Just over a year ago, I shared an update here titled Still Building. From Africa to the wwworld. Back then, we had just rebranded from Nat1ve Adtech to Naritive, and we were buzzing after winning a Bronze AdTech Innovation award at the very first Mark Awards.

If I thought things were moving at lightning speed in September 2025, the past thirteen months have been on another level entirely.

I had the privilege of sitting down with Loy Okezie on Techloy’s The Founder Room to unpack the journey so far, the engineering behind our Attention Intelligence Platform, and what it really takes to build global adtech out of Africa. You can check out the full write-up on Techloy: Rafiq Phillips on building the attention layer that African advertising was missing
, and watch our conversation below:

Why I Became a Web AddiCT and Challenging Advertising’s “Ghost Metrics”

In the interview, Loy asked me what I wanted to do growing up. I like to joke that I am “ambitiously lazy”—I have always wanted to do work that creates the biggest human impact possible, and the web allows you to reach people anywhere in the world. From joining a primary school computer club in 1994 to building my first website in 1999, that obsession with the open web is the exact reason Web AddiCT exists.

Across more than two decades in search, SEO, and digital marketing, including years running campaigns at MTN, I kept seeing the same disconnect. Digital advertising became very good at proving delivery,and much less useful at proving human impact. An ad impression can tell a marketer that an ad appeared on a screen, but it cannot tell them whether anyone noticed it, remembered it, or was actually moved to act.

We took inspiration from the engaging Story formats people love on social platforms and built Naritive Ad Stories for the open web. What started as a prototype hacked together in a few days is now used by more than 100 brands and agencies, and we have expanded from Johannesburg into Nigeria, Kenya, the UK, and Europe.

Even more humbling has been the industry validation back home. When I wrote here in July, we had just been shortlisted in eight categories for The Mark Awards. Last month, at #TheMarkAwards 2026, Naritive Global walked away with four awards and four Merit certificates, including:

• Silver in AdTech (Technology): Engineering Attention
• Silver in Emerging Technology: The Frontier Tech Turning Attention Into Digital Advertising’s New Currency
• Bronze in Early Stage Technology: The Attention Experiment Challenging Advertising’s Ghost Metrics
• Bronze in Brand of the Year (Leadership): Naritive Global (alongside our partners at Lucky Hustle)
• Merit Certificates across Product Innovation (Rebuilding Display Advertising from the Demand Side) and Partnering for Growth (From Invisible Impressions to Measurable Growth)

For a bunch of tech heads building out of Africa, seeing our work recognised across technology, product innovation, and brand leadership is a massive credit to the entire team.

Launching Naritive Studio on Google Cloud

Our biggest technical milestone landed just last week with the launch of Naritive Studio, built fully on Google Cloud Platform.

Studio is our creative canvas for attention-led advertising. It gives marketers, designers, and agencies a single environment to build, test, refine, preview, and approve interactive advertising before it goes live—allowing teams to preview the finished experience in situ on a publisher’s site before spending a cent on reach.

As CTO, my number-one priority has been speed. No matter where you are—whether in Africa or Europe—nobody wants to wait seconds for an experience to load. The hardest engineering challenge was making rich, interactive advertising fast enough and light enough for real-world market conditions without creating a “latency tax” for the audience.

With incredible support from the engineers at Google through the Google for Startups scale tier, we obsessed over edge routing, lightweight media formats, code minification, and reducing layout shift to zero. Our rule is simple: build for the slowest device on the network, while making the experience feel like you are on a Pixel 11 Pro.

From AI Search to Agentic AI: Eliminating Friction Everywhere

In my September 2025 post, I shared a couple of articles I contributed to on MarkLives Media about how AI was upending search and SEO. One year on, the conversation has shifted from how people find brands through AI to how brands interact with customers once they arrive—and once again, I am grateful to Charles Lee Mathews for including my two cents in a pair of deep-dive features this month:

• Customers are turning to AI — just not your chatbot (13 October 2026)
• Conversational AI: customers want answers, not conversations (20 October 2026)

Whether we are talking about adtech or customer experience, the underlying engineering problem is identical: brands are burning consumer attention like it is an infinite resource.

In the mid-2000s, I built the first external MXit chatbot to pull location data into chat back when mobile browsers were clunky and data was expensive. Twenty years ago, we used text interfaces to eliminate friction; today, too many brands are deploying conversational AI to introduce it—trapping users in scripted loops or deflecting tier-1 support tickets while mistaking trapped frustration for “engaged dwell time.”

“If an action that should take a half-second reflex suddenly forces your customer to endure a multi-prompt simulated pleasantry routine, that isn’t digital transformation. It’s attention theft and cognitive drain, gift-wrapped in an LLM prompt.” – Rafiq Phillips

At Naritive, our analysis of close to a billion interactions across the features we have built shows one clear truth: feature bloat kills intent. If a single tap delivers resolution, forcing an open-ended conversation in an empty chat bubble is just a lazy UI cop-out. And in mobile-first, bandwidth-conscious markets, streaming paragraphs of polite corporate small talk over WhatsApp drains mobile data, battery, and megawatts when lightweight, deterministic automation and true agentic systems wired directly into backend APIs that can get the job done in milliseconds.

Next Week in Vienna: On Not Being the Smartest Person in the Room

So where do we go from here? Back in July, I wrote a post titled TEDAI 2026: On not being the smartest person in the room, where I asked a simple question: How does a Web AddiCT build adtech to solve Naritive’s African and global mission right from South Africa?

You get into the rooms where the future is being written, and you collaborate with the minds on the absolute forefront of artificial intelligence.

Next week, I head to TEDAI in Vienna to do exactly that. I am incredibly exciTED to reconnect with my fellow TED Fellows, test our African-built adtech stack against the global vanguard of AI, and dive into conversations on agentic workflows and generative media with pioneers like OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger.

Most importantly, I am going to Vienna to listen, learn, and bring those insights straight back home as we build the next phase of scaling Naritive. Over the next six months, now that Naritive Studio is live on Google Cloud, we will be taking everything we learn from the global AI frontier in Vienna and from the designers, agencies and AdOps teams using our platform every day to make our workflow even faster, smarter and more intuitive.

If your campaign reports can tell you what was delivered, but not what people genuinely noticed or actioned—come and see Studio.

Still building, from Africa to the wwworld. Let’s build.

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..

How does a Web AddiCT build adtech to solve Naritive’s African and global mission right from South Africa?

You get into the rooms where the future is being written. You collaborate with the minds on the absolute forefront of artificial intelligence.

That is how.

The TED Conference dedicated to AI.

I’m pinching myself a little to share that I’ve been invited by the TED Fellows Team to attend TED AI 2026 in Vienna, Austria later this year. I am incredibly exciTED and deeply humbled to have received a sponsored conference pass to join this cohort of global innovators. This. a massive milestone on our startup journey that has been years in the making.

Connecting the Dots from Johannesburg to Vienna

If you’ve been following my journey on Web AddiCT, you know that building sustainable, high-performance programmatic adtech from the southern tip of Africa is an ambitious hill to climb.

