Last month, I had the opportunity to attend a pretty large and well attended ICT Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My presentation was on internet marketing within a Pan-African context. In the course of doing my research using Alexa (http://www.alexa.com), a web site ranking service, I was very surprised to learn that Kenya’s most popular web sites have changed significantly in the last year or so. Okay, there are the usual suspects like Yahoo!, Google and the Daily Nation that receive tremendous traffic, as can be expected. However, even within the top ten, as of this writing, there are many that I had not anticipated, especially those that are social networking sites. I think the following findings are extremely important for anyone looking to leverage the Internet as a key marketing channel in Kenya, targeting Kenyans:
1. Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com)
Yahoo! is the top online destination for users in Kenya. I am guessing here but I would bet that the main activity on this site is email and perhaps online chat. There are so many people who have Yahoo! email addresses and messenger accounts and this is the confirmed main activity in lots of cybercafés. So, if I were a marketer trying to reach out online in Kenya, I would buy ads in Yahoo!
2. Google Kenya (http://www.google.co.ke)
Google, unless you have been under a rock for the past few years is a company bent on world domination, seriously! Their mainstays, and core business remains internet search and online ads. Google recently set-up shop in Nairobi which is the regional HQ for East Africa. Google Adwords (http://adwords.google.com) and Google Adsense (http://adsense.google.com) are the money machines behind their record earnings these last few years. Currently, Google is in the process of finalizing their acquisition of DoubleClick (http://www.doubleclick.com), one of the world’s leading online advertising networks. The number three (3) ranked site in Kenya is Google’s global site at http://www.google.com.
4. FaceBook (http://www.facebook.com)
Who doesn’t love FaceBook! I was pleasantly surprised to find just how popular this site is at number four (4) in Kenya. This ranking also suggests to me that lots of companies are losing productivity as all their workers are busy poking and adding friends to their lists every day. At the same time, any marketer should salivate at the opportunity to reach the Kenyan FaceBook market. A few months ago, FaceBook launched profile pages which let companies market themselves to FaceBook users. This initiative, in conjunction to buying ads on FaceBook presents a compelling proposition to reach Kenyan’s online.
5. Windows Live Search (http://search.live.com)
Windows Live Search is Microsoft’s Search Engine. A latecomer to the search game, Live Search has grown significantly in the last few years but still lags a distant third to Google and Yahoo! Search. However, in terms of indexing and quality results, it’s been quite impressive. Like with the other leading search engines, Live Search enables advertisers to market their offerings using sponsored listings, much like Google Adwords. As of this writing, Microsoft’s bid at US$ 44 Billion for Yahoo! could significantly change the prospects for Windows Live Search which is already quite popular in Kenya.
6. Hi5 (http://www.hi5.com)
Hi5, like FaceBook, is a popular social network. On a global scale, it lags far behind but for some reason seems to do better across several African Countries. This site, like FaceBook, presents an interesting marketing platform.
7. YouTube (http://www.youtube.com)
I must admit that the high ranking of YouTube at number seven (7) was a big surprise. I say so because the Google owned YouTube is the world’s leading video sharing web site. Now, in Kenya, where we are well accustomed to slow internet connections and erratic online experiences, people are actually spending a significant amount online watching streaming videos! It’s also refreshing to see Kenyan organizations such as NTV (http://www.youtube.com/user/NTVKenya) and the Kenya Red Cross (http://www.youtube.com/user/KenyaRedCross) having channels on YouTube. A BIG hint is that video growing fast online and any marketer should look at repurposing their content for a YouTube.
8. MSN (http://www.msn.com)
MSN is Microsoft’s online portal that consolidates services such as email, chat, news, jobs, etc, much like Yahoo! has done. The site, which integrates a whole host of Microsoft offerings, has done well in the last few years as more and more users and businesses migrate to online business. As a marketing channel, together with Windows Live Search, this site presents an excellent platform to reach Kenyans.
9. Blogger (http://www.blogger.com)
Blogger is a leading site for users to create their own blogs. As blogs gain more and more momentum online, Kenya has not been left behind and a good number of Kenyan themed blogs are out there. So, it would seem that Kenyan’s are following lots of blogs on Blogger and it would be an excellent marketing location for marketers to have corporate blogs here too.
10. RapidShare (http://www.rapidshare.com)
RapidShare is a file sharing web site that lets you upload up 100 megabytes as a single file. The free service is surprisingly high at number ten (10), especially considering that like YouTube, Kenya does not have the best internet infrastructure for this kind of thing. It would also appear that users in Kenya like to exchange files, probably in the form of music, applications and documents, online.
These sites round off the top ten. In terms of the best of the rest, here are the notable sites with online marketing opportunities in the top twenty (20):
11. Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com)
15. MySpace (http://www.myspace.com)
16. The Daily and Sunday Nation (http://www.nationmedia.com)
20. The East African Standard (http://www.eastandard.net)
David. Thanks for the feedback. I actually extracted the rankings from the Alexa ratings specifically for Kenya. You can access the same at
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?cc=KE&ts_mode=country&lang=none?
