23Jun Easy search for law.co.zw
I just added a big search feature on the law.co.zw home page- it hits you as soon as the page opens. With over 1,500 downloads, over 200 Zimbabwean law firms listed and MANY more updates to come I felt it was important to make it all as easy to find as possible.
18Jun Banner Ad Campaign for Law.co.zw Launched
Yesterday, I did the banners for the law.co.zw ad campaign and put them up on The Zimbo Jam.
The idea behind this campaign is to present the law with a more human face, in a way that the ordinary person can relate to and to incorporate a bit of humour into the ads. We’ll see just how successful it is soon enough.
See more screenshots: (more…)
17Jun Hopemasike.com & How to Improve your Google Rankings
The recently launched www.hopemasike.com is doing well in Google search rankings. Launched just over two weeks ago, it’s appearing within the first five results in a search for “Hope Masike”. Ditto for a search on her band “Kakuwe”. Searches for Kakuwe band members yield similarly pleasing results. E.g. Searches for Theresa Muteta and Blessed Rukweza give top ten listings for the site.
How did this happen? Here’s my take on it: (more…)
17Jun I’ve Also Been Digg-ing
A useful resource for driving traffic to any website is www.digg.com. You sign up, and if you find an article you like, simply “digg it”, i.e. submit it to digg.com. A link to the page you have posted, along with a brief summary, then appears on Digg and can be read by other users. If they like the story they too can “digg it” which is much like voting an article or “liking” something in Facebook. Once your post has a certain number of diggs it is moved to the home page of the section you posted it in. If the article reaches a critical mass of diggs it is moved to the digg home page. When that happens, you can be sure of some major traffic.
I haven’t been getting very good results with my diggs and I know why. I haven’t yet invested enough time on the Digg site to build my network. As with all social networks, you need to invest some time, making friends, making comments on other people’s posts (intelligent comments- not spam) and getting to know- and work- the neighbourhood.
It’s an investment, ya digg?
17Jun Max Soutter Blogs Business
I recently came across a unique blog that I loved immediately- it’s one with useful posts on making money in Zimbabwe. Most Zimbabwean blogs I know are about politics, so it’s refreshing to come across something like this every so often.
Max specialises in assisting Zimbabwean start ups to grow. He is the founder of the Business Setup Group (BSG), an organisation dedicated to helping entrepreneurs start up and grow buisinesses the smart way.
According to the profile on his blog he has worked with more than 200 businesses in 35 different industries He’s also invested over 3000 hours of research and study into the fastest growing businesses and fastest selling products.
Here are some articles to get you started:
Do check out the blog.
16Jun Law.co.zw Press Release Sent Out
Over the weekend I finished the new home page for law.co.zw and as planned did a press release which I put out on the PR Log website. I also sent it out by email to various NGOs and newspapers and, of course, put it up on Zimbablog as well.
I happened to take a look at the statistics for the website and was pleasantly surprised. From when we started measuring on May 29th (which is about the time the site went up) till this morning we’ve had 1,457 pageviews.
16Jun Introducing the new Zimbabwearts.org
On Saturday I uploaded the new version of ZimbabweArts.org. The theme is pretty much the same as the one done by Osato Dixon for the previous site. The difference is all in the engine running the site now.
The new site runs on Joomla- compared to the flat html pages of the previous one. I did think about using Wordpress, but for this particular project I felt that Joomla would provide the necessary functionality and flexibility.
The site features embedded video, an artists’ directory, an events calendar for the Book Café and the Mannenberg and links to other arts and culture websites. There is still some work to be done with getting the content fully up to date.
15Jun And Zedd Didn’t Go Out
If you receive the weekly Zimbo Jam, Zimbablog and Anoziva newsletter- Zedd, you will have noticed that last week’s issue didn’t go out. My apologies. Last week was just so hectic. I was doing some technical upgrades to the Zimbo Jam and working on our new YouTube Channel. I was also doing version and template upgrades to my blog and working on final touches for law.co.zw and zimbabwearts.org.
Talking about the new YouTube channel, we will soon feature on the Zimbo Jam, a list of cartoons, songs and films that Zimbabweans in their twenties and thirties grew up watching. I spent hours last week going through over a thousand videos of 80s and 90s entertainment on YouTube and thus for most of the week with I had a nostalgic glaze over my eyes. Here’s a sneak preview for the readers of this blog. Once there, click on YouTube. The featured video on the channel is currently Beyonce’s “If I Were a Boy” bacause I like the song- even if you think it’s so five minutes ago.
So Zedd didn’t go out last week, but please support our dream to reach out to over 15,000 subscribers by the end of 2009 and do sign up. Thanks.
04Jun Hope Masike has a Website
Realising, as all serious artists should, that an online presence is absolutely crucial, Hope Masike approached me some time ago saying she was interested in having a simple one page site. It’s now up.
I recommend this for all artists. Be it a myspace page, a Facebook page, blogger account, etc- have something online that says who you are and what you do. Include samples of your work. There are few bigger turn-offs for fans than to go an online hunt for your favourite artist and find NOTHING.
If you can get a domain registered, as Hope has done (www.hopemasike.com), all the better. This tells fans, would be fans and promoters that you are serious. If you can’t afford a FULL website, have a one page site that links to your other points of online presence, e.g. Myspace, Facebook, twitter, You Tube.
Make it easy for prople to find you.
29May Analytics and a Marketing Plan for Law.co.zw
Added analytics to www.law.co.zw and www.zimbabwefilm.com just now.
We are still to make noise about law.co.zw. Will do a press release for a June launch and plan a banner advertising campaign through some other Aripano Infinity sites; www.zimbojam.com, www.zimbablog.com, etc.
I’m also thinking of doing a mailing list of lawyers and sending them regular emails about updates on the site. Perhaps a lawyer’s newsletter? The GREAT thing about an enewsletter is that it’s a constant reminder that the website is out there and is being updated.
The TOUGH thing about an enewsletter is keeping it coming out regularly. You can’t just do it haphazardly. If it’s every month MAKE SURE it is so- and keep the content interesting, original and fresh.
We’ll see…