What makes a good website~?

In the virtual world, number of websites available on the Net has almost reached the term 'infinity'. It has grown rapidly over the years. In germany, websites are not only owned by businesses but individuals as well. Most websites are talking about businesses with their offerings. There are also lots of online directories with complete listings of services. While some sites owned by individuals are known as blog (refer to my article 'what is blog~?').. People even use websites for buying and selling. The most famous platform that does this is http://www.e-bay.com/..

Nowadays, website is considered as something that is necessary for every dotcom companies. It somehow represents the company profile along with few important information so that the public can surf through. It is likely seen that companies that do not own a corporate website, find themselves hard in running their businesses. I am not saying all of them, perhaps most of them. But how does this make sense~? Eventually, they are not totally depending on their websites in order to sell..

I've been dealing with website design & development since the year 2000. I have quite a number of online artworks on the internet, even some of those have already expired. I did websites for small businesses and even big organizations. Their expectation varies according to nature of their businesses. Some of them are doing better in sales, and of course the other half stands still. Now, does it have to do with the quality of website that I did for them~? I mean, if they are doing better, they'd say that I produced a good website. And if they are not having increment in the number of their sales, they'd blame me for not producing good enough website.

The truth is.. whether or not the website helps increase their sales, is gonna depend on these 3 criteria:

1. Target market for their website is clearly defined
2. Identify the needs that 'they' want
3. Motivate them to respond (to what you offer)

If the website owners do not take those criteria into accounts, I can assure that their websites are not going to be very helpful at all. Most begginers will spend 90% of their valuable time creating the most perfect product and 10% of their time will be spent on finding a perfect audience. This is totally wrong~! The real secret is to reverse the ratio: 90% of the time spent on finding the right audience, then only remaining 10% of time spent on creating the product. I can simply relate this to fishing hungry fish. If you drop your bait into a group of hungry fish, they will attack that bait. How do you identify group of customers like this~? You can either drop your bait into someone else's lake (get your product advertised on other's channel), or create your own lake and spawn your own fish. But frankly, creating your own lake is more time consuming than fishing in someone else's lake where many hungry fishes are already there. But don't forget that you need to pay certain amount of money so that owner of the lake will allow you to fish there.

However, as a person who generates revenue through developing websites for my customers, this is not my major concern. They asked me to do, I did what I should.. and got paid upon completion of my tasks. It is not my problem if my customer gets the impact or not out of their newly developed websites. Crazy huh~? But this is how exactly things are working.. Therefore, if you wish to own a website that you strongly believe could assist in increasing your sales, the first thing that you need to do is clarify all those criteria that I mention above. Or else, you are not going anywhere. Do not forget that the number of websites available on the net is reaching the term infinity. And the more popular it becomes, the harder for other people to find you. And remember too.. hiring someone to create an eye-popping website is never the right answer. Because it is always you (the owner of the website) who will determine whether your website is a good website or not~!!

"if I had 6 hours to chop down a tree.. I will spend 4 hours sharping the axe....."

What is Marketing~??

To be frank, this is not the best topic that I am going to talk about. I may not be the right person, or the right source, for others to listen to. I didn't even have any experiences on marketing.. but at least there are few things I'd really like to share with you...

I make this very general. What is Marketing~? Something important to every business and company~? It tends to reflect the performance of the business/company. Many big organizations are willing to spend lots of cash on marketing. Well, the purpose of doing marketing is basically to promote products or services. And there are so many ways that marketing can be done. It can either be TV commercials, adverts on newspapers, phamplets/brochures or even exhibitions.

Most people believe in marketing, but some people don't.. This is something we can't deny, the reason why people market their products or services is because they want to increase their sales. A good marketing plan with high-quality products would definitely sell.. A good marketing plan with low-quality products could even sell.. but I believe the most it can take will be not more than a year~! Bad marketing plan with high-quality products...(what do you think~?) and finally bad marketing plan with low-quality products could never live~!

To be based on experience, I do believe in good marketing. Few years ago, I went to a guitar shop in Klang. The intention was to survey the type of guitar that I might wanna buy later. My budget was around RM400 (maximum).. and while I was looking around trying the guitars that were available in that store, a chinese lady approached me. I told her that I was only going to survey.. no intention of purchasing at all. I even told her about my budget like.. but she kept on showing me few types that were in accordance to my taste. I didn't know what was going on.. I finally bought one. The price was RM450 (excess of RM50 from my budget).. I thought I was only going to that store to survey, but ended up I walked out of that store with a good guitar in my hand. The question is.. what was it, that has actually changed my mind~? Was it because of the way that chinese lady entertained me~? I didn't recall it as the main factor.. There was nothing so special in the way she treated me.. Then only I knew that the lady was doing a very good marketing. As far as I remembered, she has a very good knowledge in various types of guitars. Being the reason why she was capable of changing my intention going to that store..from only a survey into purchasing one. By the way, she did give me a very good guitar.. I have it with me safely kept until now.

What determines a good marketing~? First of all, I have to make an observation.. I come from technical background. Thus, I do not know much about marketing. And of course I have to look at few good examples of successful marketing activities. The only one that has always been my good reference is Airasia... They sell their tagline; Now anyone can fly.. and they prove it with their low cost fares. Within one year, they offer few periodical promotions and they work~! Most of the time they are offering some kind of promotions, flight tickets will be fully-booked... but on the other hands, I don't understand how could they bear the so-called promotions.. with the cheapest fares compared to others and still they are making very high profits... (I need to ask them lah~!) :p

I have been talking about marketing, and I left behind the most important question... What is the product that I am going to market~? For the time being, I don't have any specific item to be promoted to the public.. but who knows, someday in future I might be having one good product to talk about.. only time will tell.. and I think I need to take a break right here~! I'll continue with this marketing stuff soon..