StumbleUpon Users In Africa

There are so many good African Blogs & websites out there! But few of the webmasters or blog authors in Africa seem to know how to market or get more visibility or traffic for their content online. That is disheartening as a lot of good stuff from this continent gets buried under in the mass of information that the Internet is churning in this day and age!

If you are new at blogging and or have been at it for sometime and would like to see your more people access and read your site you can try the following user ranked news websites:

1. StumbleUpon.Com
2. DIGG
3. Delicious
4. Yahoo Buzz
5. Propeller
6. Friendfeed
   

Sites like Stumble Upon and DIGG however require you to network and or have subscribers/friends who share a similar interest with you. I for one use Stumble upon very much and it gives me around 50 to 60 hits each day( i am yet to harness it well enough) .That is little traffic as the site boasts that the number of world wide(current) users as at the end of April to be at approximately 5 million with the system recording around some 5 billion stumbles.

However surprisingly there are few African Users which means African Content is RARELY propelled to the fore pages of this websites. However if you are an African on Stumbleupon and desire to get or join more African users here is my STUMBLEUPON ADDRESS , Join up , add me as a friend , subscribe to my updates and together we will see how to best use/harness this online resource in order to push forth an afrocentric agenda!

Tweeter Getter Website

There is no doubt that Twitter is shaping the future of online communication and social media companies! Its just amzing to see some people or companies having more than 100,000 tweeter followers being constantly updated on new information, product launches, events etc. I have started to take Twitter as a serious marketing tool and would recommend the following twitter tool for any one interested in exploiting the full potential of tweeter-the tool is TwitterGetter created by Gary McCaffrey

It is a pyramidic kind of tool that will ensure you get more followers from anyone who follows you!For the dynamics behind it visit the site and join up! Its a useful resource!

Twitter Search for Conversation

Twitter is dabbling with the idea of real-time search, which is a concept that should get Google worried atleast for the time being. The Twitter web conversation monitoring website has grown exponentially ( according to twitter blog they have acheived above 900% active user growth in just one year)and has now reached a critical mass level that can see it emerge as a new search engine giant but providing a new unique service that may see Google drooling!

Twitter search is now being hosted on its own sub domain at search.twitter.It seems more and more people are eager to know the latest conversation in the internet be it facebook, twitter etc and the fact that this social media platforms are accesible via mobile phones and other portable gadgets makes it the all more attractive! Interestingly twitter has only 29 employees but i am certain this is bound to change soon.Internet use is morphing at a tremendous rate , it seems man & woman is more pre-occupied with telling whats new or learning about it, blogs, social networks, celebrity gossip,chat and online conversations are the in thing and busineses are adapting to this new trend.In future candidates may just win an election based on their prominence in some of this social forums such as facebook-indeed exciting times lie ahead


Need business leads?

Blognetworks Facebook Campaign

I am engaging myself in developing a facebook presence using blognetworks -a facebook application!

At the moment i have 23 fans most of whom are bloggers following this blog on facebook, i intend to reach 100 in the next two months.So if you are a fan of this blog and are on Facebook perhaps you may care to follow this blog on facebook and receive the latest post on your facebook profile page.

My bog networks facebook widget is on the side of this blog but i repost it in this blog for your ease in joining:

NetworkedBlogs

Blog:

A Nairobians Perspective

Topics:

Africa, Safari, blogging

Follow my blog

Social networks have become a favourite medium of communication online ! Its so easy to trace old acquintances,primary ,high school or college friends and network on Facebook, Furthermore one can can join up facebook on their mobile phones (including Smart phones , i-phones,Nokia and other phones that have internet capacity) and follow up on their friends activities.so if you havent joined up please do so today and then follow this blog on Facebook Today !

Nairobian Perspective Blog Link on HuffingtonPost !

I was quite honoured to find that my blog "A Nairobians Perspective " is actually listed and linked from the Huffington Post World News Sources blog Links page on Africa. The Huffpost is a news website and aggregated weblog founded by Arrian Huffington and Kenneth Lerer.It offers both news commentary and coverage.The site claims around 3.5 million visitors/hits per month and is estimated at the value of 60 million US Dollars with a yearly revenue of 6 to 10 million dollars!And that's how big that blog is!

