It’s December already – and yes, it’s crazy how fast the year has gone by. A fun thing to do at this time of the year is to look at the most popular searches on the web. And we can thank Yahoo for once again collating the data. It’s the 11th year Yahoo has been crunching the numbers and this year, they’ve created 50 Top 10 Lists on a range of interesting categories. I’d like to draw your attention to a few of them. Let’s start with the Top Searches Overall on Yahoo in 2012 Election Iphone 5 Kim Kardashian Read More

We’re all in the business of influencing other people. Whether it’s getting your children to eat their vegetables, or encouraging someone to buy your product, every day we’re trying to get people to do what we want. Listening to a podcast of ‘Freakonomics’, I heard a fascinating way to influence behavior. The story began with the fact that if Americans had to find $2,000 over 30 days for an emergency, most would find it difficult to do. Why? Because they are terrible at saving money. At the same time, they spend a fortune on lottery tickets. Half of people surveyed Read More

You know you’ve made it when MC Hammer wants to share the stage with you at the American Music Awards. And share he did with Korean YouTube sensation, PSY – they went Gangnam-style in front of an appreciative audience. Not sure what I’m talking about? In July this year, Korean artist, PSY, released a song that went viral on YouTube called ‘Gangnam Style’. He’s been traveling the globe ever since performing the catchy song with equally catchy horsey dance. Except for lyric ‘Hey, sexy lady’, the song is in Korean and is apparently a parody of newly rich Koreans aspiring Read More

When thinking about the bottom line, we generally look at process. But this week, here’s a different approach: work on happiness. “Achieving happiness requires nothing more than practicing a few simple disciplines each and every day,” believes Dr Tim Sharp. And he should know – he’s from the Happiness Institute. Happy people see the bright side of life, view the glass as half-full and tend to be magnets for other happy people. Happiness builds resilience, optimism and a better quality of life. While you won’t feel happy all the time, you can feel happy much of the time. Being grateful, Read More

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should play an important part in your website’s local and international search campaigns, but it can take time to see results. By using Bing and Google’s PPC programs, companies can build brand awareness abroad and reach foreign customers more quickly. Here are a few tips to build your international profile. 1. Choose your market & think beyond Google By running a few analytics reports, you should be able to determine areas across the globe where you can target potential customers via PPC campaigns. Based on your findings, take a closer look at each area and identify Read More

Today, I attended a conference called ‘Mind and Its Potential’ which gathers leading researchers in brain science and cognition from eastern and western traditions. It was a fascinating day. I listened to V.S. Ramachandran, Professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, discuss mirror neurons and Buddhist nun, Venerable Yeshe Khadro, talk about attitudes to death and dying. There was an Olympic Gold medal winning volley-baller talking about how self-belief is the core of success with elite athletes (along with loads of training). And a young man talked about his determination to recover Read More

If you’re in the internet marketing space, you’ll instantly know what I mean: the game is getting harder. We’ve gone from the days of adding the right keywords to the top of your page to a landscape where you have to DO something to capture the interest of your audience. This is no small task, especially when everyone I know has 4 devices on their desk and 12 open tabs on their browser. Don’t believe me? What can you remember from your last month on the internet? What stood out? Here’s what I remember or found compelling enough to share: Read More

When managing large WordPress websites that contain thousands of posts, pages, categories, comments, and hundreds of authors, there are times when you need to make extensive changes. For instance, you might need to convert all the posts under a certain category into pages, or remove all the comments marked as spam. Rather than spend hours, you can run a few database queries. WordPress saves almost everything into a database (generally MySql). But be careful. ALWAYS do a backup before executing SQL queries into your database. This will prevent headaches – trust me. It takes a few minutes, and it will Read More

Maintaining a top performing website takes organization, especially if many people are involved. At Dinkum, we complete weekly reports of client websites to make sure we’re on top of, and delivering, optimum sites. Everyone can see where a site is at, and how to make it better. I’m in charge of compiling these weekly reports and believe they’re a great tool to improve websites. Here are my 5 key elements of a website report:- 1. Highlight tasks to be completed We report on any activities that have not been resolved and outline who is responsible for the work. Think of Read More

Imagine you’re planning a holiday. You’ve picked the destination and booked the flight, but haven’t decided on the accommodation. How do you work out where to stay? You might ask friends or go for the well-known options. But most likely, you’ll head online to see what others say. And it’s likely you’ll be swayed by comments from people who have visited your destination and shared their experience. But can you trust these recommendations? Reviews of hotels, books, films, and restaurants increasingly drive consumer decisions. But research suggests up to a third of user reviews are fake – written by stooges, Read More