“Marketing first, website second!”
“Marketing first, website second!”
“Marketing first, website second!”
“Marketing first, website second!”
“Marketing first, website second!”

The above repetition is necessary and you must abide by this statement every time you want to develop a new website or outsource it to a web developer.

The idea of ​​marketing first encompasses the act of finding out more about your market, the people you’re trying to reach, and I’ll give you an example to help illustrate this point.

Let’s say you intend to start a retail business selling imported toys that you’ll source from Europe or a unique line of toys from the United States. What would you do before putting down a deposit to rent the store or start renovation work?

The first thing you should do is conduct an in-depth survey. Is there a demand for such toys in Malaysia? He’ll test the toys to make sure he’s not importing crap with the hundreds of thousands of Malaysian Ringgits in investments. You must also know your target market very well. In this case, your target market would be children, but what is the age range? Would more boys or girls be interested in the toys?

Second, in order not to be undermined, you need to find the perfect location for your store. It is not advisable or convenient to open the point of sale where there is little traffic of people. Nor will he consider the option of opening his store in a rural part of the city.

Third, you can’t do without your marketing strategy. Choosing the right location is not the only thing to think about. You need to do studies on how to decorate your store to make it more attractive to potential customers. The same goes for your marketing material and your website.

For a toy store, it is essential to also study the purchasing behavior of parents because it is they, ultimately, who will make the final decision. Are you using the right tactics to entice kids to have strong persuasive influence in their parents’ pockets? In your marketing strategy, you need to find the answers to ‘Why me’ and ‘Why now’.

The same rules apply to websites.

Conducting online research on the demand for the products is a must. Is the demand strong enough? You need answers about who your target is, the income level, the gender of your likely consumer, their age, etc.

In order for your website to rank well, do a keyword search before purchasing a domain name. Would the keywords contained in the domain name attract interested people to your website? If your primary focus is on the Malaysian market, then your research should be location based.

With the domain name in your hands, you need to find the right hosting company. For accommodation, the list of options is probably endless. Do you want to host the website with a local hosting company or with a server located abroad?

I remember hosting some of my websites with hosting companies based in the US or Canada. You see, for the same amount of money you would have to pay a local hosting company, I get more features, extra space, and can host unlimited domain names with these foreign web hosts. However, when you choose to host the website with such companies, you may have to deal with some issues, especially if your target market is mainly Malaysian.

When Malaysian stakeholders log into your website, the internet browser will need to pull the files from the hosting server, which slows down the loading process due to distance. Loading speed is, keep in mind, one of the most important factors affecting your website’s ranking on Google. It is recommended that if you are in Malaysia and your target market is primarily Malaysians, you host with a local hosting company.

Another problem with hosting your website abroad is that anything that happens to the other country that does not directly affect Malaysia will affect your website. An example would be the cables laid on the bottom of the sea to carry telecommunications between all countries. If there was a malfunction in the US or Canada, it affects your website. So despite being a local business, you will see your website and business unnecessarily affected.

Design-wise, a very serious, corporate-style website design just won’t work if you’re selling toys to kids! On the other hand, if you are selling wedding dresses, flash animation might work better. However, for companies selling eBooks, all you really need is a simple page and some persuasive copy.

Even before the website is fully developed, be clear about where you will get your traffic from… Will it be Facebook (for end consumers), LinkedIn (for B2B), MySpace (for music fans), etc. The online marketplace is an incredibly competitive business battleground, so you may need to develop a special web application that sets your website apart from your competitors.

If you intend to promote your newsletter, you need a suitable program and a good sales page writer to convince your potential customers to deliver your email to you. To be even more persuasive, you can offer them something for free so they share their email address with you. This is called an exchange value marketing strategy.

For businesses that intend to rank well on search engines, extensive keyword research is inevitable. Choose the right keywords to focus on and include them in your website content. Generally, quality content will drive traffic because, it remains true that content is KING.

With all that said, imagine how your business (and website) will fare if you didn’t do any of the preparation before hiring a web developer. A limited budget and lack of time will intensify your problems.