio.us, simpy, blinklist, technorati and more.
Most of the biggest sites today all rely on user generated content, the content may be text, video, audio, or pictures.
flickr is an online album for user uploaded photos.
Twiiter is a micro-blogging platform where users add and share status updates, twitter asks "What are you doing now?" what ever your answer, it is shared with other twitter user and your followers.Users upload and share everything from comments, pictures, videos and more.
There are Community built and user generated online encyclopedia like Wikipedia.
Users share their bookmarks on sites like Del.icio.us, simpy, blinklist, technorati and more.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Today's Statrups Type 2: Taking your desktop with you.
Many things you had to keep or save on your desktop to be able to acess them some other time. You also must not forget to carry that computer with you to be able to make that presentation, check that website you saved or show family and friends your vacation pictures.
Thanks to new online services, now you can virtually always remember to carry the desktop with you.
Startups like Del.icio.us help you access your bookmarked web pages from anywhere. you dont really have to carry your computer or a notepad around.
Slideshare hosts your slideshows, and you can easily give your colleagues or clients the link to your presentation.
Flickr holds your pictures for you. You only need a Yahoo account to start using Flickr.
Rapidshare hosts all your files to free up some space from that old desktop of yours, or just to make your uploaded files available wherever you are and there is access to the Internet.
This update of Today's Startups forcussed on web applications that will host your files, bookmarks and so on remotely.
This concept and the latter are all driven by Cloud Computing.
Thanks to new online services, now you can virtually always remember to carry the desktop with you.
Startups like Del.icio.us help you access your bookmarked web pages from anywhere. you dont really have to carry your computer or a notepad around.
Slideshare hosts your slideshows, and you can easily give your colleagues or clients the link to your presentation.
Flickr holds your pictures for you. You only need a Yahoo account to start using Flickr.
Rapidshare hosts all your files to free up some space from that old desktop of yours, or just to make your uploaded files available wherever you are and there is access to the Internet.
This update of Today's Startups forcussed on web applications that will host your files, bookmarks and so on remotely.
This concept and the latter are all driven by Cloud Computing.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Today's Startups Type 1: Everything for dummies.
This is a series of articles about todays Internet startup ideas, the problem they solve and I hope it will inspire you to do something. Let's begin!
Today, many web startups are all about making one a pro in something only geeks used to know how to do 3 years back.
Startups come up with online apps to make ordinary people like you and me build very professional things. Remember those things you needed to by tons of softwares to be able to do with your computer, sometimes you needed weeks of tutorial to be able to do them, and even you may finally give up and decide to hire a professional or a nerd to do it for you.
A few years back, you needed to learn to code or hire a programmer to be able to have a cool professionally designed site. Not anymore, the African startup Synthasite (It recently closed a $20mm series B funding), Google pages and a couple of more online services are here to rescue you, most of them are free to use.
Just a couple of years back, you needed to learn to use adobe photoshop, Ulead photo express or anyother good picture editing software to be able to do whatever you wanted with your pictures. Then came along picasa, anyone could just upload a picture and edit it online using very simple tools.
Video editing and animation used to be some work you had to pay someone big bucks to do. Well, incase you have an idea for any animation, see Aniboom.
Today, many web startups are all about making one a pro in something only geeks used to know how to do 3 years back.
Startups come up with online apps to make ordinary people like you and me build very professional things. Remember those things you needed to by tons of softwares to be able to do with your computer, sometimes you needed weeks of tutorial to be able to do them, and even you may finally give up and decide to hire a professional or a nerd to do it for you.
A few years back, you needed to learn to code or hire a programmer to be able to have a cool professionally designed site. Not anymore, the African startup Synthasite (It recently closed a $20mm series B funding), Google pages and a couple of more online services are here to rescue you, most of them are free to use.
Just a couple of years back, you needed to learn to use adobe photoshop, Ulead photo express or anyother good picture editing software to be able to do whatever you wanted with your pictures. Then came along picasa, anyone could just upload a picture and edit it online using very simple tools.
