The Internet is a mainstay, and it’s no surprise that this is the primary source of information for most people. For this reason, the Internet is the most common place for new business marketing. People get this information on the personal computers, tablets and phones. Given all the potential available for new businesses through the Internet, it is astonishing that not all businesses have websites. If you fall into this category, it is time to step it up and understand how the World Wide Web can help your business grow to where you want it to be.

Website Benefits

The benefits of having a business website seem obvious, but why do so many businesses decide to pass up on this opportunity every year? For starters, it might seem like an investment in a down economy when people are trying to cut back costs. While the economy might still be on the slow side in terms of growth, this doesn’t mean that consumers aren’t surfing the Web or buying goods and services. If you think otherwise, then it is time to wake up and see what you’re missing out on! A website not only gets your name out to prospective clients, but it is also a great place for your current customer to learn more information about you and to get in touch with you.

Getting Started

Setting up a website is easier and less expensive than you think. Free services like www.webstarts.com offer complementary website creation with basic essential features. Some of these features include free domain setup, increased web traffic and free tech support. You don’t even have to hire a graphic designer because there are a variety of templates and icons you can choose from. The good news is that whatever you put online, you can change in terms of formatting and templates. So if something doesn’t work, you can change it to make it right.

Promotions and Target Marketing

Launching your website is a smart business decision, and you will eventually see results. While you’re creating your own webpage, it is important to look at the overall picture and determine who your target market is. While you should already know this to a certain degree, marketing in the World Wide Web is a little different. Customers don’t like pop-up ads and spam mail, so you will need to find more creative ways to promote your website without sounding too salesy. Consider getting more involved in social networking and create your own pages on various websites. You can link the pages back to your website and also post helpful information.

Tips before Launch

The first step to any successful website is getting started. However, before you officially launch your company website on the Internet, consider these tips:

• Keep your content clean
• Use easy-to-read fonts
• Add pictures and videos where appropriate
• Create a “contact us” page
• Choose a simple template
• Link your email to the domain
• Add a blog
• Post news and blogs a few times a week

Posted in the category: Technology

Two ads in the employment section of the latest Sunday Times offer two related signposts for the development of technology infrastructure in South Africa during 2010, writes ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK

Two ads in the latest Sunday Times were seemingly innocuous: six posts advertised for Broadband Infraco, and 13 for the Department of Home Affairs. But between the lines, they said so much.

To start with, the Home Affairs ad was headlined “Building the New Home Affairs”. That ’s a positive sign to start with; an acknowledgement that Home Affairs as it had been structured and the way it had been operating simply wasn’t good enough.



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Posted in the category: Economy, Insight, Technology, Trends

The RICA law requiring all cellular SIM cards to be registered came into effect on 1 July. ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK tests the law and confesses to a new crime…

As of yesterday, I am a criminal.

I brazenly walked into a large CNA outlet, stepped up to the cellphone service kiosk, and without any form of identification demanded two starter packs, one with a Vodacom phone number and one with MTN. In full sight of anyone who bothered to look, I took the packs to the cashier and handed over R1,98 to cover the 99c cost of each pack.

It gets worse.

Once I got home, in total secrecy, I slipped the SIM cards from each provider into two old phones, and switched them on. The MTN card worked immediately, and I was able to begin receiving calls without any further ado. The Vodacom card required me to dial 100 to activate it, and I could then start receiving calls on that phone too.

In the above process, I violated the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (Rica) about half a dozen times – that I know about. The law came into effect on 1 July this year, even though it had been passed back in 2003. Various impracticalities, mainly relating to the process of identifying cellphone users and SIM card owners, delayed its implementation. Following various amendments, it now criminalises a range of acts of commission and omission that previously were normal everyday practice.



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Posted in the category: Insight, News, Technology

The appointment of a new Minister and Deputy Minister of Communications has both raised and dashed hopes for a new era for the advancement of telecommunications in South Africa. ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK looks at where change may and may not come – and why.

Any fan of South African dream football team Kaizer Chiefs will know the feeling: they start off every season with immense hope and promise, and their fans have every expectation they will end the season as champions, or at least with enough silverware in the trophy cabinet to have pleased most of the fans most of the time. By the end of a season littered with disappointment – the one just ended this weekend being a case in point – the fans realise that promise and hope means nothing without results and delivery. Even more ignominiously, it comes a few weeks after the team had been bundled out of a knock-out tournament by a lower-league side.

Siphiwe Nyanda. Pic: Mail & Guardian

So it is with the Department of Communications. Every time we begin a new season, i.e. have a new team in charge appointed by the President, we live in hope that, this time, we will all end up winners. By the end of the season, in which a startling lack of results and very little delivery has left us jaded, cynical and sad, we realise that we have fallen for false promises once again. It is left to the minnows of private enterprise to take on the Department – and beat it, as happened in the courtrooms with regard to licensing – in order for us to see progress.



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Posted in the category: Economy, News, Technology

Everyone in business has heard of the SOHO – Small Office Home Office. Now make way for the NOHO – Small Office No Office.

The concept of NOHO – Small Office Home Office is introduced in a new book released today, “The Mobile Office”, by Arthur Goldstuck, technology writer and editor of The Big Change. The book is sub-titled “The essential small business guide to office technology”, and goes beyond the technology to explain how the modern office for both the small business and the travelling executive has changed more radically in the past ten years than in the previous hundred years.

“It’s not just the Internet, not merely the plunging prices of laptop computers, not only the arrival of cellphone banking and mobile e-mail,” says Goldstuck, who heads up the World Wide Worx technology market research organisation.



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Posted in the category: News, Technology, Trends