Make your website work for you

Being a web developer for more than 8 years has taught me quite a number of things and given me some experiences that I am not sure I want to witness in the near future while at the same time its given me quite a lot to learn and use in the future. One of the biggest trends I have noticed is 1 year websites. These are owned by people who come up with an idea and someone gives them advise on how good it would be to have a website for their idea or business. The person looks for a web designer and gets a cheap website done (cheap is OK, we do not need to spend money where not necessary). The person does his business, say for instance, its an outside catering service. He gets business from people who know him and expands it through referrals. You get a lot of people attending events because they want to learn what the other person is doing so, the person gets more business from his good work.

3 months pass by and the person has never got a single business from the website, the only value in it is decoration of his business card and probably the use of branded email – which he could have paid much less for anyway. By this time, his excitement about the website is gone and he stops updating the site. 3 months later, his site is no longer appearing anywhere near the front page on search engines. At the end of it, a year goes and nothing comes off the website, yet the site needs some money to stay online for the second year. He needs to renew his domain name and hosting. Being a normal business person, he will start questioning if he still needs the website and to some point, he will even feel conned even by the idea of having the website. So most people let it go or just keep the domain for emails. And off goes another website that would have made a difference in business.

I will drop you a few tips on how to make your website work for you, directly or indirectly.

1. Have Proper Content
   If you manage to get a few people on your website, they are likely to send more people to it if you have informative content about your business or services. If you do not have the right content, people do not even return to the site.
   
2. Include Your Website in Your Branding
   This helps your site get noticed. Its the cheapest way of advertising anyway.
3. Advertise
   Let people know you exist, no one will think you do unless you tell them. Put a little effort and a little money into targeted advertising. With the presence of affordable pay per click advertising programs, you can afford to put out your word to the right people. With Adwords and Facebook advertising, you can choose demographics of the people your adverts reach, you can pick specific countries, ages, category of interests among other things. You only pay for people who actually visit your site.
   
4. Update Your Site Regularly
   When you have a section of the website that has regularly updated content, it makes it a reason for any users interested to keep coming back. When they come back, its means they will remember your site easily and for them to refer someone to it would be easier.
5. Online Newsletter
   Keep in touch with your visitors by offering them regular newsletter updates via email, simply have an opt in newsletter service on your site. I have recently visited a website that I saw 4 years ago because they sent me a newsletter. I ended up spending some cash on it.

With these and more tips that I will put up here soon, you will be seeing your website live longer than a year and with value for your business. Feel free to contact us for specialized consultancy on your website, whatever kind it is. Contact admin at majibu.com

Credit card processing in Africa is a challenge to e-commerce growth.

During this time and age, its a pity that huge industry players like paypal and authorize.net still have high restrictions for e-traders and online stores based in African countries. Apart from a few countries, most of Africa is restricted to 2nd class payment processing who look like risky to deal with hence loss of business and trust from potential customers.

There are a few though that I have seen that quite translate to real business and are professionally setup and with standards even higher than paypal. Some of these even let you accept paypal on your site!

I particularly love 2checkout, accepts all major cards with very secure verification and fraud prevention. The range of allowed products is also quite big. There are a few integration issues that require a technical experience in web programming.

I came accross AlertPay, also easy to configure, allows merchants from all over Africa, with direct bank account withdrawal of your funds and easy terms. Though its rules are quite loose as compared to its competitors, its the choice for Africa. Works 100% as paypal, with email payments and pay now buttons. Accepts all major cards and funds are processed in real-time.

I leave a challenge to the banks and developers in Africa, why are we taking this money from our poor economies to the west? Think and let us grow our e-commerce industry. Come on, leave a comment here if you have any challenges or ideas for this growth.