Its therefore an honour to note that they view this blog as a worthy resource in its coverage of news, opinion,and analysis in the African region and more so in Nairobi Kenya.It is my sincere hope that with good sponsorship this site will grow big and incoporate as many /divergent views as possible so as to be truly Nairobian from this and other authors so as to rank as nairobi's most relevant unbiased and authoritative online news source .Unfortunately traditional media always caters to the interest of a minority few.Often very relevant and informative news pieces are burried deep under if they are not favourable to the whims and interest of the editors and company policy.Blogging /new media and citizen journalism is changing that!Naiirobian Perspective indeed continues to blaze trail as one of Kenya 's top notch blogs!

Kenya Unlimited Website Down!

One of Kenya's most popular blog aggregator-Kenyaunlimited has been down for the last three days thereby limiting thousands of people interested in local news & information from alternative/citizen media.I have emailed the webmaster to find out whats up and hope that this is the long awaited revamping of that site and no more than that!It is important for us to have an aggreagator linking and aggregating the latest posts from the Kenyan blogosphere..such a platform is an invaluable aid for the transmission and branding of information pertaining to Kenyan News ,tourism, technology, cuisine etc.

For the moment an aggregator like Mashada only lists information from 56 feeds(websites) making it an underdog and less popular because most bloggers would like to gain exposure for their posts.Getting your blog included in Mashada's linkroll is often quite difficult if not impossible resulting in the wesite having limited information.Due to this most people log into KenyaUnlimited to find out the latest news in the Kenyan blogosphere! Unfortuantely they have had to do without it for the short period .In the process some of now have come to appreciate more fully the useful role of Kenya Unlimited website, otherwise one has to depend on their linklist or traditional media to know wassup in Kenya.Sad ain't it not?

UPDATE: Iam duly informed that the aggregator feed is live @ http://kenyaunlimited.com/feed.php Thanks Daudi

How To Use Adgitize To Make Money Online !

Making money from blogging is something every blogger at the back of the mind would like to achieve but its not so easy as it seems. Sometime back i didd a post inviting readers/bloggers to join advertise a service that enables bloggers accumulate points that can be converted to cash especially for each article written.

Today i ould like to share excerpts from Adgitize newsletter on how to score points ion their advertising platform:

Many people would like to earn money for their writing. There are many ways to do that on the web with companies like Pay Per Post and similar. But, those companies limit your blogging topics. Did you know that by scoring points with Adgitize that those points are translated each month into an income? A portion of your monthly points are accumulated by the articles you write on your blog.

How to Score Points

How do you score points for the articles you write? It's very easy. Just log in to the Adgitize Member Lounge. Then click on the Manage Blogs menu item below the MastHead. When you land on the Manage Your Blogs page choose the Edit Blog Info button. At the bottom of the Edit page you will see Blog Rss Feed. Copy the path of your RSS Feed into the box and click the Update Blog Button. Then you are done.

Once you have completed that simple task then go back to writing on your blog. You score Adgitize points for one article per day on your blog. These are articles that you write about subjects you find interesting. Adgitize won't tell you what to write on your blog. Adgitize doesn't force you to write about clothing, cola, consumer goods or other non-interesting items. You communicate to your readers the discussion points important to you.

Points Are Converted To Dollars

At the end of each month your article points are totaled with the other points you score from Adgitize. Points for your ad views, page views, advertising and visits to the members of our network. Once all these points are totaled, they are converted into dollars for your consumption.

Adgitize pays monthly to members after they reach a payout of only $10. So, you get the money you earned right away. No waiting for months to earn $100 or more, payouts fast. Your dollars get delivered to you. So, if you haven't already set up your rss feed then do so today so you can begin earning more money. You are already blogging, so you might as well earn something from it.

