Should You, Can You, Will You... Site Build it Yourself

How Nadir Burnashev An Economist from Kazkommerts Securities, the oldest and well-known investment banking andsecurities brokerage company in Kazakhstan Built His Company’s Corporate Website.

The following article was derived from an e-mail Nadir Burnashew sent Dr Ken Evoy the Managing Diretor of Sitesell. I have added my own comments in blue.

Frustration with the original contracted web design company...

After six months passed and several thousand dollars spent it became clear that we would not be getting the website completed any time soon. And our staff grew increasingly frustrated by long and unproductive discussions with the people in that company.

Nadir's thoughts on the Sitesell corporate website...

The site structure was simple, the layout was handy, and the content and the words just nailed down almost 90 percent of my concerns.

After reading Make My site sell (The bible of internet marketing)...

When I finished reading I realized that building and putting a website was more simple in technical terms, and more challenging in marketing terms.

The importance of having a Most Wanted Response (MWR)...

If not for SBI! you would be remembered for MWR concept. Do you know when the discussions in our company about the website became more business and less design ones? When I introduced the MWR to the audience saying 'hey, folks, forget about navigation, flashes, and fancy graphics concentrate on the important thing: what do we want from our visitors?" At the very moment they understood the MWR concept they were firmly back in the familiar ground. And our discussions have started yielding the first practical results. But if we would be talking to the web designers we would be still at the square one.

How Site Built It (all-in-one website building, hosting, marketing tools) puts the control of building and maintiang a website into the hands of everyone...

And the people we spoke to about our site over the last months knew very little about Internet marketing. They were mostly "techies". No wonder we could not find common language. But the important thing I realized was that we could build, maintain and power the site by ourselves with little down. And, what was more important, we would be in control at every stage and could adjust the site quickly to our changing needs. This was not the rocket science!

More on Site Built It (SBI)...

You could easily guess that the next product I bought was SBI! Your SBI guide was excellent and put us at work. Your SBI Manager did save us a lot of time and efforts. Our site became operational on July 23. It was not the best site I saw on the web, but it was loading fast, had a lot of useful information in English, and was well optimized. And it was done by two persons with little prior knowledge and experience in the field.

The sheer power of SBI...

By the end of August (one month after the launch), its Alexa ratings surpassed the ratings of our local competitors. And by the end of October (three months after the launch), it had higher ratings than the National Bank, and Ministry of Finance of Kazakhstan, or even the state television agency, Khabar.

How much SBI saves in time and money...

Another big advantage is that SBI! saves not only time, but money, too. When I showed to my colleges total expenses associated with the development of our English-speaking site, SBI! was nicknamed as an "Internet guerilla tool". Having both MYSS and SBI behind our shoulders helped us complete negotiations with the local web design company for making the company Russian website at more favorable terms. If your package could only support Cyrillic scripts there would be far less web design and hosting companies in the CIS countries and more good websites! :-)

The minimum price to hire a web design firm in Almaty...

The minimal price tag for having good corporate website developed and powered in Almaty is about 4,000 dollars. You can get a cheaper one, but from a less reputable and reliable company. We managed to bring the initial price for our Russian site down to about 2,000 dollars, not least thanks to our English site developed with the help of SBI and our negotiating skills. But we have to write the lengthy TOR now and sign the contract, and only then the actual work starts.

Why you should consider doing it yourself...

Now imagine that someone comes in and says "here's the product you need for the price of (whatever the final price will be after your price-testing) . Here is all the information you need to make to the decision. And in case you are hesitating here is the bullet proof guarantee from Mr. Evoy himself. Fire your web designer immediately, buy SBI instead and give it to the smartest person in your company, and watch for the results to come. Or if the web designer is crying under your door or has a large family to support, give him the book ask him to learn the English and make him use the SBI to its fullest potential.":)

Praise for Mr Evoy....

Mr. Evoy, I am writing this letter to attest that your ideas and your approach to Internet business work not only in the Anglo-Saxon countries, but across the globe. As you can see from our company's experience, SBI has no boundaries, as the Internet itself, and it has the potential to win the new markets, as the good and successful product. Your methods are simple yet effective, your business philosophy is sound, your thinking is original, and the logic behind your business strategy is powerful.

Nadir Burnashev

Chief Economist

Kazkommerts Securities

Email: nburnashev@kazks.kz

http://www.kazakhstaninvestment.com

If you would like to read the next article in this series called...

How to maintain and enhance the profitability of your website

Please... Click Here.

If you would like to read the previous article in this series called...

$500 OR $50 000... How much to get a profitable website?

Please... Click Here.

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