When we laid out the foundational vision for Naritive Tech, we knew we had to think globally from day one. That vision came full circle recently when we unlocked a massive infrastructure milestone by transitioning to the Google Startups Scale Tier. This tier has given us direct, unprecedented access to the absolute best of Google’s AI ecosystem and engineers, enabling us to scale our attention-based programmatic engine to match global demands.

That global ambition is already yielding local validation. Just recently, Naritive Global was shortlisted for the prestigious Mark Awards 2026 in 8 incredible categories:

• Business Model Innovation
• Product Innovation
• Brand of the Year
• AdTech (twice)
• Early Stage Technology
• Emerging Technology
• Partnering for Growth

It is incredibly rewarding to see our business model and technology recognized on such a grand stage back home while we expand into Nigeria, Kenya, the UK and Europe.

The Frontiers of AI: Who I’m Looking Forward to Connecting With

TED AI is going to be an intense melting pot of theoretical breakthrough and practical execution. There are a few specific folks I am incredibly eager to connect with:

• Peter Steinberger (Creator of OpenClaw & Product Developer at OpenAI): As someone who has spent late nights configuring and deploying OpenClaw locally, getting to chat with its creator about agentic workflows and local AI frameworks is going to be a massive highlight.

• My Fellow, TED Fellows: Of course, reconnecting with the brilliant minds of old TED Fellows and welcoming the perspectives of the new ones is what makes the TED ecosystem so uniquely magical.
• YOU! If you are attending, let’s connect.

Keeping the African Mission at the Core

We are entering an era where geographic boundaries matter less than the speed of your execution and the depth of your curiosity. Building from Johannesburg, we face unique challenges, but we also possess a unique perspective on utility, efficiency, and scaled problem-solving that more mature markets sometimes overlook.

Taking our African-built adtech stack to Vienna and testing it against the global vanguard of AI is exactly where we need to be.

Vienna, I’ll see you in October. Let’s build.

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..

If you are looking to break into the digital economy or know someone who is, pay attention. We urgently need more specialized, highly trained skills across the African tech landscape and a massive opportunity has just opened up to help close that gap. How about an AI Scholarship?

RLabs, Yoma, and the Study Access Alliance have partnered to offer three-year, fully-funded, globally recognized Bachelor’s Degree scholarships. These are aimed at financially disadvantaged students and are facilitated through Germany’s largest university: IU International University of Applied Sciences.

There are currently about 500 scholarships still available. Please share this within your networks to reach candidates who meet the criteria.

The Degrees

The market is currently starving for deep technical and analytical expertise. These programs are laser-focused on the exact fields driving modern business and infrastructure.

AI Scholarships, Data & IT Programs:

• AI in Business
• Applied Artificial Intelligence
• Business & IT
• Cloud Computing
• Computer Science
• Cyber Security
• Data Science
• Engineering
• Industrial Engineering & Management
• Robotics
• Software Development

Business & Management Program Scholarships:

• Aviation Management
• Business Administration
• Digital Business
• Entrepreneurship
• Hospitality Management
• International Management
• Management

Learning Format

Candidates have the flexibility to choose how they work. The programs support 100% online remote learning. Alternatively, for those based in Cape Town who need infrastructure, in-person learning facilities are available at the RLabs DLab building in Westridge, Mitchell’s Plain.

Eligibility Criteria

To be considered for this cohort, applicants must meet the following strict requirements:

• 18 years or older
• Possess a Bachelor’s Matric Pass
• Have access to a Computer and reliable WiFi
• Commitment to the full 3-year program
• Hold a Valid ID or Passport
• Citizen and Resident of an African country

How to Apply (Read Carefully)

Do your research before committing. You can review the detailed course breakdowns in this Google Drive Folder or on the IU University Website—but do not apply via the IU website.

To officially apply for the scholarship, you must use this specific expression of interest form: APPLY HERE: https://qjar.me/IU2024

What to expect next…

This is a rigorous selection process that takes approximately 2 to 3 months from start to finish:

1. Screening: Candidates who complete the Google form will be reviewed.
2. Info Session: Screened candidates are invited to an information session (held every few weeks as cohorts are recruited).
3. Interview: Those who remain committed will undergo a formal interview.
4. Contracting: Successful interviewees will sign contracts to accept the scholarship.
5. Final Approval: IU International makes the final qualifying decision.

If you have a solid work ethic and meet the criteria, don’t sleep on this. Fill out the form and forward this to anyone in your wwworld who could use the launchpad.

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..

Since the very beginning of my career, my path has been inextricably linked to Google. It started with a moniker I didn’t choose but happily embraced since Charles Lee Matthews authored it and a pivotal moment in 2007 when I met Larry Page as part of the inaugural class of TED Global Fellows in Arusha, Tanzania. “Rafiq keep on Googling” he penned in my copy of The Google Story. I took that advice literally.

Th TED Fellows programme was sponsored in-part by the very company that had begun to organise the world’s information. For nearly two decades since, people have asked me the same question: “Rafiq, you understand and are passionate about Google more than anyone. Why don’t you just go work for Google?”

My answer has always been the same: “I don’t want to work for Google. I want to work with Google.“

Today, that distinction means more than ever…

I am extremely stoked to announce that Naritive Tech has been selected for the Scale Tier of the Google for Startups Cloud Program, securing up to $350,000 (about R 6 million) in cloud and AI credits over the next two years.

It is the validation of a nearly 20-year thesis that building on the open web, powered by Google’s infrastructure, is the ultimate scalable strategy. It’s more than the credits.

The Long Road to Gemini and Vertex AI

My career has been spent decoding the evolution of Google Search. From my early days in SEO to building adtech platforms, I’ve always been fascinated by all things Google. A fact my Pixel-powered wrist, pocket, car and home can all attest to.

When we founded Naritive Tech (formerly Nat1ve Adtech), we made a counterintuitive play. While the rest of the adtech wwworld was trying to build “walled gardens” to compete with Google, we decided to lean in. We built our entire architecture to be Google-nat1ve, pun intended. By leveraging the decade+ years of experience gained being immersed within the inner workings of Google’s organic algorithms, Google Ads systems, the programmatic reach of DV360 and the intelligence of Google Cloud Platform.

We realised early on that the future of advertising wasn’t just where we’d be placing ads but how to generate the right kind of attention with them.

Why “Scale Tier” Matters

The “Scale Tier” is reserved for startups that are not just using the cloud for storage, but are pushing the boundaries of what is technically possible on the platform.

For Naritive, this partnership unlocks the full power of Vertex AI and Gemini. It allows us to Scale Without Fear. The infrastructure credits allow my engineering team to experiment with massive datasets and high-compute models without the “fear of the bill.” We can innovate at the speed of Google, with the support of Google. The immense savings allows us to grow my team with more confidence too.

The Next Chapter

In 2007, meeting Larry Page felt like a glimpse into the future. Today, building on the platform he helped architect feels like fulfilling that future.

Naritive Tech is no longer just “using” Google. We are deeply integrated partners, building the layer of creativity that sits on the backbone of their leading world-class infrastructure. We are proving that an African-born adtech company can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best startups in Silicon Valley, contributing to the continent’s digital transformation. Naritive is part of the next wave of African innovation, a region where Google has committed $1 Billion to digital transformation.