Video editing and animation used to be some work you had to pay someone big bucks to do. Well, incase you have an idea for any animation, see Aniboom.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The 2 Internet business types
Right from my first year trying to market or buil a business online, I noticed to types of approaches to Internet business by cyberpreneurs.
1. The idea approach, and 2. the get paid approach.
Some analysis
1), The Idea approach
This is harder to realize as it involves brainstorming on an idea (a product or service) building and branding a business based on the idea and also monetization.
This kind of approach pays bigger dividends to the cyberpreneur and it may take a long time before it pays anything.
2), The Get paid approach
This is more like the web hustler approach.
Anything that will bring in pay quickly.
This includes forex and commodity trading, squeze pages, adsense sites, selling services, blogging (most people are passionate about blogging and don't do it for the money), sales pages, affiliate sites and many many more.
1. The idea approach, and 2. the get paid approach.
Some analysis
1), The Idea approach
This is harder to realize as it involves brainstorming on an idea (a product or service) building and branding a business based on the idea and also monetization.
This kind of approach pays bigger dividends to the cyberpreneur and it may take a long time before it pays anything.
2), The Get paid approach
This is more like the web hustler approach.
Anything that will bring in pay quickly.
This includes forex and commodity trading, squeze pages, adsense sites, selling services, blogging (most people are passionate about blogging and don't do it for the money), sales pages, affiliate sites and many many more.
Monday, March 23, 2009
I'm back!
I know I havent blogged for a while. I was consumed with work for my new startup during the past weeks.
We have entered turbo mode ;-) and we are trying to make some good progress before middle of this year. We are presently upgrading the site and hoping to enter into private testing soon.
We have entered turbo mode ;-) and we are trying to make some good progress before middle of this year. We are presently upgrading the site and hoping to enter into private testing soon.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Guide on Building A Successful Online Business
My first Internet business idea was to share african music and other entertainment with Africans around the world. I thought all I had to do was learn web design and I would build a successful web business. I never thought it would take years of research and testing.
Forget all the hype about new tools, online secrets and so on. I believe all you need to build a successful business online is some sort of understanding. By this, I mean understanding the online market, what works and what doesn’t, combined with hard work and perseverance, you will automatically guarantee your success online. It's simple!
So how do you understand the market and know what works and what doesn’t work? And save all the time you would have wasted following one new marketing secret after the other.
There are two ways you can learn this, the first you go through almost every online lesson through trial and error by yourself, or the second, you learn from someone that has been in and out of the struggle so you save yourself a great deal of time. Please dont get me wrong here. I am not trying to sell you something, nor am I trying to make myself your mentor, I also dont mean you should start following every online guru. That is also another formula for failure.
What I am trying to do is have you relax for a bit, and then have you analyse a few successes online, not the success stories you hear, but the actual story behind the success story. Look at how someone that was once like you achieved success, and I am sure behind that you will see a staright to the point approach combined with persistence.
My time, I chose the first option (trial and error), not because I thought it was the better option, but because it was the only choice I had.
After a lot of hard work, I managed to put up a site on a free server, and that was when I began to learn some Internet marketing lessons.
I didn’t have any idea on how to get people to my site, I was completely new to the Internet and I already had a website. So I found a start page exchange program and I joined it hoping I would be able to get a lot of people to my site, make some sales and in the end realize my new found online dream.
It was never as easy as I thought. Web design became more complicated than I ever expected and I didn't have enough money to hire someone to do it. Getting website visitors became a very hard and time-consuming and making a single sale seemed impossible. Only one thing didn’t disappoint me, myself. I didn’t give up.
I kept trying, learning and getting better. Whenever I fail, I make a list of reasons why I failed and made sure I avoided them the next time I try something out again.