Isn't just that beautiful!if you are already Aditizing i bet its news that you will sincerely treasure.If you are not....Join Now

Official Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide Link

Many newbie bloggers desire to find genuine and easy to understand Search Engine optimization guides or information but often are faced with myriads of conflicting advice from experts or would be experts out to make a quickbuck from them! Its often frustrating for online newbies to get needed help that they deserve!But help is on the way- reliable help from the official Google Webmaster Blog.Therein one will find free webmaster resources and SEO guides that are bound to help ones blog/website to rank favourably in Googles search engine and page ranking system.From now on Google will continue to avail free SEO tips and will update the guide inorder to adequately inform webmasters on best practice tips.To downlaod the new official Google Search Engine Guide please vist the following Link. Google (Pdf)

Now thats information you can trust and the good thing :its absolutely free!Thanks Googs!For now downloading it is the problem if you have slow internet connection!

Adgitize Your Blog and Make Money

I have just gone through a friends blog Clement Nyirenda and discovered a revolutionary ad serving service thats bound to be bloggers favourite in a huff: Adgitize .The reality is many bloggers don their sites with many ads with the hope of earning money but few actually do make any money at all! Most money minting ad services just end up exploiting bloggers.Its nice to see a hybrid service that will not only earn you money but earn you traffic, exposure and reward you for your posts without necsarrily offending your readers. You only need to continue posting as usual and visit other member sites:simple and rewarding!



Im certain the service will be a hot one for many bloggers to enable them run quality ads and earn money not just credit for clicking other adgitize ads on other blogs(thats a death knell for Entrecard).The Concept behind it is revolutionary as it enables publishers and affiliates generate traffic and in the process earn money for page visits, posts done and serving ads! We are certainly thankful for the Company owner Mr Ken Brown for coming up with such a brilliant idea!I bet thats good news for many of us!Acording to the owners the term adgitize by defeinition was arrived at from a merging of the following two words "Advertising "and " Agitate". Agitate means to give motion to or to move with irregular or violent action. To arouse public feeling. Advertise means to make something known publicly. To announce by notice or broadcast. To arouse a desire for action. Adgitize then is to arouse our customers to action. To get people to take action by writing in their blog, by visiting other blogs and by clicking on ads.



Hope you will find this information quite useful(especially if you are an African blogger) and Sign Up

Top African Female Bloggers 2008

Afrigator has just put up a list on the top 45 African Female bloggers based on their site monitoring algorithm and the list is as follows :