To my team, partners, the Google Africa and the Google for Startups crew: thank you. The “Web AddiCT” journey is just getting started.

Okay Google… Let’s build.

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..

Okay. So, that very idea Leanne Emery-Hunter shared earlier, that’s the kind of powerful signal I’m talking about. Being here in this amphitheater at the sculpture park, you can feel the excitement of the ideas being shared. But it brings up a question that I obsess over:

What is the single biggest threat to a world-changing idea?

It’s not funding. It’s not criticism. But it’s silence.

Every speaker on the stage is creating a signal for a greener, fairer world. We’ve heard how Steve Carver is working with crooked carrots. And Gamuchirai Mutezo (PhD) is turning her organic passion into opportunities.

But those signals are being broadcast into a storm of noise of distraction, disinformation… overload.

A brilliant idea without a clear path to the right audience is just a beautiful secret.

And our planet doesn’t need any more secrets.

The innovator in the lab needs to reach people like Leanne. The community leader working on the ground needs to reach Crispian Olver the G20.

Connecting them isn’t by chance. It’s a design problem.

At Naritive, my team and I are obsessed with that exact problem. And as a TED Fellow, I’ve noticed and seen firsthand that an idea’s journey doesn’t end when it’s shared on the stage. This is where it begins.

Our contribution to this movement of TEDxJohannesburg Countdown is providing the technology that strengthens the signal within the noise. We ensure the solutions born here and shared here don’t just echo in the trees and in this amphitheater, but resonates in the mind of the people who can scale them, who can act on them, and who can fund them.

So, as you listen today, I invite you to do more than just be inspired. Think of yourself as the carrier of the signal. And ask yourself that one question: Who do I know that needs to hear this? And share it with them.

Because a thriving future doesn’t happen by chance.

Thank you

The Google AI Mode Experiment, The TEDx Talk & The Newborn

That was the 3-minute talk I had the honour of giving last weekend on the main stage at TEDxJohannesburg Countdown 2025 at the incredible NIROX Sculpture Park.

To say it was a surreal weekend is an understatement. My wife and I welcomed our son into the world just a few days prior. Running on adrenaline and the kind of profound clarity that only comes from a lack of sleep and holding a newborn, the event’s theme of a “greener, fairer, thriving future” became intensely personal. I couldn’t not give this talk.

I am endlessly grateful to Kelo Kubu, Thati Mokgoro, and the entire TEDxJohannesburg volunteer team for their vision and tireless work. It was a world-class event.

But of course, in true Web AddiCT fashion, I couldn’t just have an experience… I had to run an experiment.

My talk was about the “Injustice of Silence” and the design problem of getting a “signal” through the “noise.” So, I used the talk itself as the subject of a digital experiment.

The Experiment: Facebook Public Content vs. Google’s AI Overviews

We all know Google’s AI Overviews are changing search. They construct new answers by summarising the web. But how much do they “respect” or “see” content inside the walled garden of Facebook?

Here was my hypothesis: If I published the entire story of my talk publicly on my Facebook Page first, would it be indexed and prioritised by Google’s AI Mode quickly enough to influence the search results for my name?

On October 27th, I did just that. I published the post (you can see it here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17MPL5MDzk/) before publishing it on my own blog.

This blog post (which you’re reading now) is the second phase of that experiment. Publishing the content on a domain I own to compare how Google’s AI treats it versus the social media post.

The Result (As of November 2, 2025)

The experiment is already yielding fascinating results. This morning, I asked Google (in AI mode): “did Rafiq Phillips do a talk at TEDx Johannesburg Countdown 2025?”

This is what Google AI Mode had to say…

Yes, Rafiq Phillips gave a talk at TEDxJohannesburg Countdown 2025.

The event took place on October 24–25, 2025, and his talk was a short 3-minute presentation titled “The Injustice of Silence”.

The premise of his talk was that the biggest threat to world-changing ideas is not a lack of funding or criticism, but silence. He encouraged the audience to become “carriers for the ideas that matter” to ensure that powerful climate solutions and other important ideas reach the people who can act on them.

This is a clear win. The AI was able to see the content, parse the core thesis of the talk (“The Injustice of Silence”), and even pick up on the specific call to action (“carriers for the ideas that matter”).

My talk was about solving the design problem of getting ideas heard. This experiment is my way of living that question: in 2025, in a world of AI and walled gardens, what is the new design for making a signal resonate? It’s clear that even native social content is playing a key role.

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..

Every so often in business, a project comes along that isn’t just about the bottom line. It’s a project that makes you step back and remember why you started in the first place. It’s a chance to align your skills with your values and contribute to something genuinely impactful.

For my partners and me, that project is TEDxJohannesburg Countdown 2025.

As you know, I’ve been a fan of TED’s mission for years, the simple belief that sharing ideas can change the wwworld. So, after meeting iThateng Mokgoro at Ummah Tech last year and he also happened to be one of the Organisers of TEDxJohannesburg I thought our paths would cross again. Cross again it did, he shared the vision for this year’s Countdown event while I was travelling in Kenya. It was an immediate, “How can I help?” from me and after chatting to my business partners something happened. This turned into a call to action not simply a collaboration opportunity.

TEDx Johannesburg’s goal is to “connect the global urgency of the climate crisis with local lived experiences and solutions”. It’s a vision that recognises that the world’s path to a sustainable future runs through Africa. This isn’t about importing solutions; it’s about showcasing the powerful ideas and innovations already taking root here.

Our decision to partner was simple. We looked at what Kelo and her incredible team of volunteers were building, and we knew we had to be a part of it.

• For us at Naritive, it was a chance to use our storytelling and adtech platform to amplify ideas that deserve a global audience.
• Our friends at Lucky Hustle are pouring their creative and design genius into making the climate conversation resonate.
• The team at Network X OOH is turning the city itself into a canvas, using their digital billboards to spread the message across Gauteng.

Together, we’re a coalition of creative and tech partners, proud to stand behind the incredible experience the TEDxJohannesburg team has designed for later this month.

On 24 and 25 October, 750 attendees will embark on a journey that is so much more than a conference.

Day 1 (24 October) is designed for deep immersion. After an opening session at GIBS on the future of transport with the Gautrain, participants will break out into ten different activations across Sandton and the rest of the city. Unlike stuffy workshops; they are chances to see the new economy in action, from a tour of the waste-picker economy with Urban Surfer to a creative exhibition by Fine Acts. The day ends with a celebration of sound and light at the Wits Anglo American Digital Dome.

Day 2 (25 October) moves to the breathtaking NIROX Sculpture Park in the Cradle of Humankind. Here, 14 speakers will take the iconic TEDx stage to explore what it means to lead on a changing planet. The lineup is a testament to the team’s vision, featuring voices like:

• Crispian Olver, Deputy Chairperson of the Presidential Climate Commission.
• Nokulinda Mkhize, a Sangoma and writer bridging ancestral wisdom and climate futures.
• Sifiso Gumbi, the co-founder of Urban Surfer, who is reimagining waste as opportunity.

These talks will be interwoven with art, music and performance, creating a true festival of ideas set in nature.

