The debut show at Cape Town Fashion Week 2012 this year from Danielle Vermaas for her line called Danielle Margaux, proves that first impressions count for a lot and that details can be read between the lines. Fine tailored lines at that. The new ‘queen of subtle’ is how this supremely elegant fashion designer will no doubt be described in her burgeoning career as what promises to be a long and prosperous fashion fixture on the national and international scene.

Some words that spring to mind as her garments are showcased this year are ’staple’, ‘fresh’, ‘elegant’ and ‘quality’. If the recession of recent years has done anything, it has taught us that quality of product and final finishes are what matters when looking for the real value. Danielle Vermaas forgoes the tat and instead devotes her attention to creating clothing that focuses on exquisite tailoring.

Danielle Vermaas designer as Danielle Margaux

Her collection is compiled of thoughtful patterns that beg the onlooker to find fault in the drape and cut of each ensemble. Danielle Vermaas goes for challenging materials like silk and satin that requires a strategic approach to get the most from their natural attributes and uncover the shimmering qualities they bring to life. Her use of colour contrast serves to enhance the delicate nature of her collection by adding fresh springy yellows and cool blues to her palette of neutral stone and off white tones.

One of her most noteworthy talents is proved with this debut collection and that is one of the intrinsic concepts behind creating clothes; fitting the contours of a natural form and complimenting realistic shapes. Far too often in high fashion, a sample size body is all that is catered to which allows for shoddy workmanship in pattern making as typically, all complicated body shapes are exempt from the runway. Danielle Vermaas rises to the occasion by bringing true talent to the quality of her designs through excellent tailoring techniques that both flatter and accentuate a variety of body types.

Particularly eye catching on the runway during her show was the regal pairing of a full floor length skirt in butter yellow that pleated with perfect precision into a high waistband and topped off with a crisp white shirt. The effeminate class of the voluminous skirt combined with the classic cut of an impeccable shirt design announces only the most impeccable taste.

Her work is flawless, refined yet decadent in the devotion to fine craftsmanship and interesting contrasts. Danielle Vermaas takes her time with pattern construction and production and the two year wait for this designer debutant was well worth it. Already with views to take her work to an international level of export, the fresh quality of Danielle Vermaas’s designs can be expected to compete well as a convincing contender in the stakes of world class fashion.

About the author:

Eliza Day is an aesthete and free lance writer with a penchant for beauty and free artistic creation. For more information email: lmgcaroline@gmail.com

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Two of the shows I wouldn’t mind seeing include Watershed and Johnny Clegg.

Friday 26 March 2010 Watershed will be taking the stage at 21:45, they will also be at Lourensford Wine Estate on the 28 March 2010.

Johnny Clegg will be performing at 19:10 27 March 2010 in the Sirustent at the Lagoon Festival.  I really enjoy his music, it so innovative and gives me a warm patriotic feeling inside.

They offer a Sporting Program as well where visitors can enjoy Bowling, Hobie Cat Speed Challenge, 5 and 10km Fun runs, SA kitesurfing, Surfski Challenge and a whole lot more. Langebaan is a dream for watersport lovers like myself.

This is just a teeny peek into the program there is also lots to keep the kids busy, beer tents and rock music for the party animals and a few “langarm nommertjies” for the older generation.

If you’re looking for accommodation for the weekend, try The Farmhouse Hotel, which is the only hotel in Langebaan and they are synonymous with West Coast hospitality and friendliness.  You should also have a look at West Coast Villas if you’re looking into getting something more self-catering as they have lovely apartments, studios and villas in great locations.

See you on the party-side!

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Riaan Nolan and myself doing the Worlds Highest Bridge Jump at Gouritz in the Garden Route, South Africa.

Bloukrans Bungy.  The highest in the World. 216 meteres… scary!

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Ever since starting my journey with SEO and Online marketing I have been a loyal and faithful supporter of Google Analytics, I use this tool to track all my websites, I even tack my online CV with this. It is quite interesting to see how many people actually visit my CV and how they found it.
For this article I will speak a little about Analytics and Conversion Optimization.

Firstly let’s talk about the difference between goals, events and KPIs
A goal is an action that the site visitor should perform or the purpose of the website. Events are are the steps that the visitor takes to reach a goal in the conversion process. KPI’s or Key Performance Indicators are metrics that indicate whether goals are being met.

Conversion optimization is turning the traffic to your website to convert to complete a specific goal such as subscribing to a news letter, making a purchase or any other goals set by the company. This is very easy using a tool such as Google Analytics. Below is a example of a goal I have created for a destination URL, I named the goal “CONTACT” as the destination URL is that of the contact page on this specific website.