1.So Close
South Africa Rank: 9
Overall Rank: 10
Blog

2.Urban Sprout
South Africa Rank: 10
Overall Rank: 11
Blog

3.Black Looks
Nigeria Rank: 1
Overall Rank: 14
Blog

4.Kenyan Pundit
Kenya Rank: 2
Overall Rank: 17
Blog

5.Cape Town Daily Photo
South Africa Rank: 19
Overall Rank: 23
Blog

6.Angel’s mind
South Africa Rank: 27
Overall Rank: 34
Blog

7.Ladybrille
South Africa Rank: 30
Overall Rank: 38
Blog

8.Cooksister
South Africa Rank: 31
Overall Rank: 40
Blog

9.Bosom Buddies
South Africa Rank: 39
Overall Rank: 48
Blog

10.Scarlett Lion
Uganda Rank: 1
Overall Rank: 57
Blog

11.Hottest Gossip
South Africa Rank: 48
Overall Rank: 60
Blog

12.Mother City Living
South Africa Rank: 51
Overall Rank: 65
Blog

13.JustB[Coz]
South Africa Rank: 54
Overall Rank: 71
Blog

14.Melissa Attree
South Africa Rank: 60
Overall Rank: 78
Blog

15.Entertainment Blog
South Africa Rank: 63
Overall Rank: 85
Blog

16.Sugar. Spice. And all things nice!
General Rank: 3
Overall Rank: 96
Blog

17.Jackfruity
Uganda Rank: 3
Overall Rank: 98
Blog

18.Africa Expat Wives Club
Kenya Rank: 8
Overall Rank: 108
Blog

19.Anja Merret
South Africa Rank: 74
Overall Rank: 109
Blog

20.Glad to be a Girl
South Africa Rank: 78
Overall Rank: 114
Blog

21.Insight
South Africa Rank: 81
Overall Rank: 117
Blog

22.Inside Candy
South Africa Rank: 82
Overall Rank: 118
Blog

23.FeistyFemale
South Africa Rank: 87
Overall Rank: 124
Blog

24.Through My Own Eyes
South Africa Rank: 88
Overall Rank: 125
Blog

25.Szavanna_blog
South Africa Rank: 94
Overall Rank: 132
Blog

26.Ore’s Notes
Nigeria Rank: 7
Overall Rank: 153
Blog

27.
Tania
South Africa Rank: 106
Overall Rank: 155
Blog

28.Onder die maan en sterre
South Africa Rank: 115
Overall Rank: 165
Blog

29.The Vegan Diet
South Africa Rank: 120
Overall Rank: 174
Blog

30.What An African Woman Thinks
General Rank: 7
Overall Rank: 181
Blog

31.The Adventures of Miss M
South Africa Rank: 153
Overall Rank: 223
Blog

32.Photography by Jeanette
South Africa Rank: 154
Overall Rank: 224
Blog

33.Libby
South Africa Rank: 160
Overall Rank: 234
Blog

34.Vampira’s Life
South Africa Rank: 163
Overall Rank: 239
Blog

35.Michelle Clarke
South Africa Rank: 183
Overall Rank: 269
Blog

36.An Ordinary Life
South Africa Rank: 189
Overall Rank: 278
Blog

37.Hunter of Genius
South Africa Rank: 191
Overall Rank: 281
Blog


38.Deshanta’s World
South Africa Rank: 200
Overall Rank: 292
Blog

39.Helen Zille
South Africa Rank: 202
Overall Rank: 294
Blog

40.Afromusing
Kenya Rank: 21
Overall Rank: 307
Blog

41.Memories, Sentiments, Rants and Raves
Kenya Rank: 22
Overall Rank: 314
Blog

42.Wandering the World
Eqypt Rank: 15
Overall Rank: 323
Blog

43.Mama Etiopia
Ethiopia Rank: 2
Overall Rank: 338
Blog

44.Victoire
South Africa Rank: 238
Overall Rank: 355
Blog

45.My Whorl
South Africa Rank: 239
Overall Rank: 357
Blog


This kind of ranking is important as it will spur African bloggers to better their content and webpage layout in order to meet such lists.From this point i would like to congratulate Kenyan Pundit, African Expat Wives Club, Afromusing and Memories,Sentiments,Rant & Raves for doing Kenya proud!

What the Readers of this Blog Are Saying !

Today i am letting some of the readers of this blog air their viewpoint on this blog as a sign of appreciation for my loyal readers readership....have a nice weekend!

Our Reviews "you provided some great information, your site was very clean and straight forward, i like the topics and how they were organized, very good job...." Jenn yourwizkid.com "I like your blog and your writing. I'm not sure I understand that top graphic, which makes it look like you are an art site or writing a travel blog to Europe. Think about a graphic of someplace in Nairobi, or of yourself, or anything that speaks more to your subject. " Wil spotcoolstuff.com "A really great blog, enjoyed reading through it and the posts on Brittish banks and Large Hadron Collider Beam Controversy were great. Added to favs so I can watch your blog and keep up to date with the bloggers from African nations. well done and good luck." kenny kennymcbride.blogspot.com/ "Truly a Nairobian's Perspective! Interesting indeed. Keep it up!" Allahn Joyce insearch4you.blogspot.com "I love the simplicity of your site. The layout is really relaxing. One of the best I've seen. You have a nice picture at the top that captures readers' attention. How did you get those little tabs at the top? It's very cute!" Baby Loves Pink babylovespink.etsy.com "Thanks. Loved your blog, loved what you are saying about paypal. Your content is good, site navigation is easy and responsive and you fit the category. Keep up the great work, I hope you get paypal soon." Nick nickgrimshawe.ws/adlandpro.html "Hey your blog is pretty good and nice... Keep it up and have a nice time.. visit my blog too...www.monterines.blogspot.com" Nandakumar monterines.blogspot.com "thank you for all this information that you have put together. I have two friends from this part of the world and i have passed your link on to them...i learned some things today...very kewl." Diane blognetawards.com Get your own reviews, free traffic at

Twitter-Twittads And Blogging !

Many Western bloggers use twitter to generate traffic and follow up on blogs or on activities of friends of interest.During post election crisis Kenyan Blogger Ory Okolloh of KenyanPundit fame updated her readers via sms using twitter on election violence and this gave birth to the award winning website Ushahidi.Com but the use of Twitter is not so widespread or well known among internet users in Sub -Saharan Africa.