We’re just one part of this puzzle. The real credit belongs to Kelo, Thati and the dedicated volunteers who are bringing this globally significant, unmistakably local event to life. We’re honoured to be able to contribute our skills to their vision. The countdown is on, and we can’t wait to see you there.

Tickets are on sale now. They’re selling fast. Be part of the ideas shaping tomorrow, today.

See you there

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..

Never Miss a Deal Again

In today’s fast-paced online shopping world, snagging a great deal often feels like a race against time. Prices fluctuate constantly, and keeping an eye on your desired item across multiple stores can be a full-time job. What if you could have a personal shopping assistant that silently tracks prices for you and alerts you the moment your dream item hits your target budget?

Enter Gemini, your new best friend for smart shopping!

While Gemini is a powerful conversational AI, it also has the ability to set up scheduled actions – and this includes price monitoring. No more endlessly refreshing product pages or missing out on flash sales. Let’s walk through how you can set up a price alert for an item you’re eyeing, using the popular Angelcare AC25 Baby Movement Monitor as our example.

Why Set Up a Price Alert?

• Save Money: Get notified the instant an item drops to your desired price.
• Save Time: No need to manually check multiple websites daily. Gemini does the heavy lifting.
• Avoid Impulse Buys: Stick to your budget by only buying when the price is right.
• Stay Informed: Even if the price doesn’t drop, you can still get updates on its current status.

Your Personal Price Tracker: Setting Up the Alert in Gemini

Setting up a price alert is surprisingly straightforward. You just need to tell Gemini what you’re looking for, at what price, and how often you’d like to be updated.

Step 1: The Initial Request

To begin, you’ll give Gemini the core instruction. Be clear about the product, the price threshold, and the region.

Your Prompt: Alert me when angelcare ac25 price drops below R4000 in South Africa at any online store

What Gemini Does: Gemini will confirm that it has scheduled a daily check. It typically defaults to once a day at a standard time (e.g., 9:00 AM). You’ll receive a confirmation message like:

Got it! I’ve scheduled a daily check at 9:00 AM to look for the Angelcare AC25 price in South Africa and will alert you if it drops below R4000 at any online store. Ask me to edit or delete your scheduled action at any time.

Step 2: Refining Your Alert (Frequency and Details)

Now, let’s say you want to be more vigilant. Perhaps you want updates twice a day, and you want to know the price even if it hasn’t dropped, just to stay informed.

Your Prompt: Alert me twice, daily. Also alert me when there are no changes to price

What Gemini Does: Gemini will update your existing scheduled action. It will adjust the frequency and the conditions for sending you a notification. You’ll get a confirmation similar to this:

Got it. I have updated your scheduled check.

I will now:

1. Check for the price of the Angelcare AC25 in South Africa twice daily at 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM (17:00).
2. Alert you with the current price in the online stores I find, even if the price has not dropped or has remained the same. If it is below R4000, I will emphasize that in the alert. Ask me to edit or delete your scheduled action at any time.

Step 3: What to Expect

From now on, at the specified times (in our example, 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM SAST), Gemini will perform a targeted search across various online retailers in South Africa.

• If the price drops below R4000: You’ll get an alert highlighting this fantastic news!
• If the price stays the same or is above R4000: You’ll still get an update on the current market price, so you’re always in the loop.

Tips for Effective Price Alerts:

• Be Specific: The more details you give about the product (model number, brand, specific features), the better Gemini can track it.
• Define Your Region: Always specify the country (e.g., “in South Africa”) to ensure relevant results.
• Consider “Any Online Store”: This broadens the search, increasing your chances of finding a deal.
• Review and Refine: If you’re not getting the alerts you expect, simply tell Gemini to “edit my price alert” and explain what changes you’d like.
• Deleting an Alert: If you’ve made your purchase or no longer need the alert, you can tell Gemini to “delete my price alert for [product name]”.

Conclusion

Leveraging Gemini for price alerts is a smart way to simplify your online shopping and ensure you never miss out on a good deal again. Give it a try for that gadget, appliance, or baby monitor you’ve been eyeing, and let Gemini do the price hunting for you!

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..

What a ride the last few months have been. It feels like just yesterday I was telling you all about Nat1ve Adtech and our crazy idea to change the game with Ad Stories. Well, things have been moving at lightning speed and I’m so stoked to share some massive news with you all.

First up, we’ve got a new name! We’ve officially rebranded from Nat1ve Adtech to Naritive Tech. Why the change? Because “Naritive” gets to the very heart of what we’re all about, changing the narrative. We’re not just serving ads; we’re helping brands around the world tell their stories in a way that actually connects with people. It’s about creating experiences, not just impressions. It just feels right.

But the good news doesn’t stop there. I’m incredibly humbled and proud to announce that we’ve won a Bronze Adtech Innovation award at the very first Mark Lives Awards. To get a nod like this from the industry is just mind-blasting. It’s a real credit to the incredible team I get to work with every day. We’re just a bunch of tech heads from Africa, building something we believe in, so to be recognised on a stage like this is another dream, started and written about here, come true.

On a personal level, I’ve also had the chance to put my thoughts out there on the future of SEO. I contributed to a couple of articles for Mark Lives Media, “AI vs SEO: How AI is upending everything you know about search” and “Discover AI search: A new SEO playbook for brands“. It’s a topic I’m hugely passionate about and I’m grateful to Charles Lee Matthews to share my two cents on where I see things going and where it come from.

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..

Let me ask you a few quick questions. By a show of hands, who here has used the internet to book a doctor’s appointment? To find the house you live in? To get a new phone or upgrade your contract? If your hand is up, there’s a very good chance you’ve interacted with my work in some form or another.

For years, I’ve operated at the intersection of technology and business and a question I repeatedly encounter is how we can bridge the seemingly disparate worlds of faith and technology. How can we, as professionals and entrepreneurs, navigate the complex, ever-shifting landscape of digital marketing while remaining true to our principles?

The answer lies in rethinking our approach. It’s about integrating timeless principles into our modern strategies to achieve results that are not only effective but also ethical and fulfilling. I’ve distilled this approach into a simple framework, guided by Islamic principles, that can serve as a blueprint for success in our digital endeavours.

The Power of Focus and Aligned Intentions (Niyyah)

In any business activity, especially in digital marketing, our efforts must be guided by a clear and focused intention, or niyyah. Without a defined goal that aligns with our core values, we risk getting lost in the noise.

I’ve personally experienced the friction of working with partners whose ethics and goals were not aligned with my own. The work was great on the surface, but a deep sense of unease prevailed. It felt like the very principles I held dear were being contradicted in my professional life. This experience taught me a valuable lesson: if your work isn’t aligned with your overarching purpose, what’s the use of doing it?

By aligning our personal principles with our professional goals, we bring a powerful sense of focus to our digital marketing. This clarity of purpose is the foundation upon which all successful and ethical campaigns are built.

Navigating a Shifting Landscape with Timeless Blueprints

We are fortunate to have the Qur’an and Sunnah as our ultimate guides, a blueprint for how to live our lives. In digital marketing, however, the goalposts are constantly moving. Google, Meta, and the rise of AI are forever changing the rules of the game. So, how do we apply a timeless blueprint to a world of constant change?

