On the 11th of May 2021, Insaka eCommerce Academy and PayFast held their annual Virtual eCommerce Summit with the nation's greatest eCommerce Experts! Honey Whale was invited to give a talk to the public on 'What SEO is' and 'How SEO can help your Store gain organic traffic'. We are glad to say that the Meetup went without issues and was a major success!

The four day event, which happened from 17 to 20 May 2021, took place completely online and was free to attend.

According to global market research company Euromonitor International, eCommerce is expected to expand by an additional $1.4-trillion by 2025, accounting for half the growth in the retail sector worldwide. It’s therefore vital for local entrepreneurs to learn how to leverage this trend to their advantage, especially during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

To speak to this trend and more, top industry experts and thought leaders from South Africa and abroad took to the Summit’s virtual stage to share their expertise, strategies and insights to help you start, grow and scale your online store. You would've been able to hear valuable insights from PayFast MD and Founder Jonathan Smit, as well as experts from Google, Shopify, uAfrica, OneDayOnly, Future Females, bidorbuy and many more. They’ll touch on important topics such as:

• Finding winning products
• Online payments
• Email marketing and database building
• Deliveries
• Conversion Optimisation
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) By Honey Whale Lab
• Personal branding
• Storytelling
• Social entrepreneurship
• Affiliate marketing
• Instagram, Facebook and YouTube ads
• Google analytics
• Drop shipping
• Growing with marketplaces

We take you through the seven steps for successful SEO, which would tie into something really cool called, Maslow's hierarchy of SEO needs. we'll go on to explaining what is SEO. We also discussed about different factors that you need to consider to build your SEO strategy, and how search engines work as a whole, the impact of keyword and content in technical SEO, SEO implementation, as well as the importance of data tracking in SEO.

Go visit the Insaka eCommerce Virtual Summit website, where you can also view the complete speaker lineup and summit agenda. By attending and watching the Summit’s video presentations, you can stand a chance to win lucky prizes worth a total of R20,000. Whether you are looking to start, grow or scale your online store, the PayFast eCommerce Virtual Summit is not to be missed. The next set of eCommerce Presentations will take place from the 25th to the 28th of May 2021.

To stay up to date with the latest eCommerce news and updates, visit our blogs and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook.

We were able to provide very valuable information to South African eCommerce Store Owners, and informed them that NOW is the best time to shift to online business. Brandon and Alistair of Honey Whale were excellent in responding to any questions raised during the meetup and assisted many individuals with bettering their understanding of what Search Engine Optimization is and how to optimize your online store to increase conversions in every organic aspect.