I personally use Twitter ,my twitter account is : http://twitter.com/collinsom92, if you are a blogger and are interested in following me please create a twitter account and click on my link and add me.The benefit of twitter is that you can receive and send tweets through your PDA or Mobile Phone(i-phones) etc.You can update your friends on the go so it is necessary for an enlightened online entrepreneur.So are you one ? its time you started tweeting .

What if you already are on twitter and are following me.I want to share tips on 2 delightful services:

1. Twitterfeed:This service will post your blog feeds to twitter automatically for you .You can customize the service on how often you want your posts updated.
   
2. Twittad: First and only website created to allow Advertisers place ads on Twitter.If you sign up you may just have an opportunity to earn money on ads placed on your twitter account!Perfect site for social website promotion,networking and product placement.Online Marketeers watch this website it will grow big in huge leaps and bounds!
   

Hence you can clearly see that Twitter offers a variety of opportunities and is a fast developing popurlar tool for professional bloggers.Join twitter and follow this blog for updates and tweets on how to maximize and optimize your use of twitter!

Deutsche Welle Bob Awards 2008

This site has been submitted and nominated for the Deutsche Welle 2008 (Best of The Blogs)Bob's Awards.Bob Awards are the Worlds largest international awards for Weblogs, podcasts and videoblogs. Since its inception four years ago, the BOBs have grown to include 11 languages and 16 Categories . The winners of each year’s awards are decided by both an international jury of bloggers and through online voting.

If you have been benefited by this blog (example the Paypal Africa Campaign)and would like to vote for it.Please go to the following link:

http://www.thebobs.com/index.php?w=1216805507639294KLJBOCEO

Africa please vote for your own! There are just 27 days of voting left,Deadline September 30th 2008 so please vote!I i will highly appreciate dear readers!

VOTE!VOTE!VOTE NOW!

Extreme Blog Makeover at Izeafest

Does your blog need an extreme makeover!are you still on the traditional pyra labs-blogger themes of the late 1990's or some old wordpress template and feel its time to shape up your blog with the latest designer templates yet you have no iota bit of knowledge of html, xml ,css and other programing languages out there !Need no worry our friends at IZEA Fest have decided to hold an extreme makeover contest!The 3 Winners will their blogs re- designed by re knowned blog experts Matt Blancarte, Scott Allen and Christopher Schmitt, ONLY CATCH ,you must be attending and be registered for the IZEAFEST conference in Orlando ,Florida from 11 to 13 th September, 2008


Personally im playing around with some tempaltes so as to upgrade this blog, one thing i have come to notice that some of the new blogger templates out there are actually SEO optimized and help improve one's Google ranking.I recently came acrross a scroll over blogspot website with a lot of javascript(payperpost, Social sparks and other sponsored programes) but only to be shocked that it had a pagerank of 6 and had only been in existence for five months.Apart from that my content beats it thumbs down, thats why i loathe google's algorithm, it doesnt lay down a level playing field.After i pulled down payperpost and other javascript adverts from my blog, this website has now a pagerank of zero !despite the readership and authoritative backlinks! So i am forced to soon discard this misty look template for a more optimized blog template that i will have generated, perhaps sometime i can award my faithful readers free optimized blogger templates!Its just so interesting the things i have learned through blogging!

Around The Blogosphere:Blog Idols

It's interesting the stuff that goes around the blogosphere.Now that the East and Southern Africa Idols music competition is over with Zimbabwean Eric Moyo having won the competition on 28th July, 2008 at the Bomas of Kenya something new needs to come up and capture your attention...blog idols may just be it if if you maintain a blog.