The key is to “read the manual” and adhere to best practices. Consider this: back in 2011, Google, in collaboration with Bing and Yahoo, introduced schema.org – a form of structured data. At the time, most marketers used it for simple things like star ratings on products. But those who dug deeper, who “read the manual,” discovered that this structured data could represent almost anything in the physical and digital world.

Fast forward to the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know how to get their business to appear in AI-powered answers. The solution? The very same structured data that was introduced over a decade earlier. By following best practices and implementing schema.org, a small law firm I worked with became a top result on Google, ChatGPT, and other AI assistants for a key service they offer, all because they laid the right foundation years ago.

The Compounding Power of Consistency (Sabr)

Digital marketing success is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires patience, or sabr, and a relentless commitment to consistency. You can’t just run a few ads and expect to go viral. True growth comes from consistently publishing valuable content, sharing information, and engaging with your audience.

A fantastic example of this is the Gentleman’s Clinic, a men’s health company founded by Muslim doctors. Despite their demanding schedules, they committed to a consistent digital marketing strategy. The results within one year were astounding:

• 100% increase in organic traffic from their video content.
• 67% increase in direct traffic, reflecting their growing brand recognition.
• 106% increase in organic search traffic due to implementing SEO best practices.

But what does this all mean in business terms? It translated to a 266% growth in appointment bookings and sales. That is the power of consistent, focused effort over time.

Adaptability: Thriving in a Dynamic Digital World

In a world of constant change, we must be adaptable. One of the biggest challenges in digital marketing is staying ahead of your competitors. A simple yet powerful technique is to set up Google Alerts for your brand, products, services, and even your competitors. This allows you to monitor the competitive landscape in real-time and adapt your strategy accordingly.

Furthermore, leveraging platforms like WhatsApp to connect with like-minded individuals can be a game-changer. Creating a community where you can share insights, discuss challenges, and collaborate on solutions is an invaluable asset in today’s interconnected world.

The Power of Conversation and Community (Shura)

Finally, our principles guide us not to work in isolation, but to engage in community and consultation. The concept of Shura, or mutual consultation, is a cornerstone of Islamic governance and community life. The Qur’an states that the affairs of believers are “a matter of consultation among themselves” (42:38).

In the fast-paced world of technology and business, this principle is more relevant than ever. No single person has all the answers. True innovation and progress come from conversation, collaboration, and the collective wisdom of the community.

This is exactly why I’m thrilled that the annual Ummah Tech conference is happening in Cape Town on 8 November 2025. It’s an invaluable opportunity to Connect, Collaborate, and Create with innovators, entrepreneurs, and change-makers from across the community. While family commitments mean I unfortunately won’t be able to attend this year, I strongly encourage all of you to be there. Mark your calendars and keep an eye out for early-bird tickets. This is our chance to engage in this vital process of consultation and collectively shape the future of our industry.

A New Path Forward

By integrating focus, adherence to best practices, consistency, adaptability, and the vital practice of conversation, we can create digital marketing strategies that are not only successful but also aligned with our deepest values. This is how we bridge the gap between faith and technology, creating a powerful synergy that drives both business growth and personal fulfillment.

Let’s continue this conversation, online and in person. For those attending Ummah Tech in Cape Town, I hope you’ll carry this spirit of collaboration forward and make it an event to remember.

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From Data Chaos to Business Opportunity: How AI is Finally Fixing the Tender Procurement Problem

The state of digital tender procurement in South Africa feels like a relic from a bygone era before we had mobile phones. We’ve moved from dial-up to fibre, from static HTML to dynamic AI-driven experiences, yet the process of finding business-critical tenders remains fundamentally broken. It’s a frustrating ecosystem of fragmented data, clunky user interfaces, and immense wasted effort.

The core problem isn’t a lack of opportunities; it’s a systemic failure in information architecture. Businesses are forced to manually navigate disparate, poorly designed portals, attempting to extract signal from noise. In the age of intelligent systems, this is not just inefficient; it’s an unacceptable barrier to economic participation. The system needed a fundamental rethink.

Have you met AI Tenders?

This is why I’m particularly interested in the launch of AITenders.co.za. This isn’t just another aggregator. It’s a pragmatic application of Artificial Intelligence designed to solve the problem at its root. By deploying AI to parse, clean, and categorise tender data, AITenders moves beyond simple keyword matching and delivers what businesses actually need: relevance, speed and clarity.

Using AI to find Tenders in South Africa, practically.

Consider a tangible use case. A company like office supply company, which specialises in tender fulfilment for products like office paper, faces a constant challenge: identifying every relevant tender for “paper” across countless municipal and provincial sites.

1. The Old Way: Manually searching dozens of sites daily, downloading PDFs, and reading through pages of irrelevant specifications, hoping to find a match. The opportunity cost is staggering.
2. The AITenders Way: A single, targeted search for “paper” on the platform returns a clean, actionable list of qualified opportunities. The AI has already filtered out the noise.

With this streamlined intelligence, a supplier can now immediately pivot from low-value searching to high-value action: preparing a competitive bid. This is the tangible ROI of applied AI by converting wasted hours into strategic advantage. The office supply company can then get paper tender assistance simply and focus on delivering their contract commitments.

What makes this launch particularly significant is its origin. AITenders was founded by Jason Adriaan of Tactical Software, a fellow South African innovator. This isn’t a solution imported from Silicon Valley; it’s a direct response to a uniquely South African business challenge, built by those who understand the landscape. It’s a powerful demonstration of local talent leveraging advanced technology to create real economic opportunity and drive efficiency.

AITenders is a forward-thinking step towards a more intelligent and accessible procurement future. I’m keen to see how it evolves.

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Ever wondered where the seemingly magical answers from Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Meta AI originate? It’s not quite magic, but it is a fascinating journey through the vast landscape of the internet, guided by a language we rarely see: Schema.org

Schema.org: The Unsung Hero of AI

Think of Schema.org as a hidden layer of the web, a kind of “invisible ink” that helps machines understand the meaning behind the words and data they encounter. It’s a collaborative vocabulary of tags (called “schemas”) that webmasters can add to their HTML to provide context to search engines and AI.

Interestingly, Schema.org was first announced to the SEO wwworld at SMX Advanced back in 2011, as a joint effort by Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to create a more structured and meaningful web. Little did most people know then how crucial it would become for the rise of AI!

How AI Uses Schema

AI language models like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Meta AI are trained on massive datasets of text and code. Schema.org helps these models:

• Understand Context: By identifying the relationships between different pieces of information, AI can provide more accurate and relevant answers.
• Extract Key Facts: Schemas help AI pinpoint important details like names, dates, locations, and product information.
• Connect the Dots: AI can use schema to understand how different concepts are linked, allowing for more comprehensive and nuanced responses.

