Opportunity Marathon

Hello Zimbo! Happy Jam! Birthday You!

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:05:27 +0000

Hey Miss Zimbo Jam. Here’s wishing you the happiest of birthdays! May you continue to jam harder and harder. May you uplift Zimbabwean artists wherever they are in the world, inform Zimbabwean art lovers and entertain those who have some jam in them. Inspire and motivate. Jam the sweetness out of this sometimes torrid life. Keep on jamming! Keep on jamming! Keep on freakin’ jamming.

Let’s jam! They were jamming in the morning! They were jamming...
An invitation from Milton Kamwendo Thanks to an invitation by Milton to be a guest...

I Will Pikicha You

admin — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:30:11 +0000

It’s Up! It’s Up! It’s Up!

Pictures compiled all over Zimbabwe. Uploaded in Bergen. Reuploaded in Turkey. Configured at the Book Café in Harare. Announced to you from Sopranos in Avondale.

It’s over 3,000 pictures of every day life, politics, business, arts, showbiz, music and personalities from Zimbabwe. It’s the big little sister of ZIMELPA.

We invite you to take a look at Pikicha.

Remembering ZIMELPA When I was with Venekera Works, we ran an online...
Max Soutter Blogs Business I recently came across a unique blog that I loved...
Introducing the new Zimbabwearts.org On Saturday I uploaded the new version of ZimbabweArts.org....

Aripano Slows Down- a Little Bit

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:30:15 +0000

I am looking for an Internet connection. Dial up at home has really become awfully slow- and expensive. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve been spoilt by Bergen broadband. But no, at least before this I didn’t have enough time to take a shower while waiting for a page to open.

This has slowed down the implementation of several projects including updates on Zimbo Jam and approving new posts on Zimbablog.

Looking at other options. Wireless? UHF? Costs! Costs!

I am a Zimbo. I will make a plan.

Analytics and a Marketing Plan for Law.co.zw Added analytics to www.law.co.zw and www.zimbabwefilm.com just now. We are...
Adwords for Aripano I'm so excited because I have- with the help of...
And Zedd Didn’t Go Out If you receive the weekly Zimbo Jam, Zimbablog and...

Remembering ZIMELPA

admin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:41:08 +0000

When I was with Venekera Works, we ran an online picture gallery which we called ZIMELPA, short for “The Zimbabwe Entertainment and Leisure Photo Album”. ZIMELPA was part of itsbho.com and became quite popular in a very short time. There is something about telling a story with pictures that resonates with most people. Unfortunately ZIMELPA went down with itsbho.com last year. Don’t ask for details because that is another story on its own.

I am working on a bigger version of ZIMELPA which is going to go up on the Zimbo Jam. The concept is a bit wider this time- not just entertainment and leisure photos but all sorts of pictures that cover every aspect of life in Zimbabwe.

I have been going through the FungaiFoto archives during the last few months and am flabbergasted by how many pictures there are. I have also spoken to a few of my photographer friends and they are willing to contribute pics to the album. One step at a time I suppose. So far, I have added just over 2,000 photos to the gallery and we are only just beginning to tell this story…

Where can you see it? It’s still offline- but you’ll be the first to know when it goes up! I promise you I am going to scream so loudly about it that you will hear it- DEF.

The challenge now is to get it all up before I leave for Zim, where the bandwidth would make this akin to an entomological effort to get Mount Everest airborne…

I Will Pikicha You It's Up! It's Up! It's Up! Pictures compiled all over...
Online Artist Promotions- for the arts For the last five or so years I have done...

The Jam Shop Draws Closer

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:29:51 +0000

There have been many starts and stops. Issues with the contract, with the shop, with the logistics, with our mental preparedness and so many other nitty gritty witties- but I do believe we are close to take off. The Jam Shop is coming… Related posts:The Jam Shop is Coming It's taking longer than I thought it [...] Related posts:

The Jam Shop is Coming It's taking longer than I thought it would, this shop,...

Easy search for law.co.zw

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:46:50 +0000

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.

Law.co.zw Press Release Sent Out Over the weekend I finished the new home page...
Hopemasike.com & How to Improve your Google Rankings The recently launched www.hopemasike.com is doing well in Google...

Banner Ad Campaign for Law.co.zw Launched

admin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:14:29 +0000

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:

No related posts.

Hopemasike.com & How to Improve your Google Rankings

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:22:23 +0000

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:

Domain Name

Firstly, the domain name is very important in search engine listings. Since this domain is HopeMasike.com Google figures: “DUH, obviously this is an important site about Hope Masike.”

When registering a domain name for your website, bear this in mind. The age of the domain is also important. Older domains have more credibility since a lot of spammers register domains to use for one or two years before they dump them.

Incoming Links

I have in a previous article linked to www.hopemasike.com from this blog which already appears quite highly on Google searches. This definitely helps. The more incoming links a website has the better. The search engine figures that since there are so many other website linking to this one, then it must be more important.

It is worth remembering that if a website like the BBC links to your site, that one link can be worth more in terms of search engine ranking than a hundred links from smaller unheralded websites.

New Content

Although, the Hope Masike site is just one page, it is really fresh content. Search engines love this. The challenge for Hope and Kakuwe is to keep the site updated and expand it to contain more pages.

Unique Content within the Content

A lot of newspapers, websites and blogs, when they write about a star, never mention the band members. I always make it a point to mention band members, venues, managers, etc when I have the information. I know for a fact that while many people will be out there searching for “Hope Masike” who is the band leader, there will be that small fraction that are looking for one band member or the other. When you think of one article, it makes little difference, BUT think of thousands of articles, different bands or different events, over many years and you will easily see how this sort of thing can give you the search engine edge. That’s my version of Chris Anderson’s Long Tail.

Note well

Search engine rankings are very mobile. As new content is posted on the web, sites move up and down. So, I won’t be surprised if I do a search for “Hope Masike” tomorrow and find that the ranking has moved either way. To keep the site ranking highly I need to make sure it’s updated, hope that more people link to it and a few other things which I will talk about on another day.

I’ve applied these methods to artists, but you can apply them to web content for any sort of website- business, sports, politics, etc.

Hope Masike has a Website Realising, as all serious artists should, that an online...
allofza.co.za & the zaza denial A few days ago I got what I thought was...
Adwords for Aripano I'm so excited because I have- with the help of...

I’ve Also Been Digg-ing

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:09:06 +0000

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?

Motivated for Greatness network hits 120 members Some time ago I spoke to you quite excitedly about...
Ning is where the web is going We've all heard of Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Hi5. Through...
Want a rush on your blog? I know I've told you guys about a span of...

Max Soutter Blogs Business

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:35:47 +0000

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.

Yay for Law & Justice Zimbabwe! Lomido and I started talking about this project in 2004....
A catalogue of blogs BlogCatalog is a blog directory or blog listing service. It's...