Surprising the blogging idols competition has been ongoing and is in its third week as we speak!How we know little but thanks

The Competition:

The competition aims at getting the best of the best bloggers around the world and all bloggers are eligible provided that they sign up to Feedburner .The competition focuses on getting the most number of new subcribers for ones blog within a particular period.When one enrolls the number of subcribers for the blog is indexed then the challenge of getting new subscribers to one's content begins.The blog with the most subscribers carries away the grand prize of $3000, or an equivalent of Kenya shillings 189,000/=

The Rules for the BlogIdols Competition are:

1. All participants must activate the Feedburner feed count at the beginning of the competition.
2. Participants will need to send a short email weekly (100-200 words), describing their strategies to gain RSS subscribes, and what they are doing on their blogs.
3. The emails will be published on a weekly basis at http://www.dailyblogtips.com so that readers can follow and understand how participants are competing.
4. Blackhat methods will not be allowed, so bloggers can’t fake stats, try to damage the blog of competitors and so on.
5. Paid promotion will not be allowed, else it would become a “who can spend more” contest.
6. If you have a blog with over 1000 RSS subscribers and will create a brand new one for the competition, you can’t use your established blog to promote the new one
7. All other strategies and techniques are allowed (guest articles, contests, give-aways, controversial articles, free eBooks), so you are free to get creative

Well thats quite a competition and requires quite some amount of strategy, i just wish they had a special category for African blogs, alternatively we can borrow a cue and start our own competition! Any willing sponsors for Afria's blogging Idols Competition?????

Is Google Algorithm Relevant to African Content

This post is in the way of a question for good reason and i hope Google Africa will have an answer to it!I write around four blogs, but siku-moja is my main blog, the number of backlinks to this blog the last time i checked was around 170, im sure it has grown!This blog is featured and has been featured in various forum's relevant to the African Diaspora i.e:

• Blog Africa
• Global Voices online
• Afrora
• Kenyaunlimited
• A post in Mashada
• Kenyaimagine
• World bank Blog etc...
  

the list is exhaustive yet its page ranking indicating its relevancy dropped from 4 to 3 and now two.I was left wondering, well i have enrolled to Google Webmaster and closely follow the webmaster guidelines including assigning the "rel="no follow"" attribute to outgoing links.I continue to avoid black listed Directories.I further disclose any posts that are sponsored by advertisers.I have 77 subscribers to my feed.The site is listed in various reputable human edited directories, one would think that with this background this site would we well ranked.The truth is that my dormant blogs have better page ranking than this blog!

Perhaps that just my case, so i decided to visit some of the authoritative A-list blog sites in Kenya to see how my fellow bloggers are ranked and this is what i found( i am of the opinion that the Google algorithm is not authoritative in Africa and rates sites in a manner that does not capture "the African Spirit" or experience online:

1. Bankelele Page Rank 2
   
2. Al Kags 5
3. Afro Musing 5
4. hapa Kenya 3
5. Jikomboe 6
6. Gathara's World 4
7. Wanjiku Unlimited 0
8. Kenyan Pundit 6
9. Mentalacrobatics 5
   
10. Kikuyu Moja's Realm 4

Some of this bloggers are the best in Kenya , have been around for quite some time, write quality posts and are leaders in their niche.I believe its absurd to rank them using the same algorithm that Google will use for blogs in America or the rest of the world.For one i admire Bankelele and his financial blog and believe he more than anything deserves a better page rank.What is relevant and authoritative in Africa may not be perceived the same way in the west.I understand that sometimes google uses human editors /website assesors or raters to be able to rank websites(sometime back i actually received an invitation by a company named Lionbridge UK to manually assess somewebsites and was required to pass a test before being enrolled,though Google denies outsourcing this task).

Its time we advocated for google to rank African websites according to their relevancy in Africa and how the same is perceived locally.I know that is quite a task but getting their current algorithm was indeed a task but they were succesful,i therefore believe such a move is within their means.As they continue to open more offices in Africa , i hope they will also continue to customize the African experience online!

Entrecard Gets Serious About Comments !