Schema and SEO: A Powerful Duo

While schema was initially introduced to improve search engine understanding, it also plays a crucial role in how AI generates answers. Here are some key schemas that benefit both SEO and AI:

• Article: Provides context for news articles, blog posts, and other written content. Useful for AI to understand the main topic, author, and publication date.
• Product: Provides detailed information about products, including name, price, availability, and reviews. This helps AI answer questions about products and provide relevant recommendations.
• FAQPage: Structures frequently asked questions and their answers. Allows AI to easily identify and provide answers to common queries.
• HowTo: Provides step-by-step instructions for completing a task. Enables AI to understand and explain processes, potentially even demonstrating them.
• Event: Provides details about events, including date, time, location, and speakers. Helps AI answer questions about events and provide relevant information to users.

Beyond the Basics

The beauty of Schema.org is its extensibility. There are schemas for almost anything you can imagine, from recipes and movies to medical conditions and scientific research. As AI continues to evolve, the use of schema will become even more critical in shaping how machines understand and interact with the world around us.

So, the next time you marvel at the insightful response from your favorite AI assistant, remember the whispers of Schema.org guiding its understanding. It’s a testament to the power of structured data and the interconnectedness of the web.

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In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, staying informed is crucial. How can you keep track of what people are saying about your brand, your competitors, and your industry? Enter Google Alerts – a free and powerful tool that delivers relevant information straight to your inbox.

Setting Up Google Alerts for Brand Monitoring

• Go to Google Alerts: https://www.google.co.za/alerts
• Create an Alert: In the “Create an alert about…” box, enter your brand name.
  • Pro Tip: Use quotation marks around your brand name (“[Your Brand Name]”) to ensure you only receive alerts for exact matches.
• Refine Your Alert:
  • Sources: Choose where you want to monitor (news, blogs, web, video, books, discussions, etc.).
  • Language: Select your preferred language(s).
  • Region: Specify the region you’re interested in (eg: Southg Africa).
• How Many: Choose how many results you want to receive (all results or only the best results).
• Deliver to: Enter your email address.
• Click “Create Alert”

Monitoring Your Products and Services

• Create separate alerts for each of your key products or services.
• Use relevant keywords that people might use when searching for those offerings.
• For example, if you sell “handmade soaps,” create alerts for “handmade soap,” “natural soap,” “organic soap,” etc.

Keeping an Eye on the Competition

• Set up alerts for your competitors’ brand names.
• Monitor keywords related to their products, services, and industry.
• This allows you to stay informed about their activities, marketing campaigns, and any news or mentions they receive.

Benefits of Google Alerts for Digital Marketing

• Brand Monitoring: Track brand mentions, reviews, and news coverage to understand public perception and manage your online reputation.
• Competitor Analysis: Stay informed about your competitors’ activities, identify opportunities, and adapt your strategies accordingly.
• Content Ideas: Discover trending topics and conversations in your industry to generate fresh content ideas.
• Link Building Opportunities: Identify websites and blogs mentioning your brand or industry, which could be potential link-building opportunities.
• Crisis Management: Receive timely alerts about any negative press or online criticism, allowing you to respond quickly and mitigate potential damage.
• Stay Updated: Keep abreast of industry news, trends, and emerging technologies.

Google Alerts is a simple yet powerful tool that can significantly enhance your digital marketing efforts. By setting up targeted alerts, you can stay informed, proactive, and ahead of the curve.

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As Your Web AddiCT I’ve seen, and shared with you over here and over on X, firsthand the challenges we all face in today’s saturated digital space. Standing out and making a real impact requires more than just another bright shiny thing. I’ve therefore embarked on a new journey as CTO of Nat1ve AdTech and created Ad Stories.

Ad Stories are unlike any other ad format you’ve encountered. They’re not just ads; they’re experiences. We’ve taken the classic elements of display advertising and mashed them up them with what you love about social media. Polls, quizzes, swipe-to-reveal elements—these aren’t just gimmicks, they’re tools that keep you engaged and make your message memorable.

I firmly believe that Ad Stories represent the future of programmatic advertising. Designed to be more engaging, informative, and effective than traditional display ads. And the early results are more than promising. Our global clients are already witnessing the power of Ad Stories® firsthand. Their campaigns are achieving industry-leading results, even questioning their own reporting data.

The beauty of Ad Stories is that it transform passive viewers into active participants. They give you a reason to interact with idea, and that engagement translates into increased awareness, better recall, and ultimately, improved performance. Some of the test I’ve been running have a direct impact on SEO too, yes of course I’d build that in.

But we’re not stopping there. We’re constantly refining and enhancing Ad Stories and nbuilding new tech with my team at Natv1 to ensure we continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in digital advertising and beyond. As we expand our reach, we’re excited to see how brands around the world are leveraging this platform to create campaigns that truly connect with their audiences.

If you’re looking for a way to take your digital advertising to the next level, I encourage you to explore Ad Stories. It’s not just a new ad format; it’s a new way of thinking about how to reach and engage your audience.

Update: Disrupt Africa wrote an article about us, Nat1ve launches “revolutionary” ad-tech platform, immediately expands overseas.

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Ever thought about the similarities between the world of SEO and the universe of StarCraft? As a seasoned SEO and a once dedicated StarCraft player (until search sucked me in), I see strong parallels between commanding a Protoss army and leading an SEO strategy.

1. Strategy Planning: Just like planning your strategy in StarCraft, based on your adversary, map, and chosen race, SEO requires careful planning. You need to consider your industry, opposition, and target market to develop a top-drawer SEO strategy.
2. Resource Management: In StarCraft, managing your minerals and vespene gas is crucial. Similarly, SEO requires managing resources effectively, whether it’s your budget, time, or content creation efforts.
3. Scouting: Scouting in StarCraft gives you insights into what your opposition is up to. In SEO, research gives you insights into the competitive landscape, keyword opportunities, and the latest search engine algorithm changes.
4. Tech Tree Progress: As you progress through the tech tree in StarCraft, you unlock new units and abilities. Similarly, as you grow in SEO, you unlock new skills and strategies. It’s a continuous learning journey!
5. Adaptability: StarCraft requires quick thinking and adaptability, especially when an enemy rush is at your doorstep. SEO also requires adaptability when search engine algorithms change or when new trends pop up.
6. Multi-Tasking: StarCraft is a game of multi-tasking, balancing offense, defense, and resource gathering. SEO also requires multi-tasking. It’s a mix of technical skills, content creation, and marketing efforts.

Now, let’s have a look at some SEO tactics that are inspired by StarCraft:

Use a scouting tool to identify your competition:

Just like in StarCraft, it’s important to know who your competition is and what they’re doing. A lekker SEO scouting tool can help you identify your competition’s keywords, backlinks, and other SEO metrics.

Build a strong tech tree:

In StarCraft, a strong tech tree gives you access to powerful units and abilities. In SEO, a strong tech tree gives you access to powerful SEO tools and techniques. Make sure you’re always up-to-date on the latest SEO trends and best practices.

Be adaptable:

The world of SEO is constantly changing, so it’s important to be adaptable. Be prepared to change your SEO strategy as needed to keep up with the latest trends and algorithm changes.

Multi-task effectively:

SEO is a multi-faceted discipline that requires a variety of skills. Be able to effectively balance your time and resources between technical SEO, content creation, and marketing efforts.

The Ever-Evolving StarCraft Called SEO

SEO, like StarCraft, is a dynamic and evolving game with a vast community. Here, your quests are the SEO goals – optimizing a webpage, improving site speed, or enhancing user experience. Your skill levels are your SEO knowledge and expertise, which you level up by staying updated with the latest trends and best practices.