Goal Conversion Analytics

Goal Conversion

Along with Goal conversions I always incorporate a funnel analysis. This tracks micro-conversions within the clickpath to your goal. It is important to me as analysing mirco-conversions will give us a better understanding of where in the clickpath conversion problems lie, providing a better understanding of pages that need work and SEO done. Below is a example of my funnel analysis for the above mentioned goal.

Funnel for Goal

Considering the information above you will see what my probable goals of the site are and what events and KPIs I could use to measure these.

Goal: Increase contact from visitors
KPI: Conversion rate
KPI: Visitor source

Keep an eye out as I will be posting a “How-to” on Goal conversion setup and Funnel analysis.

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SEO is the practise of getting your website on the first page of search engine results or SERP’s by using various optimization techniques.  We optimize content for search engines to ensure that users find your website when using certain key words or phrases relevant to your website/company, on the first pages of the SERP’s.
Search engines ensure that users find what they are looking for by using cookies. The search engines store data on users online search history such as key words used and sites visited as well as users bounce rates and click through or conversion rates.  With this usage data the search engines can determine relevancy and accuracy to searches results. Localisation and Personalisation as mentioned above also provides usage data to search engines.
Page ranks indicates relevancy and credibility of a site to search engines.
PPC (Pay per click) campaigns are paid advertisements that use keywords to display to particular searches.  PPC aids in SEO as it increases traffic to your website.
Long tail keywords/phrases are niche terms that are very targeted and have very little competition.  These terms are great to use in PPC campaigns as it minimizes bounce rates and maximizes conversion rate i.e. cost per conversion.

5 areas of Search engine optimization

Search Engine Friendly website structureSearch Engine obstacles include technical issues or barriers such as flash sites or excessive image displays etc. that make it difficult for search engine spiders to crawl or index a website.
Also the competitive nature of the internet as all marketers are racing for top rankings.

Well Researched list of keywords and phrases
Keywords and phrases are the most important aspects of a website as people will use these keywords to find your site (or not if the effective keywords have not been used).
Consider the words or key phrases that your particular audience would use to find a site with your products/information/services.
Consider using key phrases that have a low search volume but high relevancy to your particular site with regards to competition and likelihood and value of conversion.
Research can be done using keyword research tools that can be found online such as Google Webmaster Tools.

Content that is optimised to target researched key phrases
Content is the most important and powerful part of a website.  Researched key phrases should be used to optimise search engine results with targeted and relevant copy writing to ensure that searchers using your key words find your website in their search results.
Strong key phrases should be used in your title tags, header tags and meta tags and descriptions.  Images should be optimised using “ALT” tags to describe and allow search engine spiders to “read” your images.

Link popularity
Links allow users and search engine spiders move from one page to another or one website to another.
Links also serve to give your site credit or votes.  Every web page that links to yours will give it more credit and validates relevance and credibility.  Take into account that not all links have the same “weight”.  Links from trusted or high ranking websites give your site a higher boost than links from unranked pages.
Therefore use relevant and link worthy content, blogs or create useful tools on your site that is worth talking about and spreading.  This is called link building.

Emerging Trends
SEO is a very young term and practice therefore it is still rapidly and constantly evolving and becoming more complex.
Search Engines use location and personal search to determine which of the masses of data available would be most relevant to that particular user.  Search Engines would use data given to them by the users or data gathered from users behaviour and history on which sites users visit more frequently.
Search Engines then use this data to give users the most relevant results and to ensure users find what they were looking for on the first result pages, therefore ensuring the visitors return to their search engine for information.

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I had to write on this topic as it is the driving force behind my addiction with the Web and Information Technology.

It wasn’t until 2007 that I myself really discovered the power of Google and the internet.  I met a couple of Entrepreneurs that started a business from nothing using the power of the web.  I decided to try it out myself.  Having been in hospitality for my entire professional life I didn’t know much about anything related to PC’s in general and decided to do as much self study as possible.  The most amazing and powerful tool I discovered has to be Google Analytics.  This is what drew my attention to SEO in particular, which eventually lead me to do this course.

