Archives for October 2011

Your Cannot Afford To Miss WordCamp Kenya 2011

October 18, 2011 by 1 Comment

What is WordPress? WordPress is a content management system (CMS). In simpler terms, WordPress is software that is used to create websites and manage them. Such software makes both the creation and management of a website simpler and better.

WordPress, in particular, is so good that it is used to power 14.7% of the top one million world’s biggest websites. In the USA, WordPress has been used to create and manage 22% of all new websites in the year 2011. Clearly, WordPress is the one of the biggest and most widely used CMS. (Source of statistics).

Are you using WordPress for your own website? Why not? If the very very biggest websites use it, it means it is world-class, right? Well, you can use the same world-class software for free right now: www.wordpress.org

Our own DukaPress is an e-commerce engine for WordPress. i.e. we enable you to quickly and easily create an online shop using WordPress and DukaPress.

This year, Kenya will host East Africa’s first WordCamp: WordCamp Kenya 2011. This will be an informal conference about WordPress. It is your golden opportunity to learn why WordPress is used to power nearly one-fifth of all the websites in the world.

It is your opportunity to meet bloggers, developers and businesses who thrive on WordPress.

Come and learn about blogging, online content publishing and how to make money from your WordPress blog/site or from WordPress itself.

Whatever you do, do not miss this.

More info: WordCamp Kenya 2011

Filed Under: Blogging, Internet Culture

Lethargy in The Kenyan Newspaper Industry

October 6, 2011 by 1 Comment

Let’s start with the words of Donnacha who wrote the following in a discussion of the choice of Newspapers’ publishing software on the Internet:

This is why local newspapers are dying, not because technology was inevitably going to wipe them out but because journalists are so used to superficially skimming the details and coming to trite conclusions rather than bothering to actually understand things – decades of poor journalism echoed in bad business decisions.

The Internet isn’t killing newspapers, it could have been a huge boon to them, they are committing suicide.

Obviously, I don’t have access to the backend of The Concord Monitor but, seriously, I could whip up something more stylish, easier to maintain and with a better publishing work-flow in one day by simply building upon a good Genesis theme, Justin Tadlock’s Members plugin, Gravity Forms, Yoast’s SEO and a few other old reliables. I have seen the “professional” tools that cost crazy amounts and they are way behind the best of WordPress.

The problem, and I come across this all the time, is that companies have experienced such horrific abuse from their previous CMSes that they simply can’t believe this stuff can actually be easy and, of course, there’s usually some lazy IT guy in the background, worried that his cover will be blown, persuading them that they need to pay fifty grand for a “professional solution” – this is why the “WordPress is for blogging” meme refuses to die, because a lot of people are making a living from it. When clients are clueless – and print journalists tend to be surprisingly technophobic – such manipulation becomes standard practise, it’s an industry-wide Stockholm Syndrome.

Unfortuantely, this makes me immediately think of Kenya’s very own Financial Post.

Proudly broken - www.financialpost.co.ke

Proudly broken - www.financialpost.co.ke

The Financial Post’s website, in my humble opinion is woeful. It is broken. It is a shame. Sadly, for as long as I can remember they have had that same exact website up. If the Financial post has any “IT” staff, one wonders why they exist. I also know for a fact that the Financial Post has received quite a number of proposals for their website’s improvement (including one from me years ago).

Why would any sensible organisation keep their website in such a state? To make matters worse, The Financial Post is a news organisation. They can earn significant amounts if only they had a stable, working website. Add to this the fact that there is no other major Kenyan news site offering the same kind of ‘financial news’ and you are left to wonder why they let this opportunity go.

In other countries, it is said that the newspaper and print industries may die. Perhaps it is not so in our Kenya. But is this really an excuse to sit back and do nothing? The Internet is relatively small in Kenya, but it is getting bigger. Soon enough, our own ‘print industry’ will be in real trouble. Is that the time when organisations like the “Financial Post” wake up?

I am sure that The Financial Post is just one of the many lethargic organisations in our newspaper industry. Apart from the big names – Daily Nation, Standard, etc – the rest are not doing anything significant online, are they? Donnacha’s words above come to mind, “The Internet isn’t killing newspapers, it could have been a huge boon to them, they are committing suicide“.

PS. The absolutely saddest thing is that any good web developer can turn www.financialpost.co.ke into a classy, beautiful website that earns money in about a week!!

