Quite simple really.

This is what you will call the vision statement of Treetech Design.

To make you look good

Who are ‘you’?

You are, in all probabilities, a business entity. You can be a small business, operating out of a shop in the suburbs of any city in any part of the world. You can be a not-so-small business operating out of many shops in many cities of the world. Treetech Design, God be willing, will fulfil the basic requirment of making ‘you’ look good.

The ‘making’ of you…

Now, this is the process, the real engine that drives Treetech Design. The focus is online. You can call it online interactive media, website design, web development, web applications, take your pick. Making you look good, with a focus on online representation, or rather online design.

And as online design, essentially means the right blend of technology and design (of the graphic type), Treetech Design will also be incorporating offline Interactive media.

Now, the above is the ‘core’ focus, cut in two; one is what we will call website, the other is interactive media (offline, such as CD ROM and presentations etc).

As Treetech Design has designers and programmers on board, herein lies the dividing line. Are we a software house, or a design house? Simply put, a design house. As the focus is on the ‘design’, Treetech Design will be offering corporate ID services such as brochure design, envelopes, letterheads and business card design, you name it.

The idea is, please remember, to make you look good. You being (probably) a business entity, and Make meaning the smooth, hassle-free service to deliver attractive and practical results. God be willing.

And looking good, in todays market, is a great edge to have.

Don’t you think?

What brings customers to your website?

Is not that the million dollar question now!

A funky design? Or relevant content?

The clear winner is ALWAYS relevant content. Please note, I did not say great content, or unique content or even interesting content. What brings people to your website is ‘relevant’ content.

Finding relevant content

There is, arguably of course, only one way to find the content that you, as a user, are looking for. That way is Google.

You want to search for website design in Lahore, or Karachi, or London, anywhere in fact, and you type it in Google’s search bar. Google’s job is to find relevant content for you. Google, particularly, is pretty good at doing that. (refer to context-based ad placement, apart from their above average search results).

So, you want people coming to your website, you need to:

1. Identify your market: What kind of people you want at your website?
2. Identify your market’s content: You want decision makers who want a website for their business to come to your site, so you start writing about websites, and how it fits in one’s business etc etc.
3. Talk to Google: no, don’t make a phone call to Google, but get your website indexed by Google. Or the best way is to get a good website to link to your website, so Google bots search your website relatively quicker.

Now, behold as I claim that the above three steps are the only way you can make your website work. There are no shortcuts (many claim there are, but fail to deliver). This is how your website works and will, God be willing, work.

Relevant content for the kind of people you want, and then making sure that Google (or any other search engine, for that matter) knows about it. That. is. it.

P.S. If the words ‘easier said than done’ do not mean anything to you, now they will.

Design is important.
But secondary.
Usability comes first. Why? Because ’someone’ is going to be using your design, and if the design is not serving its purpose, then what good is eye-candy to your bottom line? And goes without saying (although it still needs to be said!) that the ‘job’ of a design is to increase your bottom line.

The following design is for sale by Treetech. We have tweaked and used the design ourselves for our clients as well, making it unique and highly usable (thanks be to God!). Having a good design is not even half the problem solved and good designs, while being a good ’starter’, can not be a long-term business strategy; delivering effective results is (and that, my friends, can never be put up for sale!)

I own a textile company and I want need a website to give my business all the chance of competing in the post-WTO Pakistan world.

A good website for a textile group (exporter, manufacturer and everyone in between) would be required to work a tad extra to:

• portray the business as totally professional
• portray the business as unique
• portray the business as technologically updated (read: advance)
• provide all the information a prospective user (of a textile website) would need

Now, the words to watch out for are “portray” and “user”.

A website, well-designed and fully functional can only portray; it is of course not magic, you’d have to be good enough to follow through. And the website needs to have all the information the ‘user’ wants, not what ‘looks nice’. This is where research comes in, and this is where the separation of men (profitable businesses) from the boys (not-so-profitable businesses) begin. After all, focusing on the user (customer), not whims and personal favorites, is much easier said than done.

Now, Treetech Design has an opportunity here of course. Websites and marketing materials and even complete corporate ID redesigns has a ‘been-there-done-that’ taste to it. By God’s Grace, all that can be placed on a website to make it useful and attractive is doable at the development and creative departments - no matter how small - of Treetech Design.