The SEO community resembles the vibrant player communities in games like StarCraft, where sharing of insights, strategies, and experience is common. Just like how a guild in an game collaborates to conquer a challenge, SEO professionals collaborate, sharing knowledge and insights to improve their strategies. Come check out SMX Advanced 2023 to see what he community is like for yourself and level up your skills.

Why SEO Is My Favourite Game

The reason I’ve come to see SEO as my favourite game is because of its real-world impact. While leading a Protoss army to victory or successfully completing an epic quest brings a sense of achievement, the victories in SEO translate into tangible results – increased traffic, higher conversion rates, and improved business performance. The stakes are real, and so are the rewards.

SEO is a game that never ends. There’s always a new update to adapt to, a new competitor to outmanoeuvre, or a new strategy to test. This constant evolution makes SEO a deeply challenging and engaging game to play.

So, to my fellow SEO professionals and gamers, let’s continue to strategise, adapt, and level up in this grand game we call SEO.

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Estate administration can be a daunting and complex process, especially when dealing with the loss of a loved one. Traditional methods often involve piles of paperwork, numerous visits to different offices, and a prolonged period of uncertainty. However, the digital era has ushered in significant changes, and companies like Siyatec are leading the way, transforming the way we handle deceased estate administration.

Siyatec leverages technology to streamline and simplify the process of winding up a deceased’s estate. They offer a convenient, online approach to estate administration that reduces the need for physical meetings and paperwork. This adoption of technology has several distinct benefits:

Ease of Access and Convenience:

The first and most apparent advantage is the convenience factor. With Siyatec’s online consultation and communication via email or Whatsapp, individuals can access services from anywhere and at any time. There’s no need to schedule appointments or travel to offices. This flexibility is particularly beneficial during these uncertain times when physical distancing is crucial.

Faster Processing Time:

Digitizing the process means that tasks can be completed more quickly. There’s no need to wait for paper documents to be mailed or delivered. Documents can be uploaded, shared, and processed digitally, significantly reducing the processing time.

Transparent and Streamlined Process:

Digital platforms provide an organised, step-by-step approach, guiding users through each stage of the process. This transparency helps individuals understand what’s happening at every step, alleviating stress and providing peace of mind.

Reduced Error and Greater Accuracy:

Digital solutions minimise the risk of human error associated with manual processes. They ensure that all necessary forms are completed accurately and that all required documents are uploaded, reducing the chance of delays due to inaccuracies or incomplete paperwork.

Cost-Effective:

Online services typically prove to be more cost-effective, as they eliminate the need for physical resources and transportation. Siyatec, in particular, operates on a transparent flat rate fee structure not based on the estate’s value but rather if you need a Letter of Executorship or Letter of Authority. The fees include a range of services like taking instructions, furnishing advice, preparing and finalising reporting documents, and attending to Master’s queries. Importantly, Siyatec’s flat rate fee does not cover costs like conveyancing transfer fees of property, accountant fees, dispute resolution and litigation fees, debts of the deceased person, Master’s Fee, and tax liabilities of the deceased person.

Technology is revolutionising estate administration. Companies like Siyatec are at the forefront of this change, offering digital solutions that transform a traditionally complicated and time-consuming process into a streamlined, user-friendly experience. By embracing these digital tools, we can navigate the complexities of deceased estate administration with greater ease and efficiency, allowing us more time and energy to focus on what truly matters during these challenging times – honouring our loved ones and supporting each other.

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If like most of us you had to work and couldn’t make the 24 hour window this presentation was available for free at the PayFast Ecommerce Summit 2022. Have no fear, Your WebAddiCT is here with the plug. Below the SEO for Ecommerce video below you’ll find links to the tools I’ve mentioned. There is a bonus at the end for a free tool to assist with your site’s basic SEO, rank tracking and competitor analysis.

The 5 must Have SEO Tactics for Every Online Store owner.

Episode 4: Google Shoppping Diversification – A New Hope

• Google Shopping Feed specification
• Facebook, Instagram Shops

Episode 5: Fundamentals Strike Back

• The W3C Validation Markup Service

Episode 6: Vocabulary of the Jedi

• Google Trends
• Google Search Console

Episode 1: Structured Data – The Schema.org Menace

• Test Your Structured Data

Episode 2: Page Speed of the Clones

• Page Speed Insights

Episode 3: Did anyone actually enjoy Star Wars Episode 3?

Episode 7: Everywhere Optimisation Awakens

• Google Assistant

Here is the 5 SEO for E-commerce Tactics Presentation for your viewing:

Imagine being able to reverse engineer your competitors’ SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing strategy? Imagine no more. Ubersuggest allows you to get insight into the strategies that are working for others in your market so you can adopt them, improve them, and gain an edge. Now you can find me on Mastodon.

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I am excited to announce that I’ll be speaking about The 5 Must Have SEO Tactics for Every Online Seller at SA’s biggest eCommerce Event as one of the guest presenters for The PayFast eCommerce Virtual Summit!

Have you claimed your free ticket yet?

If not, register now absolutely free!  

It’s happening 100% online from May 26th to May 29th and here’s everything that’s included:

• 4 value-packed days of SA’s BEST eCommerce training
• Teachings from Worldwide Experts, Thought Leaders and Innovators
• Access to over 30+ Leading Industry Presentations
• Access to more than 25+ topics applicable to all stages of the eCommerce journey
• A chance to win R20,000 worth of lucky draw prize giveaways

So if you’re interested in achieving MORE success through selling online then you won’t want to miss this!

Tap into some of the MOST exclusive knowledge, strategies, tips and processes to build a profitable eCommerce store and grow your online business in 2022.

Click the image below to claim your free ticket now!

Some Search Engine Optimisation tips I’ll be sharing at the PayFast Ecommerce Summit 2022

• How Google Shopping can be used to diversify your traffic sources,
• The SEO fundamentals that you should be looking out for to achieve high search rankings,
• The importance of using “customer language” in all of your online content,
• The use of structured data to rank favourably in Google,
• 5 tips to improve the page speed on your website,
• And a bonus tactic on why you should use voice search to grow your business moving forward.

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Businesses everywhere, no matter how competitive their industry is, agree on one thing; a business should have some kind of social media presence. This is because a vast majority of people (who happen to be the target audience) access their information and entertainment through social media. The power of social media is evident every day. When selling a product or marketing a business, social media may be your next best thing. But, how do you tap into this world? In this piece, we will explore how social media marketing can help businesses grow and flourish and how to kickstart social media marketing. What’s more, we’ll explore tools needed to familiarise yourself with this new career and business opportunity to better your product or service delivery. 

What’s With The Socials? 

Even before the pandemic dawned a new normal on us, social media was already playing an important part in people’s lives. From connecting them with loved ones from far to affording customers a faster and convenient way to communicate with the brands and businesses, social media has been the perfect way to get the message across. Now with the digital revolution, it has been recorded that the number of social media users went from 3.4 billion in 2019 to 3.78 billion in 2021, just two years since the introduction of the new normal and the great digital shift in most corporations. So it is clear that a social media marketing course may be the thing you need to brush up on your customer service and delivery skills. 

