A bit too many clients ask for a great design to embrace their online presence. They would want the ‘wow’ effect configured into every square centimeter of their web page. The need for eye-candy does not seem to end.

But it really should.

Design is secondary. And design has a duty to perform i.e. to disperse the user’s attention is predetermined ways. I have said this before and I do not mind saying it again, it is that important.

Design is hardly the aspect of your website that is going to get people coming back; they may like the design, like it once or like it forever, but if the design is the only thing they like, they will not come back to your website, ever.

On the other hand, your website provides the users with what they want, and they will keep coming back, year after year. There is a reason that websites made especially for designers do not have, arguably, the best flash animation or the latest in CSS techniques implemented. What they do have is content that is relevant and designers keep coming back.

In my experience, clients would love to get to the nitty-gritty of design, ignoring the actual content of the website itself. The focus is purely on ‘looks’ and project delays are because of the back and forth of emails and design drafts. Seriously, design does not deserve this kind of attention. Design is important, yes. But not this important. Priorities need to be set straight before embarking on any project, and web development project is and should not be, any different.

I remember walking up to store owners in DHA Lahore, asking them if they would want a website for their store. I am talking ‘back in the day’, while still at college, six to seven years ago.

A lot of the times, people would respond somewhere in the lines of, ‘I have heard of them websites, tell me what it is and maybe I will get you to make it for me.’ The Marketing students reading this, take note, this was the introductory stage of the product life cycle and ‘theory’ like that. Anyways, I would tell them what it is and how they could benefit from it. (Yes, 6 to 7 years back, there was less benefit of an online presence for a local store in Lahore, and it was much harder than it is now to sell websites and web development. But the benefit for a website developed in Lahore for a local business was beneficial back then as well).

I did try to sell websites by being very cheap. I stopped doing that years ago. For a very valid reason of course; quality comes at a price. I put a lot of effort into making a website, I hire expensive programmers to code even the basic of codes to get the best out in the market. Of course, sometimes I mess up, but I know I can deliver, God willing, because the cheap guy hardly wins. At the end of the day, I don’t pay the expensive programmer just because he is expensive, but because he or they deliver on time and deliver what was asked after following best practices. Goes without saying, I learnt that the hard way. The very hard way.

Now, things have changed. Now people usually ask for a website themselves. Surely, the times have changed. Website development in Lahore has definitely picked up, with a lot of people offering web design and development services. At the end of the day, it will not be who is offering what, but it will be how are they servicing the customer. For as I still strongly maintain, business is about relatoinships and their maintenance thereof.

Recently, Treetech launched the Property Standard website and I ensured that basic SEO techniques were followed. The beauty of sticking to basics is that things get done and one is not confused or preoccupied or distracted by little fluctuations. For example, basic SEO is all about writing website copy with the audience in mind, and not the Search Engines. Many ‘SEO experts’, especially here in Pakistan, will cram their websites with their targeted keywords in an attempt to get their clients’ websites onto the first page of Google search results. This produces results in terms of ‘getting on the first page’, but that is not the desired result. One wants his or her company/business to be on any search engine’s first page because as more people see the results, they have a chance of converting to users by actually visiting the links. The real ‘game’, if you may, actually starts when a user is at your website. Getting users to your website is a challenge, yes it is, but if your user finds the website too crammed, boring or useless then the user will never be converted to a client.

Now, coming back to the Property Standard website; they are in the business of advertising properties from across Lahore to prospective buyers. Just see the following image of what Google did to their website because Treetech just followed basic SEO techniques:

Lahore Metblogs, for those who do not know, is a blog centered around the no-doubt glorious city of Lahore. LMB (as it is lovingly called) is a tiny part of the Metroblogging network of city blogs for pretty much every major city around the world (not to mention the not-so-major cities as well that play an important role, I think, in giving Metblogs its massive and across-the-board appeal). I personally am a blogger there and have been with LMB for quite some time now. This is the second time LMB’s ‘parent’ company - Metroblogging - has changed the design of their city blogs.

And I have a few things to say about that.

(…more →)

Building brands takes courage. The freshness that is somehow inherent in marketing carried out by say Volkswagen or Apple or Nike is something to aim for in your business’ branding. Unfortunately, a lot of companies, not only in Pakistan but around the world, are not that brave at all!