Filed Under: Internet Culture

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

October 6, 2011 by 5 Comments

Join us on a journey through the ups and downs of a career that has changed both the tech industry and our culture at large.

Words of wisdom from Steve Jobs:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

Thank you Steve, for making a dent in the universe.

Filed Under: Internet Culture

An Experiment in Kenyan Movies Part 2 – SEO

October 6, 2011 by 1 Comment

You guys remember our very recent project in Kenyan movies? We thought we’d share everything that we’re doing for the site – it will be more fun that away, ama? Also, hopefully one of our Like Chapaa readers can learn something. What follows, therefore, is a discussion on how we’re trying to market the site through search engine optimization.

Now, one of the best ways to get visitors to your website is to ensure that when people search on Google, they find you. For us, we want people to find us when they google “Kenyan movies”.

The SEO Strategy
Step one was to estimate the expected traffic using the Google Adwords Keyword tool. This tool gives an estimate of how many people search for a particular word/phrase on Google every month. It can be used to estimate how many people you can expect to be searching for your website. The tool also gives you ideas on other key words and phrases that are related and which you should/could also target.

We found that about 8,100 people search for “Kenyan movies” on Google every month. Now, this is an extremely small number. This could mean that very few people are interested in Kenyan movies (which is probably true). This is just sad for our movies industry. Sigh.

However, this can be viewed more positively a such: it is probably going to be quite easy (relatively) to dominate this keyword on Google and get to the number one spot in the search results pages.

Also, there are other related keywords/phrases such as free kenyan movies online, kenyan movie stars, kenyan movies online, kenya tv, kenya video and so on. Collectively these push the number of monthly searches to well over 50,000. A good figure – yes?

So the strategy for us would be to dominate search results for “Kenyan Movies” and then target the other keywords one by one.

What happens when you are at number one in the search results pages? It is important to be number one because the site listed at number on in Google search results usually gets upwards of 90% of the people who search. For example, if we rise to number one for “Kenyan Movies” we should expect 16,200 visitors (90% of 18,000) to our website every month. If we rise to number one in the search results pages for multiple keywords/phrases then our site’s visitors increase dramatically. For free. This is, indeed, the power of SEO (search engine optimization) for your website. You can get tens of thousands of targeted, relevant visitors to your website for free.

The Situation So Far
We launched the website www.spaceyangu.com on October 2, 2011. Today is October 5, 2011. Before October 2, if you searched for “Kenyan Movies” you would have no hope to find SpaceYangu because, well, we did not exist.

We’re happy to announce that if you search for “Kenyan Movies” today, you will find us on page 8 of the search results. This puts our website at Number 76 out of 5,310,000 others. Of course our strategy is to get to number one but getting to 76 out of 5 million is pretty good for three days’ work, I think. Here’s a screenshot for proof:

Kenyan movies - Google Search

Kenyan movies - Google Search (click for larger)

Along the way, we found a competitor! Sinema.co.ke is a website that is also about Kenyan movies as well as other forms of Kenyan entertainment. It is always good to find competitors as it validates what you are trying to do. We’re confident that through SEO alone, we can outdo sinema.co.ke. 🙂 Actually, in fact, at Number 76 in the search results, we’re already better than this site. (I say this full of respect for them, of course).

Some of you may be wondering how we improved our SEO so fast. We’re honestly not quite sure ourselves. I think it is because this is not a very competitive search term. What we did, though, is fully documented here. Please read that. You will learn that SEO is all about relevance and authority. So, for us, the strategy is 1)to make sure that our websites is as relevant to “Kenyan Movies” as possible and 2) to get as many other websites to link to SpaceYangu.com as possible. It is going well so far. Let us see how long it will take to get to Number 1. Wish us luck!!

We intend to document everything we can about how we’re building up SpaceYangu. If there is anything specific that you want to know, please leave a comment below.

PS: You can Hire Us if you want us to do SEO for your own website.

Filed Under: Case Study, Internet Culture, Small Business

An Experiment in Kenyan Movies

October 4, 2011 by 6 Comments

Ok, let’s start from the beginning: do you even like Kenyan movies?

Up until yesterday, I did not like them. This was mostly because I knew next to nothing about them. Then my good friend came over and we watched some… they were pretty good!! Much much much better than I would have thought. In fact, I think they may be better than Nigerian movies. Who agrees? Have a look at the following trailer to get a taste of what I mean:

So anyway, after my friend had left and I was all alone at home, I felt like watching some more so I quickly thought I’d google and find where I can buy Kenyan movies online. Guess what? Not only could I not find a place to buy Kenyan movies online but I could actually not find any one site which focused on Kenyan movies. This is just sad, ama?