After the failure of my first attempt, the main reason that came at the top of my “reasons why I failed list” was the fact that my site was hosted on a free server. Such sites look very unprofessional, and distract the visitor with too many ads. Who would trust a web business that cannot invest a few dollars for hosting their site?
When surfers want to buy something online, they tend to go to an established online company, so if your site is hosted on a free server like www.yoursite.freehost.com, people wont buy from you. They get annoyed or carried away by too much ads on the site, unless if you are using a free non-ad supported platform like blogspot or wordpress.
So one of the first corrections I made was to invest about $20 for a web hosting account and a domain name, so that I would have my own address for visitors to remember and come back anytime and I would be able to post only what I want on the site, which gives a more established image of the web site and a focussed environment so that my prospects can focus on what I have to say and don’t get distracted by flashing banner ads.
I was still not making sales even though I now have my own hosting account and a domain name for my online business. I knew I had to make another list of possible causes. I needed to ask myself what I thought was going wrong and how to solve it.
I was not getting much traffic to the site, just around 300 visitors and the big problem is the source of my site visitors. I had not been indexed by any search engine, so I was using a startpage exchange program for my traffic which were popular with newbies and marketers then (2002). I soon realized that was part of my problem. I was not targeting any market, I was driving traffic to my site without asking myself if they want my product or not.
My site was a niche web site, but I was not targeting that niche market. The people that actually went to my site were participants of the traffic exchange program I was using. They were all website owners or affiliates, they are not the perfect customers for my site, a music site. An internet marketing and website promotion site would do better in that program because most of the participants were interested in Web business promotion and marketing or just making money online.
When I realized that, I knew I had to change my strategy and target only those that I think would be more interested. So I turned to the search engines to drive more targeted traffic to my site.
After 2 months I got listed in Yahoo and immediately saw an increase of up to 200, then 400 site visitors a month, and a month later I got listed in Google and many other search engines like Alta vista, Hotbot, Askjeeves, Alltheweb, Overture and many more.
My traffic increased steadily. And then I got listed in the ODP (dmoz.com). I started getting hundreds of sign ups and everything got so big that I couldn’t even handle it. And that was just the beginning.
I am planning on writing my complete story so anyone interested would learn a lot from what I have been through. I welcome all comments, also if you have a story of your own you want to share, drop us a comment and we will publish your story as a complete post.
Forget all the hype about new tools, online secrets and so on. I believe all you need to build a successful business online is some sort of understanding. By this, I mean understanding the online market, what works and what doesn’t, combined with hard work and perseverance, you will automatically guarantee your success online. It's simple!
So how do you understand the market and know what works and what doesn’t work? And save all the time you would have wasted following one new marketing secret after the other.
There are two ways you can learn this, the first you go through almost every online lesson through trial and error by yourself, or the second, you learn from someone that has been in and out of the struggle so you save yourself a great deal of time. Please dont get me wrong here. I am not trying to sell you something, nor am I trying to make myself your mentor, I also dont mean you should start following every online guru. That is also another formula for failure.
What I am trying to do is have you relax for a bit, and then have you analyse a few successes online, not the success stories you hear, but the actual story behind the success story. Look at how someone that was once like you achieved success, and I am sure behind that you will see a staright to the point approach combined with persistence.
My time, I chose the first option (trial and error), not because I thought it was the better option, but because it was the only choice I had.
After a lot of hard work, I managed to put up a site on a free server, and that was when I began to learn some Internet marketing lessons.
I didn’t have any idea on how to get people to my site, I was completely new to the Internet and I already had a website. So I found a start page exchange program and I joined it hoping I would be able to get a lot of people to my site, make some sales and in the end realize my new found online dream.
It was never as easy as I thought. Web design became more complicated than I ever expected and I didn't have enough money to hire someone to do it. Getting website visitors became a very hard and time-consuming and making a single sale seemed impossible. Only one thing didn’t disappoint me, myself. I didn’t give up.