Take the profession of copywriting for example. Clients and copywriters alike cringe at the thought of taking the path less travelled. ‘Make sure our logo is the biggest thing in the ad,’ the client would say. ‘Our competitors have this-or-that on their website, so should we, period,’ demands the client. ‘You are selling motorbikes, so putting a girl on top of it will make these babies sell like hot freakin cakes,’ so says the creative director!

Please.

“I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing,” Stephen King says in his book On Writing. And no, Mr. King is not talking about the fear his own writing induces; he’s talking about timidity, the insecurity that makes us doubt ourselves and abandon our very substance to feed some hollow myth about audience expectations or to paper over some perceived failing. (mainly quoted from this site). Same, if not more can be said about almost every other facet of marketing. (…more →)

The contact form being used over at Property Standard website is a solid attempt at bringing some of the best practices of User Friendliness to the local (read Pakistani) market. (The sheer disappointment I feel due to ‘big budget’ websites produced by none other than Pakistani ’software houses’ that lacks even the basics of user friendly interfaces and practical designs deserves another post, if not a series! And I got to learn to write smaller sentences. Anyways…)

Using the mootools framework, the form checks the validity of the email field with a simple message. The form can only be submitted once the email is typed in the correct format. The ‘perfect’ user experience will be that all the fields are checked for at least fresh input. But no one is aiming for perfection here, never! For thinking something is perfect automatically closes all doors for possible improvements, which always has room.

Property business is a hard business for many reasons, stiff competition being one of them.

In competition, ’standing out from the crowd’ plays an even greater role and more often than not, is the deciding factor between a closed sale and a lost lead.

Websites for the property industry were the answer 5 to 10 years ago; now everyone has a website (if your business doesn’t, then you really should get a website) and now ’standing out from the crowd’ becomes harder. Apart from standing out, the property business owner needs to find channels to his or her market.
Although quite common around the world, industry magazines for property are next to absent in Pakistan, so reaching the target market becomes difficult. Treetech is currently working on one of the first (if not the first) property magazine, all set to launch inshAllah, within a few days. The website and online branding is complete and can be seen at the Property Standard website (http://www.propertystandard.com.pk/).

The guys at Property Standard have also signed up for our yearly website and hosting package of USD100 per year (Translating into PKR 500 per month!), and get unlimited emails and database on a Windows enterprise-level hosting environment.

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Footnote-of-sorts: Starting a business and running a business, two completely different beasts, are only easy if you know what you are doing. And when it comes to ’starting in business’, almost as a rule, you only know what you were doing, not what you are.

First of all, Wordpress (or any other blogging platform) is essentially a Content Management System. But when I say Content Management System (CMS), I am referring to a set a of pages, probably requiring login, that can be used to change, edit and update the content of a given website. Any given website for that matter.

I have been working with the Wordpress platform for quite some time now, and am now able to offer a decent Content Management System to my website design and web application clients.

The other option is of course Joomla, which is now reserved for high-maintenance, large websites. Treetech has done up and is in the process of doing up some really neat Wordpress themes and designs, which will be displayed here as well.

Just follow the link and you will know why making a website successful is easy only when you know what you are doing.

A lot is happening, thanks to God.

The concept of scheduling - hard core, right-to-the-last-minute scheduling - is an alien concept to almost everyone I have talked to. Website development in Pakistan faces the same crises as many businesses face here; lack of professionalism. Now I know that professionalism is a relative term but I still maintain what I have said; most people just don’t take things in a way they should be taken (that’s the layman definition for professionalism right there!).

When it comes to rolling out a website or a web application, scheduling can mean the difference between a great product with a content client and a great product with a not-so-happy client.

A not-so-happy client is, and should be, unacceptable. Simple mathematics will tell you that the last line equates to keeping a tight schedule. It does not necessarily mean maintaining a check-in/check-out system for website developers nor a fancy Application Service with all the gantt charts you can fill a wall with. What it does mean is that you are meeting set deadlines and getting the project along, in an overall acceptable way.

But for now, Treetech (and affiliated enterprises) are contemplating a fundamental project; moving office. The current one is just too small (you have no idea how good saying the last line felt ). Pray and keep getting websites and web apps made from us, and we will keep delivering great products. God be willing of course, God be willing.