On the 30th November, two SEO companies in South Africa, Synergize and R.O.I Media, united under one roof to launch their White Hatters initiative. Walking into the Metropolitan Think Tank at the Two Oceans Aquarium, it was impossible to not be taken back by the wall of geek that appeared, drinking champagne and donning white hats.  I came to the event without really knowing what to expect; as a writer in the SEO industry, sometimes it’s easy to get lost with all the tech lingo and complicated looking graphs. I couldn’t help being curious however, and attended in anticipation of simply finding out more about the industry. The excitement was tangible – an atmosphere of anticipation filtered slowly over the delegates attending. Booked out by South Africa’s SEO experts, this was the first event of its kind to take place on [+]

While most South Africans can’t help but focus on the Protection of Information Bill, many Americans are focusing just as much of their energy on the Stop Online Piracy Act which is currently making its way through the United States’ government. And although this SOPA may feel very far away from us at the moment, if passed into law it’ll be on our doorstep within seconds – perhaps even having as much as an impact as the Secrecy Bill. In short, the SOPA is attracting attention due to its broad nature. As the internet is so vast, there’s no knowing where the line is.  The Act, if passed, will give the United States Attorney General the ability to close down websites which infringe copyrights, as well as ban them from using online paying facilities such as PayPal and Visa. He’ll also be [+]

Black Friday is a day that has permeated South African media through the pop culture avenues that feed us from across the Atlantic Ocean. While it has very little direct bearing on our own lives it still forms a significant part of our local news content. For the uninitiated, Black Friday was the day after Thanksgiving which is supposedly when the Christmas shopping season officially begins. Shops mark this auspicious occasion by offering massive discounts and extended shopping hours. There is some debate as to how this celebration of consumerism got its name, the first of the two most common stories is that pedestrians took to the streets in such numbers and traffic was so bad that the roads were black with people, which is odd because the roads are black without people. The second and more likely explanation is that [+]

This post might be a little bit late to the party but it is still relevant - there are still four or five posts a day about the panda update - how very boring... Everyone that is moaning about the fallout of the panda update was either a little bit shady or downright lazy. Lazy SEO's are like lazy programmers, occasionally the really lazy ones are actually quite good at it. I know this much is true for programmers but never really heard the same said for SEO's. As soon as the lazy SEO's figure out a nifty new way to build links, they create automated tools and scrapers to squeeze as much value out of this as possible, its maverick marketing and while it works it ruins the fun for everybody else. I am a huge proponent of the human factor for [+]

The people of South Africa recently united to watch a turning point in their country’s democratic history — the passing of the Protection of Information Bill by Parliament, perhaps the gravest offence to its democracy in all its seventeen years. Those opposing the bill dubbed it “Black Tuesday”, wearing black in protest and encouraging others to join in the hopes that the MP’s would awaken to the fact that their duty was to vote in the best interests of the people, not to benefit themselves or their back pockets. Many turned to what is widely perceived as the most powerful online platform: Facebook. Not only is Facebook a way for people to share their lives and maintain relationships, but it’s also become a way for people to rally around a particular cause. In recent years, journalists and news corporations have recognised the role that Facebook [+]

A month or so ago Google started rolling out a few major changes to analytics. One of them being the SEO Queries addition. This allows you to integrate your Webmaster Tools data with your Google Analytics. Once setup you are able to see:

This data has always been around but now that it’s added to Analytics it can really be a lot more useful. Well you’d assume so… As the data is not exact it really is unreliable and does not give webmasters the satisfaction of seeing exactly where keywords are ranked and the traffic they bring. The average position is a neat but not to be trusted figure. To get a slightly more reliable figure I recommend you add the 2nd dimension ‘country’ and then set a [+]

It’s impossible to forget how easy word spreads these days; gone are the days of tell-tales and tall stories, everything is laid out to us straight in the world of social media. In fact, today we turn to social media for everything: if we want to see our friends, we create a Facebook event; if we want to read the news, we take a look at our Twitter feeds; if we want to connect with anyone and everyone, we go to Google+, and if we want to share our latest holiday photographs we go to flicker. We can even boost our career opportunities by having a LinkedIn account and can whinge, rant, boast or contemplate in blog posts. What all these platforms have in common, is communication.  We’re constantly in touch with each other and can simply connect with a person, brand, [+]

Search engine optimization has many definitions, countless explanations yet only one clear goal – achieving search engine rankings. After a few years in the seo industry I’ve come to realise that out of all these explanations of SEO none of them can take your site to number one. No amount of ebooks, people you meet and discuss with or even guides can take you there; the only way to get to number one is self-taught. It is a tough and complicated process that must be tried and tested until success is reached. Below is my version of how to achieve rankings through search engine optimization. It is not a guide or an explanation but simply task you will certainly encounter on your way to the top. Research The first, and I feel the most important, task you’ll encounter is research. I’ve spent countless [+]

QR codes are the quickest way to enter a URL into a mobile phone. Your ordinary QR code is an unsightly mosaic of pixellated noise. The clever basement dwellers at Synergize have figured out a way to make QR codes much more attractive. This is a nifty way to make the code human readable too! Not many people are using this technique and it is a clever way to get your branding into a QR code! There is a lot of potential for these codes - I am starting to see at least ten a day, that's ten places for branding that are being missed! [+]

It’s one of those things you think about every time your mother comments on a photo of you, or a high school buddy boasts about a new business venture, or a good friend feels the need to fill your day with his newborn’s bowel movements. The first time I gave it any serious thought was when it was reported that facebook had developed face recognition technology, my initial reaction was. “So who cares? It was bound to happen eventually.” So what if I have shared so much of my personal life online that a computer program can recognise my face? So what if I “like” a product that I’ll never buy and get news feeds from brands I have no interest in, this is what it takes to maintain an online presence. My fb friends outnumber those I could actually rely [+]