I kept trying, learning and getting better. Whenever I fail, I make a list of reasons why I failed and made sure I avoided them the next time I try something out again.
After the failure of my first attempt, the main reason that came at the top of my “reasons why I failed list” was the fact that my site was hosted on a free server. Such sites look very unprofessional, and distract the visitor with too many ads. Who would trust a web business that cannot invest a few dollars for hosting their site?
When surfers want to buy something online, they tend to go to an established online company, so if your site is hosted on a free server like www.yoursite.freehost.com, people wont buy from you. They get annoyed or carried away by too much ads on the site, unless if you are using a free non-ad supported platform like blogspot or wordpress.
So one of the first corrections I made was to invest about $20 for a web hosting account and a domain name, so that I would have my own address for visitors to remember and come back anytime and I would be able to post only what I want on the site, which gives a more established image of the web site and a focussed environment so that my prospects can focus on what I have to say and don’t get distracted by flashing banner ads.
I was still not making sales even though I now have my own hosting account and a domain name for my online business. I knew I had to make another list of possible causes. I needed to ask myself what I thought was going wrong and how to solve it.
I was not getting much traffic to the site, just around 300 visitors and the big problem is the source of my site visitors. I had not been indexed by any search engine, so I was using a startpage exchange program for my traffic which were popular with newbies and marketers then (2002). I soon realized that was part of my problem. I was not targeting any market, I was driving traffic to my site without asking myself if they want my product or not.
My site was a niche web site, but I was not targeting that niche market. The people that actually went to my site were participants of the traffic exchange program I was using. They were all website owners or affiliates, they are not the perfect customers for my site, a music site. An internet marketing and website promotion site would do better in that program because most of the participants were interested in Web business promotion and marketing or just making money online.
When I realized that, I knew I had to change my strategy and target only those that I think would be more interested. So I turned to the search engines to drive more targeted traffic to my site.
After 2 months I got listed in Yahoo and immediately saw an increase of up to 200, then 400 site visitors a month, and a month later I got listed in Google and many other search engines like Alta vista, Hotbot, Askjeeves, Alltheweb, Overture and many more.
My traffic increased steadily. And then I got listed in the ODP (dmoz.com). I started getting hundreds of sign ups and everything got so big that I couldn’t even handle it. And that was just the beginning.
I am planning on writing my complete story so anyone interested would learn a lot from what I have been through. I welcome all comments, also if you have a story of your own you want to share, drop us a comment and we will publish your story as a complete post.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Nigerian economic crisis? who should we blame?
The nigerian economy in crisis.
The SEC chief blames the banks for the current economic downturn and mainly for the stock market plunge. He blamed the ways the banks gave out loans and their way of raising money.
Lending is a vital part of every capitalist economy, but sometimes not paying back the loans can bring out the cons of a capitalistic system or a free market.
In Nigeria, 388 billion naira in such loans could not be recovered, why? Because mainly the loans where used to buy shares in the then thriving stock market and the colaterals used to borrow such loans where also stocks. In an event of any bear market, consumer confidence will plunge and a big sell out will make the market fall further thereby making the borrowed money depreciate with the stock prices and as the collateral also depreciates, this causes more kaos and panic. Even if the borrower sells the stocks, plus the stocks, he cannot pay back the loans and the banks are left with collateral in stocks that are almost worthless. In this kind of scenario, the borrower or investor loses everything and the bank too loses the money it lent out.
This is very similar to what happened in the US, only for what we have in Nigeria may be less stable and a bit more risky. there also, the crisis was ignited when people took mortgage, they couldnt pay back the money they borrowed for their homes, while the homes depreciated in value and they were forced to go into foreclosure. The lost their homes and the banks got stuck with real estate far less in value than the money the lent out to the home owner. The crisis hit the banks real hard that Government had to intervene and many people lost their jobs, many more their homes.
What we are seeing here in Nigeria could be worse than what there is in the US. why? Because the stock market is more volatile than the real estate or housing market, i.e a housing crisis could be a bit more stable than a stock market crash.