Is There A How To? 

Social media marketing is exciting in that it explores a career in what many people, more so youth, enjoy the most. As opposed to presenting itself as a new tool to remove the youth from their current digital obsession, this career allows most people to make a living while creating, curating and distributing content for their products and services. A well-rounded brand that utilises all the features each social media app offers tends to do better than a brand that focuses on just one aspect of its marketing. A pro-tip for social media marketing is to assess when users are most active on which app in order for you to know when and how to deliver your business or brand’s advertising. All these and more skills and education on social media marketing can be obtained through a social media marketing course that you can invest in if you are on the path to a career in the field. And much like most, if not all careers, there is mentorship available for you. The nice thing about social media marketing mentorship is that it can also happen online, which gives you an opportunity to receive tips and tricks from anyone anywhere. 

Tools To Stand Out Above The Rest 

As mentioned and evident, the social media world is pretty competitive and demanding. This means you need to equip yourself with the right tools for your product, service or business to stand out. These tools will help you analyse what works and what doesn’t, check which posts are getting traffic, schedule when to post, and so much more. Most tools are free and may require a paid subscription if you need to unlock other advanced options. Here are some analytics and scheduling tools to familiarise yourself with: 

• Google Analytics: a free web analytics tool that tracks traffic on your website and compiles its findings into reports. Google also offers free training videos on how to use the program.
• Mixpanel: a web analytics tool similar to Google Analytics. The company offers a free plan, a monthly plan starting at about R254,59 and a personalised plan with varying rates.
• Hootsuite: a social media and web analytics tool with pricing plans. Hootsuite can be good for beginners and those who manage multiple platforms.  
• TweetDeck is a browser-based program that allows users to tweet from and manage multiple Twitter accounts in one place. It is free and only for Twitter. Its management abilities can be advantageous for beginners.

If you’re familiar with these platforms and tools, your social media marketing stands a better chance of standing out. 

A social media marketing upskill is not just great for your business, but you individually too. You can use your newly acquired skills to help other businesses with their social media presence and community management on a freelance basis while also helping your own business. So, consider this the same as taking up a new (insert your favourite social media platform) challenge, and watch yourself give brands and businesses the boost they need and deserve.

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Chatbots are the future IMHO. So much so that I’m building one with the jfGi Bitcoin service.

Lite.IM have recently introduced a Bitcoin Wallet for Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram instant messengers. If you’re on your mobile and have Whatsapp installed and don’t want to read anymore simply click here to try it out. Telegram chatbot BTC Wallet here and Bitcoin Wallet for Facebook Messenger chatbot here.

This is a really nifty addition to the numerous ways you can send and receive Bitcoin. Here are some things you can do with the new Bitcoin Wallet for Whatsapp:

0: Send
1: Receive
2: Transactions
3: Export Wallet
4: Settings

As it uses the encrypted security built into WhatsApp messages are secured from end to end. Yes, you can setup a jfGi link with the wallet address in the Lite.IM chatbot BTC wallet.

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With the most improtant month in the Islamic calendar coming up Muslim Central has introduced their new Progressive Web App, Alif Central which assists you in learning to read and recite Arabic.

Would you like to learn to recite the Qur’an?
Do you struggle with pronouncing arabic letters?
Do you want your children to learn to read the Qur’an from a young age?
Are you a revert to Islam and don’t know where to begin learning to recite?

Alif Central is aimed at anyone wanting to be able to read the Qur’an

Using relatively new technology, Progressive Web App, Alif Central is a Website and an App in one.

It also works on large screens such as Televisions , so the entire family can learn together.

Key Features
Access from Desktops, Tablets, Mobile Phones & Televisions
Recordings done by a qualified Reciter of Qur’an
Kid Friendly Features
Content based on one of the most popular book used to learn Qur’an Recitation

The Alif Central Progressive Web App is absolutely free with no advertisements. Installing Alif Central does not require you downloading anything from the App stores. Simply head on over to alifcentral.com, once the site loads click ‘Add to home screen‘ and you’ll be on your way to learning to read and recite Arabic just in time for Ramadan.

Project
This App is FREE without any advertisements and aimed to assist those wanting to be able to read the Quran in Arabic. Learners, must however learn from a reputable teacher to ensure proper pronunciation. Content matches that of the Noorani Qaida book as it is the most popular.

Recordings were done in studio by a qualified (Qari)i.e. with ijazah (“license”) to teach and recite Quran. Those with ijazah have a chain linking back to the Prophet Muhammad (SAW).

Users that may benefit may include but not limtied to:

• Children/Youth
• Reverts
• People living in Remote/Rural Areas who have limited access to teachers
• Anyone wanting to learn to read the Qur’an

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I’ve posted about the awesome financial app 22seven many times before and today they’ve announced the ability to track your Bitcoin and other Crypto assets with the app. Will Old Mutual’s 22seven be the first Bitcoin Bank in South Africa? This sure makes me think that.

This email greeted me when I open my inbox:

22seven now lets you link over 1800 crypto coins for price tracking.

We have all the fan favourites like BitCoin, BitCoin Cash, Litecoin and Ethereum. And use CoinMarketCap prices and Open Exchange Rates to estimate what your coins are worth in Rand. We’ll track these prices over time as part of your regular account updates. But you can get price updates as often as every 15 minutes if you like.

This feature is currently available on our Android and iOS apps. Web coming in the near future!

22seven lets you add over 1800 crypto coins for price tracking. We have all the fan favourites like BitCoin, BitCoin Cash, Litecoin and Ethereum. And use CoinMarketCap prices and Open Exchange Rates to estimate what your coins are worth in Rand.

We’ll track these prices over time as part of your regular account updates. But you can get price updates as often as every 15 minutes if you like.

How To add your crypto coins to 22seven:

1. Log into 22seven and visit the Accounts tab
2. Tap on the + button and choose “Add manual account”
3. Select “Account Type” and choose “Cryptocurrency” from the list, then tap on the back button
4. You’ll now see an option to “+ Add a coin.” Choose as many as you want and tap on “DONE”.
5. Enter the number of coins you have under each coin name and tap “Next”
6. Choose an icon to represent your account and tap on “Next”
7. If you’re happy with your account details, tap on the “Confirm” button to create your account.

PS: Have you met jfGi?

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..

Beyond RankBrain and Position0, few people have a good grasp as to how the Knowledge Graph is weaved into Google’s algorithms. Google are playing their cards unusually close to their chest about that because the Knowledge Graph holds the key to all three pillars of AEO (Relevancy, Understanding and Credibility) – so it is the one topic where Google cannot afford to give too much away. Understandable. But very frustrating for marketers! In this episode, we have three experts who can give reasoned and credible insights into how the Knowledge Graph is weaved into the search algorithm… So not just incredible insights into the role the Knowledge Graph plays in Google’s algorithms, but also great tips into the steps we can take to integrate the Knowledge Graph into all three pillars of our AEO strategy.

This idea by Rafiq Phillips was first shared on Web AddiCT 🇿🇦 - Just for today. You're one too..