Many companies, especially in Pakistan are now wising up to having a good website. So, the question they ask is, “where do we start?”.
So they start searching for a web developer.
And they are wrong.
It would make sense to search for a web developer when you want a website, no?
Well, it would make sense if you want a brochure for your company and you search for a graphic designer, right?
But then you would take that design to a printer to print it, and then take the printed brochure to some distribution company to distribute it (if you are into direct mail and such).
Now, when the designer will design the website for you, you will need hosting, support for email setup and most importantly, you’d need search engine optimization.
This conversation is perhaps getting too long; let’s put it this way.

You hire an agency to:

• come up with a concept for the ad (employing an art director or a copywriter - not a graphic designer per se)
• the ad is designed on a computer (by a graphic designer, no doubt)
• the designed product is printed on preselected paper and in optimum quantity (through agency contacts in the sprawled printing industry of Lahore or Karachi)
• in case of a brochure, it gets delivered to your company or mailed out to a preselected list of customers or gets ‘released’ on different advertising medium (including T.V., radio, print)

You’d hire a graphic designer to do all of the above?

In the same way, a proper website is not just graphic designing with a good dose of eye candy thrown in, no it is not. What about:

• need analysis of your website target audience and market?
• design of the website layout?
• conversion of that design into internet browser readable code (usually employing CSS with HTML)
• properly using the power of interactivity of the Internet and gathering useful customer/user data on an online, secure database? Who will do that?
• setting up a full-fledged online shop that accepts credit cards and other form of payments? And who will secure that?

  So, yes, you’d need a web designer to design a website.
  But just like any good agency would tell you, your website would need proper resource planning.
  But you need an agency like approach to tie everything together. Without that, a website is just like another pamphlet wasting on someone’s driveway.

I have recently written/posted a few lines regarding the use of Internet in Pakistan, especially Lahore, over at Lahore Metblogs. Now, there are more and more people looking for websites all around the Pakistani scene, especially the corporate sector.

The textile sector, for example, has an obvious need to get online. The need to look as professional as possible has not only forced the textile corporations (listed companies) to beef up their operations, but also to be more presentable (hence the website, the new brochure designs and intro CD ROMS etc).

This is good news for someone like me, who has been pushing for websites since the last millenium. Literally!

The difference between a website for a textile group and a website for a say, dental surger clinic is only that of content; the objective is, and should be the same i.e. to highlight professionalism by provision of the latest tools of business communication and marketing. (I just realized that the above is one very, very long sentence…)