As a solution, we can see how the Government in America reacts to its crisis. If successful, we can borrow a few startegies and save the economy.
Also government can buy and hold a few stocks to reduce the amount of selling and dealing that causes the stock to plunge back as soon as they start gaining some ground and people start selling off again. the sec can also intervene and try and enforce a minimum holding period for some stocks so as to eliminate some trading done by investors to profit from turmoil like this.
The executives responsible for this shouldnt go unpurnished if the is proof of their wrong doing or carelessness.
At first, the Government officials though that Nigeria was immune to the global economic crisis. I dont blame them, though I dont know why the thought so, but I also though we were immune to the crisis citing our growing revenues from crude oil sales. I thought we were heading into a boom like in india and china only that ours is not fuelled by manufacturing or information technology but by crude oil.
I did not expect the crude oil prices to fall back quickly and now we are stuck in a correction following the overvaluing and manipulation of share prices in the stock market.
Anyone knows where we are heading?
The SEC chief blames the banks for the current economic downturn and mainly for the stock market plunge. He blamed the ways the banks gave out loans and their way of raising money.
Lending is a vital part of every capitalist economy, but sometimes not paying back the loans can bring out the cons of a capitalistic system or a free market.
In Nigeria, 388 billion naira in such loans could not be recovered, why? Because mainly the loans where used to buy shares in the then thriving stock market and the colaterals used to borrow such loans where also stocks. In an event of any bear market, consumer confidence will plunge and a big sell out will make the market fall further thereby making the borrowed money depreciate with the stock prices and as the collateral also depreciates, this causes more kaos and panic. Even if the borrower sells the stocks, plus the stocks, he cannot pay back the loans and the banks are left with collateral in stocks that are almost worthless. In this kind of scenario, the borrower or investor loses everything and the bank too loses the money it lent out.
This is very similar to what happened in the US, only for what we have in Nigeria may be less stable and a bit more risky. there also, the crisis was ignited when people took mortgage, they couldnt pay back the money they borrowed for their homes, while the homes depreciated in value and they were forced to go into foreclosure. The lost their homes and the banks got stuck with real estate far less in value than the money the lent out to the home owner. The crisis hit the banks real hard that Government had to intervene and many people lost their jobs, many more their homes.
What we are seeing here in Nigeria could be worse than what there is in the US. why? Because the stock market is more volatile than the real estate or housing market, i.e a housing crisis could be a bit more stable than a stock market crash.
As a solution, we can see how the Government in America reacts to its crisis. If successful, we can borrow a few startegies and save the economy.
Also government can buy and hold a few stocks to reduce the amount of selling and dealing that causes the stock to plunge back as soon as they start gaining some ground and people start selling off again. the sec can also intervene and try and enforce a minimum holding period for some stocks so as to eliminate some trading done by investors to profit from turmoil like this.
The executives responsible for this shouldnt go unpurnished if the is proof of their wrong doing or carelessness.
At first, the Government officials though that Nigeria was immune to the global economic crisis. I dont blame them, though I dont know why the thought so, but I also though we were immune to the crisis citing our growing revenues from crude oil sales. I thought we were heading into a boom like in india and china only that ours is not fuelled by manufacturing or information technology but by crude oil.
I did not expect the crude oil prices to fall back quickly and now we are stuck in a correction following the overvaluing and manipulation of share prices in the stock market.
Anyone knows where we are heading?
Monday, February 2, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Nigerian online payment solutions, which one to use?
As a growing online economy, Nigeria's ecommerce is still in it's infancy, and the scammers are not helping things.
There is still no universal online payment system and this is much needed for Internet startups and online retailers to make money and grow. This is a big limiting factor.
For Nigeria's Internet economy to have any significance to foreign investors and venture capital firms, they have to be able to generate some revenue. Where will the revenue come from if its not safe to buy or sell anything online. Something has to be done!
