Name of your website?BiKal IP CCTV
Your name?
Ray Firth
Your Location (city, etc)
London
Please give us a short summary of your website?
BiKal's website describes the products we develop. You can find out in-depth details about each product as well as review support documents such as manuals and tutorial videos. The website also features a free download of the latest surveillance software developed by BiKal.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
BiKal decided to launch a website as they felt it was the best vehicle to bring information and promotion of the product to the mass public. The website was designed to attract end users and professional bodies alike. Making a website an adding interactive content such as downloads and video is a perfect way to break the barrier between shopping in person and buying on the web.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My First website was launced in 2000. It was a website offering live audio streaming services call www.liveaudiostremaing.com. It did well in the first few years but as my other interests grew I did less work on the website itself. The website is still running we we provide some great media streaming services from there. I think I'll be keeping this website for many years to come.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
The name for the BiKal website was derived from the name of the product line. The products were named after it's creator and is an amalgamation of his first & second name. A personal touch!
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
The website offers much over competitors in the market. Mainly the interactive content adds an extra dimension which many of competitors in our industry have neglected. I'm sure they will catch on soon. Apart from that the product is what offers something different. The design is simple and the next phase is start editing the site to increase conversion and add more interactive multimedia.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
The BiKal website represents a quality brand, therefore the idea is to keep the website for as long as possible. The BiKal brand has been built with the future in mind. Current plans are to keep the website intact in its current form as an information portal to the company, brand and product.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Returns on time and investment can be slow for this type of website, especially as it is not a direct revenue generating website. Marketing the products through the website is the ultimate goal. If we were to speculate the return on investment, it would be phenomenal, 1000's of percent. I dont build a website with small change in mind.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Oh WOW, I want that budget. I would put my budget to continuing market and user research and apply this data to site design, optimise and test text copy and images, work on better conversion and interactivity and of course continuous marketing through organic and paid channels, I suppose marketing will swallow most of the money up.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Probably not, however I have a strategy in mind which involves taking up a quote I got for a dedicated server with lots of bandwidth, at most it would take me a day to switch over so I am not too worried about it anyway. In most circumstances I should be able to predict a rise in traffic unless a national news story breaks.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Marketing marketing, its hard to know where to spend you money and know if it will work, even with non-internet methods. The worst problem is getting in paid help, there are so many people willing to take my money and give a rubbish job back. Spending & finding good contacts is a true business game
What has been your biggest challenge?
Again, marketing is the biggest challenge altough the market for our products is not so saturated on web just yet. Thinking up interesting content is also a challenge, especially as all content on the website has been built from scratch, not a word copied. This is very time challenging.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
There have been various successful methods for us. In essence we follow a checklist which goes something like submitting sitemaps to google & yahoo, writing in blogs and creating articles to submitting links to directories. This is always our first point of call. After that it comes down to continued link building and distributing interesting content. Contributing to forums is also a good way of generating traffic. I'm at a loss for internet advertising though, how many people here click on those banners at the top or side? I'd like to know if I should put my money into that too?
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
At the moment the website has been running to expectations because it is fairly new, therfore I am not expecting large amounts of visitors. However, with an active marketing plan in action, my expectation is for the number of visitors to grow and can take some guess at predicting this. On the otherside, I always have to challenge myself to exceed all expections.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site has only been running for one month now with most marketing activities starting this week. This will be a good opportunity to evaluate how the site improves. If I dont enjoy any benefits, then its back to the drawing board to learn why not and how to turn the situation around. I'll keep working at it for a while yet.
How many websites have you built and run yourself?
I have built approx 50-60 websites but I am running only about 6 of them. They all generate some revenue in someway or another, thank god for the Internet
What is your website address?
BiKal IP CCTV
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