Youmna Zod on "Doing Business in Lebanon"

This was part of a presentation done at the University of Toledo, Ohio, on "doing business in the Middle East" presented by the Second Young Entrepreneurship Program's delegation, a business exchange program sponsored by the US department of States Bureau of educational and cultural affairs.

I had covered the cultural aspect of doing business in Lebanon.

Barcode Marketing in Lebanon!

For the first time in Lebanon, barcode marketing gets adopted.

Granted, Lebanon is not the typical location where you would walk down the streets and get access to outdoor advertising, as is the case in the European metro stations where barcode marketing was most witnessed.

Yet, Captain and Captain found it adequate to use it on the "opening soon" poster on their new retail shop in City Mall- to be inaugurated on December 1st, 2010. "Scan barcodes with your mobile phone to find out more!" Linking to their Facebook and Twitter Accounts.

Save your Christmas shopping list, you are about to be dazzled!

Lebanon: ICT and Entrepreneurship

Beirut, Lebanon -

The American Embassy in Lebanon is hosting the US-Lebanon ICT Forum on Oct 14-15, 2010 at BIEL, Lebanon. The forum will showcase 60 ICT companies, and will feature a series of seminars about trends in the technology and communications sector.

If you happen to be an entrepreneur, you might be interested to know that the event will include a free entrepreneurship workshop by ArabNet called "Speed Up Your Startup".

The entrepreneurship workshop will feature speakers from Tandem (Consultants), Kobeissi & Frangie (Law Firm), Middle East Venture Partners, Element^N and Yahoo! (interesting, don't you think? )

...Don't miss out!

Google Instant's Effect on Google's SEO

Google Instant was launched on September 8th, 2010. Aside from saving the Google Instant searches that had already appeared and disabling them from reappearing in subsequent Google results, the algorithm itself that enables Google to index websites has not changed much per se:

Google's "Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide" was last updated on November 13th, 2008.

Google Instant does not leave SEO indifferent though. Google SEO professionals are on their guards, as they realize how versatile Google can be. The fear should stem from somewhere else; from the way users will interact with Google thereon. Something, I am certain, not even Google, can predict.

Had the users remained indifferent to Google Instant's suggestions, and the results parading on their screens as they typed, Google Instant would eventually have no effect on SEO. Yet the conflict lies here. Are people likely to change their intended keywords or get distracted with given results before finishing their search terms? I would say yes. Google users behavior shift with Google Instant.

What would change in SEO?

Not much when it comes to ranking high for given keywords. Yet, it would greatly affect users' keyword choice, as keyword suggestions, are bound to offer Google results... instantly. Giving shorter keywords an advantage as to appearing more often than not on the screen before users get distracted with suggestions.

Instead of basing your keyword choice on Google Adword's measures, from now on, you need to consider the probability of another relevant keyword showing up before your terms are typed.

Leaving aside Google's personalized search results, which I would assume only apply to a few search terms of interest, results will be based on general Google probabilies. I am, thus, lead to believe that Google Instant would eventually have a sociological effect, converging search results to the same keywords, and consequently to the same websites... to the same information displayed.

An opportunity for SEO professionals to gain traffic exponentially by optimizing keyword choice?

Retail Sales Mental Cues

After a few months in retail, you start categorizing clients judging on first impressions and generating mental cues to better approach each customer. Of course, those mental cues get refined as you find yourself mistaken and adjust your guidelines with time.

Appearance-based cues: Appearance is often treacherous. Neither trust the luxury car, nor the branded clothes when it comes to a client's potential. Look rather at his language skills, culture and environment's feel to measure his purchasing power.

Conversation-based cues: The client who comes in giving endless information, will exhaust you, and end up buying nothing. Likewise, someone who ends up asking questions about each and every product, just enjoys gaining knowledge. Finally, the person who asks useless information irrelevant of his product use, holds no better potential.

No matter what, the best cues remain the client's interest and attitude, and you might always gain from helping a client regardless, as the best marketing tool will always be word-of-mouth.