So, I decided to do something about it. I gave my friend (mentioned earlier) reigns over SpaceYangu to turn it into a Kenyan movies hub. Perhaps in the future we can actually also sell movies on there. What do you think of the site?

www.spaceyangu.com

This is an experiment in what we can do with such a site. We’ll keep you posted on how it goes. Sawa?

For now, you can like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/spaceyangu

Cheers!

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

We Buy Websites

October 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The internet is a curious thing. Not only can your website make some great money for you while you run it, it can also make money when you decide to sell. Just like physical properties, web properties can fetch quite a bit of cash during the resale process, and we’d be happy to take a look at yours to see if it’s something that may be of interest to us.

Wondering what people look for when they go to buy a site like yours that’s for sale? There are several factors. One of the first major factors we consider is the size of your site. A larger site tends to be quite a bit more valuable than a one paged placeholder, but that’s not always the case. Another major factor we take a look at is your niche. Sure, there are thousands of websites that sell the same affiliate product, but very few of them sell insects for human consumption. The more unique and popular your niche, the more valuable your site is. The age of the site also factors into the overall price. The older the site, the more established it is, and that can prove a better deal for you. In fact, many companies won’t buy sites that are less than a year old. Your traffic numbers also factor into the price you’ll get for your site. Obviously with more visitors comes more profit, and that can make your site a bit more valuable to buyers like us. Finally, the nature of your site may make it more valuable. Business sites are, naturally, more profitable than informational sites, but there are always a few exceptions to that rule.

While the type of sites we buy vary extensively, the idea I want to leave you with is that we buy quality websites, and we’re looking to add to our list right now. If you’re making any money from your site or you have some traffic numbers, please let us know. We’re not looking for absolute junk here, we’d like a respectable business or information-based site, but if you need cash fast, we’re here to help you out. Take a moment to contact us today for an evaluation of your site. We’ve bought many sites in the past, so if you’re looking for a level of professionalism and experience, you can rest assured that you’ll get it with us. Ready to get started? Drop us an e-mail today.

chapaa[at]likechapaa.com

Interesting in investing in websites? If you want to get into this but have no idea how to search for, value, evaluate and manage a website, give us a call. We’ll work something out.

Filed Under: Internet Culture

The Power of ‘Organic’

October 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

One of the most important business concepts is captured by the word “organic”. I actually use this word quite a bit in conversations and in talks and it’s not really because I’m into organic food.

No, when I use the word “organic” I’m talking about what happens when you get any slice of real nature in all its richness, in any sphere of life.”Vitamin C” is a substance called ascorbic acid, something you can make in the lab. You want pure vitamins? No problem, somebody can always sell you some, it’s 100% pure from textbook chemistry.

But everybody knows you can’t live on laboratory vitamins. Plus we all know deep down that vitamins + junk food = self deception. But… if you eat a spinach salad, you get something entirely different. Whether you know what’s in it or not, you know it’s good for you. Why? Because it’s real. You don’t have to go to a health food store to get that; you don’t even need to know what vitamins are. All you have to do is eat real food.

The business version of this might be… Let’s say you’re thinking about investing in a company, or even getting a job there – which would provide you with more information about how healthy they are?

A) Reading all the press releases in their website
B) Sitting in their lunch room for 30 minutes, just listening to the conversations around you

Fact is (B) is probably the better way to go. You’d quickly develop a sense of the morale, the spirit of the company that a piece of ‘official’ communication deliberately attempts to hide.

Malcolm Gladwell refers to this in his book “Blink”, where he discusses our remarkable human ability to make snap judgments based on quickly sizing up this sort of organic information. He calls the process of forming accurate first impressions “thin slicing.” “Blink” is a great read and makes many valuable points. John Fox and I talk about this organic cultural factor in our interview.

I’ve defined marketing as ‘helping people who need each other find each other’ and that is best accomplished by clearly and effectively communicating who you are.Which of course requires that you know who you are in the first place.

If you know that and communicate it effectively, you attract not just the right customers, but the right employees, vendors, partners and investors. The consistency and believability of your message is contagious.

The whole of this article is based on an email received from Perry Marshal

Filed Under: Small Business