New approach on content (part 1)

After doing a thorough competitor analysis I realized that more than 80% of the web design and development companies in Romania do not offer quality content. Even more, I would say that the content is missing.

Most of the sites have a very brief description of the company and their limited services, Fixed hosting plans or the "web site builder" packs, price offers and of course the portfolio, but that's about it.

Another type of "web design and development" company are the ones that offer 100% full flash sites. It's always been my opinion that graphicians are graphicians and web developers are web developers, this things shouldn't be treated as the same thing. I am not a graphic artist, and I don't draw print adds or flash movies, I am a

developer and I stick to my toys: XHTML, CSS and JavaScript. I admit you cannot have a complete web presence with just these 3, as you cannot have a complete web presence with just graphics and flash design.

A successful web presence should be built with a mix of Standards based design, quality client-side and server-side applications, good quality graphics and animations, usability, accessibility, strong marketing and last but not least quality content. Providing the visitor with just the info that he is looking for may be your best way to generate traffic and turn it into profit.

Having good descriptions of the services or products that you offer is a proof of professionalism and helps your customers better understand what you offer and even what they need. Publishing case studies and white papers helps a lot too.Also this is a huge help for your seo and online marketing efforts.Concerning the content I think this is what most romanian web design agencies miss . I went for this approach , I target a set of customers with higher demands and intellect. I sure hope this will work out or i'll be broke soon :).

I consider worth mentioning 2 interactive agencies from Romania that have been a huge inspiration for me:

1. TreeWorks


2. Kondiment

Also a great project that I support is Gandeste.net from the TreeWorks team.

On the second part of this series of posts i'll speak about Corporate blogs and a few things i know about the romanian blogosphere.