There's nothing more satisfying and fulfilling for a blogger than to open his in box and find that his posts are appreciated as most often indicated in the traffic to the site and the number of comments thereupon.Imagine a program that enables you to get tons of traffic and comments at the same time!If you are serious about comments im sure you would readily join!Well, i take this opportunity to announce a new exciting alliance and opportunity between Entrecard and Sezwho that will make this possible for many bloggers! African and Kenyan bloggers take the cue and start real deal serious blogging by joining at entrecardsezwho register

The benefits of this partnership between entrecard and SezWho are innumerable for one:

• By Installing Sez who on your blog!Registered Users who comment will earn points for commenting.
• You will get more comments as entrecards who drop on your blog will be more motivated to comment on your blog.
• You will earn credits for comments you have already left
• by users rating your posts you will get a feel and a leaning on what topics to write more about
  

As you comment more and more you will get more subscribers ,more traffic and more comments !Ive found that there are only a few local bloggers out there who use entrecard.Most have begun doing so after visiting my blog!Trust me i only share information that i know will be useful and effective particularly for Kenyan and African bloggers.My encouragement is that they should take traffic generation seriously, write quality content and interlink for them to remain relevant in arapidly growing digital/online divide between the developed countries and the developing or underdeveloped countries.So join up today and its free, doesnt cost a shilling!The official announcement of the marriage of convenience is at Http://entrecard.com/blog/?p=368

Blogging 101-Tips and Tricks For Kenyan Bloggers

I am moved by necessity to write this post more or less because ,after Nairobi barcamp 2008 ,it became openly apparent that most of Kenya's over 700 bloggers are "blogging blind".A term i have coined to denote blogging without any technical know how or basic information on what blogging entails.Indeed due to this is suggested that an exclusive Kenyan bloggercon be organized.I bet it would be the first one in Africa.

There are various issues that few bloggers tend to recognize such as:

1. The importance of Google/Alexa page rank and how to improve it!
2. What content to capture!
3. Plagiarism and or duplication of published material
4. Search Engine Optimization/website optimization(Peperuka has a post and tips on it though there is one myth therein that you loose page rank each time you give out a link thats a fallacy!)
   
5. Keyword Density
6. Link building and Link Baiting
7. Basic HTML and how to insert metadata
8. Which blogging platforms to utilize i.e word press or blogger or typepad etc
9. Blog Aggregation/blogging tools, pagerank checkers!
   
10. Syndicating content
11. Monetization of blogs(Google Adsense or Adwords are not enough, a dollar a month may not be worth it!)
    
12. Legal Liability, "fair use" policy and Defamatory content
    

Its due to these issues that i have put some links above but since the above issues are lengthy once again i will take upon myself the task of regularly updating my readers on this issues especially with respect to the legal bits(there you have it free legal advice) .I'm sure non of the bloggers would like to find themselves facing hefty legal charges and fines for defamatory articles, one can even get arrested or the blog removed from blogger or other platforms!Keep tuned to these blog.Interestingly next month i will have accumulated nine years of experience as a blogger,my first blog being a personal/private one!

Get More Blog Traffic-Entre Card Giveouts!

The Kenyan blogosphere has immense potential and there are a number of good blogs out there,the evidence is there if you visit www.kenyaunlimited.com a local blog aggregator.However few bloggers seem to realize the benefits that can be theirs if they join other international aggregators or social community websites out there in order to get more traffic.

Technorati are monitoring thousands of blogs being churned out there on a daily basis!It therefore stands to reason no matter the quality of a blog without sufficient traffic the posts may just be buried under.For myself i rely on linkrefferal and Entrecard to get the almost assured number (actually over 100)of daily unique visits!

I do invite my fellow bloggers to consider signing up with Entre card and they will be pleasantly suprised at the online presence of their blogs.To aptly inform their users on signing up Entrecard is offering a free online E book at the following link free E PDF book. Further they have put up a new interface that enables one to "add a new blog" to their account in their newly revamped website.For good cause join Entrecard and get more internet web traffic.

And while you are at it please join me at del.icio.us

A Nairobian Perspective-Premier Blog for Reality Tv

As an African Blogger im quite happy with the success of this blog,It takes a lot of effort for one to be a successful blogger,to have good page rank and to have tons and tons of traffic especially here in Africa.

For now im quite pleased that this happens to be the premier blog for many readers in Africa particurlarly for three reality tv series:

1. Tusker Project Fame -2
2. Idols East and Central Affrica
3. The Apprentic Africa(Nigeria)

The traffic is quite impressive and i would like to thank the readers and encourage them to comment and vent out there opinions.Since the post is being read extensively whatever you writee goes out there! Now that is what i call succesful blogging!