The listing is actually the full top 100 sites and http://www.stockskenya.com is currently listed as number 65.
nice reading about the top sites in Kenya but it would have been even more better to rate only Kenyan sites, that way it would have made a much more local appeal. by rating local sites, you would have been promoting the local web masters. am wishing with time i will get the required traffic for my site to be rated among the best. http://www.wakenya.biz the kenyan facebook
Hey Moses, l found this a great read. lt then occurs to one just how much knowledge is out there.
Thanks , i was wondering where to start on deciding where to place a message . Great tip . Hope to meet you soon
Frank Maina
Nice survey, but i have to differ with the actuality of the stats. While it is indeed true that most kenyans go to yahoo first before any other site…yahoo does get unnecessary hits whereby it’s URL has been configured to be the homepage for all browsers in all cyber cafes in kenya. This adds its hits whenever ones logs on to the net even if the don’t necessarily go to yahoo. Hey guyz pliz check out vishasha.co rank it. I need feedback.
Kevin. Thats an intersting point. I doubt just cyber cafes are responsible for the large amount of traffic heading to Yahoo.com. However, I was just using data from Alexa.com and thats what its saying – Yahoo is on top!
Mr.Kemibaro, thanks for the networking sites that you parlayed on this article. I would like to add Linked in ( http://www.linkedin.com/in/poppa ) and Yahoo Answers ( http://www.answers.yahoo.com )
Best regards,
Mr. Daniel Chege
POPPA PRODUCTIONS WEB DESIGNS
I went through Alexa and was thoroughtly impressed with the amount of information available. Interestingly you can even tell which particular areas on the site people are interested in. Moses, just some few clarifications – when you look at the Safaricom rankings in the areas people are interested in within the site- it seems most of those who visit the website don’t go past the home page (at 78%). Is my inference correct? Also, is it possible to tell how many people visit a website – say yahoo-actual figures not percentages?
Sally,
what happens is that the 78% refers to the fact that most people navigate to the homepage first. Alexa cannot track the internal pages that most people will visit. This information is normally available to the site owner by analyzing their log files using a software like Webtrends. Another way to track traffic is by installing a site traffic tool like Google Analytics. These tools provide very detailed information on actual hits and unique visitors to a web site. I hope this information helps?
Moses
Well i just wanted to make some clarifications concerning alexas indexing service. Well over and above the one hundred free analytics given by alexa,you can for some fee acquire all the detailed information pertaining to your site.This information will include the actual hits per page,the unique visitors,where they have been reffered from,their browsers and all such other information.All these can be found on their site under http://www.alexa.com/site/company/technology
under the heading overall its a good source of info,alternatively one can use free site tools like bravenet http://www.bravenet.com.
As for http://www.wanakenya.biz if you are a coder which i suppose you are,then you must surely realise that you have done nothing to optimise your site.I’m talking about SEO and SEM ,I would suggest you look at your meta tags i have seen the code the syntax is all wrong,plus the search robots,and crawlers cant see your site.So instead of wishing to make the top ten,you can actually work towards it.For more details hola at me at sarakatech@gmail.com.
Well as for http://www.vishasha.com,kevin your site is splendid,i mean real good.But you sacrificed too much for form over function.By using too much flash the search robots have problems seeing your site and reading i.e indexing all the pages properly.Also looking at your the source code of your home page i noticed you have not optimised the
Tags at all,the only meta tag i see on your site is this
,you need that optimised and you need to allow search bots to see you so you can move from rank 3,162,810 (as of 25 sept 2008) to a plausible 100,000 worldwide i can help you attain that goal ,hola at me sarakatech@gmail.com,The Search Engine University.
Moses,
I’ve been monitoring Alexa rankings for Kenya for a while. I have a problem with how Alexa gathers its information. If I’m not wrong, Alexa collects information from browsers that have their toolbar or some sort of plugin. This would make the rankings a bit bias though not entirely false. Would you mind clarifying this?
Thanks for the statistics. Am also of the opinion that over and above the top ten world websites, you can rank Kenyan sites and that will be of much benefit to Kenyans and their websites. You can also rank future top ten websites where certainly http;//www.softkenya.com will be ranked top five. You doubt it/? just visit the site.
I agree with Gachie-; help Kenya market their websites
hi Moses thanks for an informative blog.Also can you list the top 10 kenyan owned website
This is an accurate listing. How about sites and blog platforms that are owned by individuals and receiving great returns and traffic. It would be nice to rate individual effort on sites and know who is on top in Kenya self-made webmasters.
You should also consider doing a list of PURELY Kenyan websites which are popular. This one is great but Google and facebook are not truly kenya. You could call it “Most used websites by Kenyans” Yes EAStandards and Nation is perfectly rigth on spot
Thanks a lot this was very helpful. your information answered most of my questions