Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Some *Gyaan!!

When I started this blog, I named it media-wedia. Since online media is my line of work, I thought this would be a good extension to it. But I have been writing about everything but online media till now! So now I have decided to share some knowledge every now and then. Hope you enjoy it :)

Over time I have met many people and discovered that they want to develop a website but do not understand the importance or otherwise for it. They like the idea of having a website but do not know why they want it. For most of them they want it because everyone else has it and it looks good on a card! Makes the company feel big. It is true to a certain extent - every company worth its salt has a decent website nowadays. But there is more to it than that. To start with, it can be a medium to brand your products/services, a way to interact with your customers, provide customer service, customer support and have a global reach. A website can be one of the following kinds:

A coporate website to represent what the company does, it's location etc. This is an extension of a brick and mortar company to the online world. Typically such a site would have just enough information about the company, its services and contact numbers. It is mostly static with no interaction with the user. But now more and more companies make it interactive so that they can provide technical support and customer service to their customers. If you notice, most electronics and IT companies put up their product manuals, and other support knowledge-base online. So whether you need to download an application, a driver for installation, or need help assembling or operating your product, help is at hand - online. It cuts down on the repetitive work done by support people and they get to deal with only desperate cases! These websites can also be used to extend the services online where a customer can purchase the product without having to visit the store physically.

Then we have websites which have no link in the physical world. The whole business model revolves around this website alone. Such websites can be content based which earn revenue through advertising. Or it can be a product/service based website which earns revenue by selling something online (ecommerce).

There are many options available to a consumer and it takes some time to match the wants and needs with their budgets. Some answers one should know before proceeding are - what do I want to achieve with this website? Do I want to sell online? Who will benefit from my site? How will it add value to my business/work? How much time and resources are available to build such a website? Will I have someone who would update it for me? What is the skill level of thes people.

The last two points are very important because if you make a site which needs constant updation/inputs from your end, and no one is allotted to do so, it is a waste of money and efforts put in to make such a system. Everyone wants to have the most modern and interactive site - but if the site is not updated in a timely manner it doesn't help the business.

Then we also have the social and business networking sites which are gaining fast momentum as a medium for marketing your products etc. This is a very interesting topic and I would defnitely share some knowledge about it in the near future.

Tell me what has been your experience while building a site? (I'm sure most of you would have made/got one made at some point of time...) Did you eventually get what you wanted?

*Gyaan: Knowledge

11 You Spoke:

aneri_masi said...

Quite a timely post for me :)

I have been trying to develop a website for an NGO I have come to love (Project WHY)
I know what I want, but have NO clue how to make it :(
I have a basic idea of the contents, and also have ideas for future work, but putting it all together is turning out to be quite difficult.

I asked a friend who does web designing for our product at work, and she recommended getting "Dreamweaver". I got quite excited, but found out that it is quite an expensive software. So that idea was chucked.

So what would you advice? How do I even get started?

A said...

The good thing about blogging is that it's for fun and doesn't need to yield in ROI (I am talking about personal blogging) so there's no stress involved LOL.

Piper .. said...

cant comment :( because I dont have a website other than my blog :( and I was so naive when I started it, that I used my own name :( I wish I had maintained some amt of anonymity.Anyway, so I really cant comment :))

DeeplyDip said...

@aneri_masi: again, once you have the budet and features in place, you can choose. You can tell someone to design it for you if you want extensive features. Will be faster. For a basic static site, you can learn and discover. dreamweaver sure is a good tool to develop a site - esp if you prefer to make it in the design mode rather than html.
you could even explore the opportunity to make ne on blogger or wordpress.
and btw when you take a hosting package with a server, they also provide you with a designing application to help you design your website.
Let me know if this helps!

DeeplyDip said...

@agnes: true :)

@Piper: hey if you really want to change your name then create another blogger account and transfer your blog there :)

my space said...

Gyaani baba ki jai ho!!
But seriously..thanx..have wanted to make one for long but have identified as pointed by you..that it needs to be updated to remain interesting..not found anyone so far ;-)

Reflections said...

This was really interesting...knew quite a bit of it already but u provided the remaining gyaan.

Usually people with IT/web expertise automatically use a lot of technical terms. U said everything so clearly that anybody cd understand.

Thanks!!!!!

Piper .. said...

I tried. But how do I inform the readers? I dont want to start all over again! Can I block a few ids from reading? Even then, those I`m trying to avoid,might email and ask me what`s wrong :):) I was so excited about blogging, I sent my url(more out of ignorance and because i didnt have any readers back then) to some family and friends. Now I have to measure what i`m writing, though of late I`ve started giving them a flying $&^$#* these days!! I`ve been trying to adopt this 'dont give a rat`s ass' policy!!:)

DeeplyDip said...

@my space: aashirwaad baccheey ;).
knowing what you want exactly is half the battle won! finding someone will not be difficult at all...

@Reflections: :)
ya that's why I wanted to keep it simple...

@Piper: see you can put up a new post on the current blog with a link to the new shifted one. that ways all people on your blogroll would know where to find you.
To avoid family and friends - what you could do is start a new blog from which you contact your regular readers and request them not to publish your comment! I'm sure everyone will help you there ;)
This way the family you want to avoid won't know you!

A said...

@Piper, when my old site went down about 2 months ago I found out that you can transfer all your existing subscribers (you can delete the ones you don't want to transfer) without a hitch (if you have a google feedburner account)

Nisha said...

yaa..gyaan devi ki jai ho...hehe!!!but now we dont need to learn..we can order u...right!?

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