Anyways a few companies are trying to solve this problem, but is the online community with them?
Interswicth:- The biggest ATM/debit card provider in Nigeria. They are also in the e-payment, online payment business. The users may be a bit more comfortable with this service and it can easily claim being the biggest online payment service because of its large number of ATM card users due to their e-banking contarcts with so many banks in the country. The startup cost for websites here is around 150,000 Naira.
Fastecash:- This service is very similar to paypal, users make bank deposits to fastecash's bank account and their online account is credited which they can use to pay for goods and services on websites registered to the service, users can also apply for credit cards so they can pay for the services they buy in dollars from international websites.
NetNaira:- This service claims to have more than 15,000 members. Registered members can use ATMs to load their online accounts and pay for goods and services on Nigerian sites that are registered with NetNaira.
There is still no universal online payment system and this is much needed for Internet startups and online retailers to make money and grow. This is a big limiting factor.
For Nigeria's Internet economy to have any significance to foreign investors and venture capital firms, they have to be able to generate some revenue. Where will the revenue come from if its not safe to buy or sell anything online. Something has to be done!
Anyways a few companies are trying to solve this problem, but is the online community with them?
Interswicth:- The biggest ATM/debit card provider in Nigeria. They are also in the e-payment, online payment business. The users may be a bit more comfortable with this service and it can easily claim being the biggest online payment service because of its large number of ATM card users due to their e-banking contarcts with so many banks in the country. The startup cost for websites here is around 150,000 Naira.
Fastecash:- This service is very similar to paypal, users make bank deposits to fastecash's bank account and their online account is credited which they can use to pay for goods and services on websites registered to the service, users can also apply for credit cards so they can pay for the services they buy in dollars from international websites.
NetNaira:- This service claims to have more than 15,000 members. Registered members can use ATMs to load their online accounts and pay for goods and services on Nigerian sites that are registered with NetNaira.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Nigerian Internet marketers
I think at first I underestimated the knowledge of many Nigerian Internet marketers.
I think this is part of Ignorance from my side.
Being into internet marketing since 2002, that is long before most of them had a website or even email adress, I just didnt listen to any of them when they started out.
I have learnt from so many of the World renowned Internet marketers, but I still learnt a lot from our own Internet marketers here in Nigeria.
I have began studying most of them and here are a few that I find most interesting.
Lateef Olajide
I think he is the most respected of Nigerian Internet Marketers, he owns the site Internet Marketing Nigeria, I have read a lot of his articles and he surely knows what he is doing.
There are a few other names that I will write on and study them more
I think this is part of Ignorance from my side.
Being into internet marketing since 2002, that is long before most of them had a website or even email adress, I just didnt listen to any of them when they started out.
I have learnt from so many of the World renowned Internet marketers, but I still learnt a lot from our own Internet marketers here in Nigeria.
I have began studying most of them and here are a few that I find most interesting.
Lateef Olajide
I think he is the most respected of Nigerian Internet Marketers, he owns the site Internet Marketing Nigeria, I have read a lot of his articles and he surely knows what he is doing.
There are a few other names that I will write on and study them more
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Have You read the Classic?
If you have read the classic "think and grow rich" by napoleon hill, you will come across this sort of idea in chapter 2.(the idea I talked about in my last post on this blog).
In the former post, I wrote the article without knowing of such an idea in the book think and grow rich, and just a week later while reading the book I came across it and I thought "oh I just blogged about this".
The idea was stated in his list of 6 steps to transmuting a desire for riches into financial success.
The idea was clearly stated in step 6 and brought up again and again in the following chapters.
In the former post, I wrote the article without knowing of such an idea in the book think and grow rich, and just a week later while reading the book I came across it and I thought "oh I just blogged about this".
The idea was stated in his list of 6 steps to transmuting a desire for riches into financial success.
The idea was clearly stated in step 6 and brought up again and again in the following chapters.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
