In an attempt to attend the talks that were relevant to the various projects I am involved in I found myself bouncing around from Technical SEO, Keyword Research, Paid Search, Social Media, Ecommerce, Analytics, Blogging and Local Search.

Technical SEO
Relevant to every website the session Dealing With Domain Names, URLs, Parameters & All That Jazz focused on the do’s and don’ts when it comes to the use of URLs, domain names with research done into how the use of each affected a sites ranks in Search Results. The insight gained and lessons learnt would be perfect for 24.com and the related verticals.

Keyword Research
Keyword research is the one of the most important aspects of SEO and even though the session was aimed at beginner SEOs no harm is done in doing a refresher. The various tools and techniques that can be used to find the perfect keywords to target on our various sites mainly remain the same but a few gems were revealed. Keyword research once again applies to all sites from Property24 to BuscaPé.

Paid Search
Paid Search is the perfect compliment to organic search engine traffic and Google is not the only way to advertise your business online. The biggest take away from SMXEast for me was the various tools that can be used to efficiently manage paid search campaigns across Yahoo!, Bing and Google. I was also introduced to new forms of paid search by some of the exhibitors at smxeast. An simple process was also revealed to reduce your PPC spend by 15%

Social Media
There are a vast array of Social Media sites within the group, attending the Social Media sessions demonstrated how Social Media enhances brand awareness and actually has a direct impact on your paid search campaigns, increasing click through rate for brand and long tail phrases

I live blogged the Pumping up Wordspress for SEO session and many others in attendance tweeted and live blogged all the sessions over the 3 days. You can read a synopsis of the live blogging here.

Looking forward to attending SMX Advanced in 2010.

The PC Client competition launched by Mxit was an important initiative in the context of the South-African technology space, where open source development is often not well supported by the larger players. Mxit is a large player in the South African online space, and their support of an open source initiative therefore lends a great deal of credence to such initiatives. Given the importance of the event, Mxit invited a number of “traditional media” journalists, as well as new media reporters – the latter being represented by Rafiq Phillips, both a member of SWAT, and a well-known South African blogger and Search Engine Marketing specialist.

Here is Rafiq’s reporting of the event – all culled from Twitter:

new MXitPC Client – Blendit http://ff.im/-4LRpi11:18 PM Jul 3rd from FriendFeed

New MXit PC Client to be revelaed tonight http://ff.im/-4KETK1:35 PM Jul 3rd from FriendFeed

My point is this – informally, with no tool other than a mobile phone, Rafiq got the news out – as it happened. I do not want to rehash the old arguments of print vs electronic media here, but there is an important lesson to be learned by print-media journalists: news is about content, and timely delivery.

Whether that delivery channel is a virtually costless electronic channel or whether that content is delivered in 140 character chunks does not detract from the worth and usability of the content. The only people who care about that content in print format, are people who are never going to use Mxit anyway.

I contend that it would be a good idea for print journalists to reconsider the type of content they print on paper, and to broaden their horizons to include electronic and new media. The combination of the immediacy of electronic media, and the more analytical approach that traditional media allows would create truly valuable content.

Get the full story of the launch on Rafiq’s blog.

The first ever BarCamp in Nigeria took place in Lagos at the Tom Associates Training Center on April 25, 2009. The main goal of the event was to create a central node for ongoing conversations and connections on the most important technological initiatives in Nigeria.

With 70 – 80 delegates in attendance we witnessed the first ever face-to-face meeting of Nigerians involved in web & mobile industries coming together to form a community. Unlike the usual un-conference format BarCamp Nigeria actually had keynote speakers. Justin Hartman, MD and co-founder of Afrigator – Africa’s largest social media aggregator and blog directory launched a micro-blogging service: Gatorpeeps (slidehsow below), Social Media Trends in Africa and shared his start-up experiences.

Microsoft Nigeria’s PR and events Manager, N’dee Victoria Uwadoka, presented an interesting and a bit outdated slideshow about web 2.0 but her actual message had the desired effect

There were also a host of breakout sessions held on the following topics:

• Long Tail
• Open Source
• E-learning
• Technology Derivatives
• Getting Nigeria online
• Web development
• RapidSMS
• Social Networking
• Internet-based Radio
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

With the BarCamp ethos of collaboration and cooperation in mind I’ll now point you to some of the attendees thoughts on BarCamp Nigeria 2009:

• David Ajaou
• Segebee
• Possicon

Finally, a thank you to the BarCamp Nigeria organizers Tim Akinbo, Ayodeji Adewunmi and the sponsors for an amazing event. I saw the trip to Lagos as a fact-finding mission about Nigerian Internet users.

Digital Lifestyle of Connected Nigerians

Two days in a country is not nearly enough to learn about an internet population and I was pleased to learn about the Digital Lifestyle of Connected Nigerians survey which aims to explore what Nigerians (who are currently resident in Nigeria) are doing to get (and/or stay) online, what internet services they use and other important questions. If you are a Nigerian Resident, reading this, please complete the Digital Lifestyle of Connected Nigerians survey (takes 7 minutes).