I discovered there are many ways to generate an income using the Internet.  I’d like to mention a few:

• Affiliate Marketing
• Blogging for Entrepreneurs
• Online Service providers
• eCommerce
• SEO

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the practice in which a business rewards or commissions one or more trading entities or “affiliates” for each customer or sale generated by the affiliates marketing efforts.  Affiliate marketing uses the online community to market services and products, also known as crowd sourcing.
This way of marketing is not only beneficial to the affiliates but is a very effective marketing tool for the business as they only pay for results of the marketing effort.
Examples of Affiliation marketing:
Google adwords, Kalahari.net, eBay, Amazon

Interesting articles on affiliate marking, these are easy to read and help all our non-techies understand all the new neologisms.
Quirk: Affiliate Marketing Programs
Pro’s and Con’s of Affiliate marketing

Blogging for Entrepreneurs

Secondly look at how blogging has made marketing to the masses so much easier for the smaller entrepreneur and business owner.  With the help of applications such as Wordpress, Godaddy, Blogger, Google pages and Yola (Synthasite as they were formally known as) it’s easy for the Average Joe to create a website or blog-site for their particular business.  For example a make up artist might not have had a need for a website before but these days the Internet has made such a big impact on marketing in particular.  It is much easier to DIY a website these days, therefore making it more cost affective not just to own a website but also to market that website and through it, your business.  Using social media such as Facebook,  Twitter  or Google groups which are all free services, marketing can be more consumer specific and economic, making mass awareness much easier for the smaller and buget limited business owner/ entrepreneur.
Examples of Blogging Entrepreneurs:
www.vanessagottini.com
www.samanthalaurakaye.com

Interesting articles on Blogging:
Introduction to Blogging
Blogging as a marketing tool

Online services

Thirdly you will find that offering “help” or “contacting” services online is becoming ever more popular among mostly the younger generation.  This could range from either SEO work, Server and Application installation or Development or any other skill another company might require for a certain period but would rather outsource than employ permanent staff.  This is a great entrepreneurial step.  Using your skills and knowledge to generate an income and grow a business from.  Most big companies such as Google, Facebook and Mxit started as small projects at varsity or the free time of their founders.
Young Entrepreneurs:
www.g-bit.co.za
www.buyxonline.com
www.ocellus.co.za

e Commerce

Lastly and probably most importantly there’s eCommerce.
“Electronic commerce, commonly known as (electronic marketing) e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. The use of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction’s life cycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.” Wikipedia
Using your website to sell your products online.  Making it convenient to acquire your particular product will make it easier to sell.  Without the hassles of acquiring buildings, need for space, rent, salaries and personnel, the business is easier to set up and start generating revenue.  This leaves the entrepreneur with the freedom to concentrate on their core business and building brand awareness for their products.  No longer are we bound by the geological location of a “shop”.  Everyone can now reach your business and acquire your products from anywhere in the world.
Examples of eCommerce trading:
www.ktmcapetown.co.za
www.3am.co.za

Interesting articles on eCommerce:

Advantages and Disadvantages of eCommerce

Dreaming of an eChristmas

SEO

There are many other ways of stating up a revenue generating business using the internet but the reason I chose SEO is simple.  Look back at all these opportunities the internet has to offer us.  So many sites, blogs, and eCommerce shops, they all need SEO.  Now I can provide a service online for all these potential entrepreneurs and businesses and their websites, to make sure they get the most out of it and build maximum awareness of their brand and service.  And through providing such services becoming an entrepreneurial business itself.

As a last thought, global eCommerce expenditure was estimated at $98 billion USD for 2008 …

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My jump off Bloukrans

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I recently decided to change the direction of my career from Hospitality to Information Technology (or what I belive IT is).  I have grown very fond of web design and SEO.  So I slowly but surely started picking every single nerd and geeks brain I could find.

This proved quite the difficult way to learn as they assumed I know all the IT terminology and lingo… which I obviously did not.  Not to waste any of my time, I started googling (funny how google has now become a verb!) all the terms and keywords I heard and read on a daily basis.  Unfortunately some of the IT proffessionals I was mind picking were not in SEO which left me learning more about Cacti and Nagios and graphs and who knows what else, rather than SEO as I initially intended to.  It really suprised me how quick and easily I caught up with all the terms and different ways of doing things.

First I changed my Operating System from Microsoft to Linux Ubuntu. Initially this was a difficult step for me, I had never worked on any OS other than Microsoft and I was a bit hesitant to learn a new Operating System.  However I found Ubuntu absolutely amazing and I much prefer working on Open Source.  No more virus scanners WOOHOO! Plus it was developed right here in South Africa by our first South African in space, Mark Shuttleworth.

So I started by registering a domain name, pointed it to the webhosing company’s ip address and installed wordpress.  Now I needed a theme, this is where the fun began

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