After spending ample amount of time and money to bring visitors for your website, you want your website to be able persuade them to take the desired actions you have laid out as conversion measurement parameters. Whether you want them to place an order, signup for your newsletter or simply send you an inquiry, you will need to pay close attention to a diverse range of areas on your website.

Intuitive analysis and knowledge of your target market can help you identify how to increase your conversion rates, however this alone cannot substitute for a scientific approach of analyzing and segmenting your target audience, applying time tested theories of web design interface, using analytical software to understand visitor behavior etc. To increase your conversion rates, you need scientific understanding of the subject in order to better understand what needs to be done.

There is little divergence between branding and conversion rates. Websites that convert on the expectations of your brand achieves higher satisfaction and conversion rates. Unfortunately though, largely, brand managers think of the brand to be a artistic preference, and the result is an artistically-clever but functionally-frustrating experience.

Here comes the power of belonging that brand needs to have. With the power to connect and resonate with your audience will greatly influence the overall conversions of your website. If that’s not the case, you could just grab the top most converting websites over the web and mimic their conversion cycle. But it doesn’t work. The conversion paradigm is largely influenced by how your visitors perceived your brand with all their senses.

Your visitors perceive your brand, maybe subconsciously, as a personality. They interact with it, they way you have managed to make them perceive it.

The power of belonging, about which Said Baaghil talks in depth in his book names, well, the Power of Belonging, is a spot on approach on how brand managers should steer their brands towards successful and long lasting assets and not just graphics.

It’s recommended that you also check out his interview with Elan Magazine

You probably think of SKF as the world leader in rolling bearings? Then you are right, because they are. their high quality bearings have made them one of the most respected brands in the industrial world. But this is a limited picture. There are many other exciting dimensions to today’s SKF. They have step by step evolved into a genuine knowledge engineering company. To strengthen this process, SKF has identified five different platforms that cover the technical knowledge and capabilities: Bearings and units, Seals, Mechatronics, Lubrication systems and Services.

SKF celebrated 100 years Milestones (1907 – 2007). Since the formation, SKF strictly and strongly followed what Sir. Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is power” that is why all their efforts towards imparting that knowledge which SKF has gained in 100 years to the customers.

I highly recommend other MNC’s and people resposible for their web projects to have a look at this website. It’s truly a breeze of fresh air. Although made in flash, it still is easy and neat to use.

visit the SKF 100 year website

Today in our website analysis series, we will review www.aryzauq.tv

Masala TV in Pakistan now has competition. Ary Group, which I guess is the largest network of channels, has launched their 24/ Pakistani Food channel ARY Zauq. Launched recently, the channel has limited audience but there is positive buzz about the channel. Since I am more into websites then cooking, I will start right away with the analysis.
First Impressions
Ary now seems to be more focused on their websites, and I wasn’t surprised to see a professional looking website for the new channel. It’s clean, it’s green (the brand’s color) and information seems laid out pretty well.

Since the website is still under construction, I will follow up with a detailed review as soon as the final version is up.

Zong is China Mobile Brand launched earlier this year in Pakistan. China Mobile is known as the largest mobile and telecom service provider in the world with the largest number of user base globally.

First Impressions
Zong’s website seems very impressive as you land on the homepage. Though it’s all flash based, it still manages to download speedily. The content is laid out well and you won’t find it difficult to find your required information. The color scheme, the fonts, the color choices are well aligned with the brand’s overall personality.

Homepage:
The focus seems more on visual appeal than usability. A major portion of the page is used to display the flash based banner, hovering your mouse over it will slide down a options to navigate to the inside sections. The same links are however also available on the right hand side navigation. There are three small banners towards the bottom to feature latest offers by the company.

Navigation:
navigation is simple yet the positioning of navigation bar is not very friendly and sometimes you would wonder where to click in order to move back or jump to a new section of the website.

Content:
the content is focused and pretty much provides all the information you would want to read before and after you subscribe to their services.

While will cant stop raving about the number of tv channels we have. From sports channels to countless news channels, spurring up programs every second every hour every day. To add to the delight, the EYE TV Network’s Masala TV is a channel dedicated for cooking, foods and recipes. I am not saying this from some research reports, but to the many friends, aunties and people I have talked to lately, Masala channel is the one being watched a lot these days. Even I know the names of few the chefs and the programs by now. I was obviously motivated to review their website. I searched and found it easily. It’s website: www. Masalatv.tv Initial impressions: To my surprise the website was really what you would expect a food and cooking channel’s website to be. It’s spicy, colorful and full of flavor. On a serious note, I think the color scheme, the layout and the intial look and feel is really aligned with the brand. So the moment you get to the website, you feel home, you feel the website is so closely related and is part of the channel. An obvious thing you might say, but a factor many brands ignore. Homepage clarity: the website poses a more portal like look, and keeping that in context, the homepage is pretty clear and neat. You can find the information you are looking for easily. It has a top tab based navigation and that provides more space fore the content downwards. Navigation and Ease of Use: the navigation is clearly labeled and easy to follow. The website is all flash, so there are technically no page loads and browsing and you stay on the same frame.

Content: the website has sufficient content but has a long way to go. Since the target market is women at home, who might come over to get the recipes and tips, adding social networking features will increase the returning visitors ration significantly. The videos provided are not working (at least for me)

Suggestions: adding more community features such as forums, blogs, share a recipe kind of things will add more “sugar and spice” to the website.

Overall a really good one!

related: AAJ TV Website Review Online

Today, we plan to review the website of one of the top and widely watched TV channels from Pakistan, ARY Digital.

Ary Digital is one of the channels of ARY Group.

Website Review:
For a long time I wanted to review the website of ARY. Every time i went there, I found a blank splash page and thought, why the hell is ARY not putting up their website! To my utter dismay, very recently I found out that the reason why I always found a blank page. It was because of the bloody firefox browser that I use. What a shame and pitty! With more than 16% of the Internet population now using FireFox, did no one in the organization pointed them out that their website is broken! . Anyway, I swallowed my agony and thought to review the website in IE. I opened up the first page, and found this FLASH SPLASH. I am always putt off by Splash pages, there are SO ninteys now. The splash page provided the option to choose any one of the four ARY Digital Websites which are

1. ARY Digital UK and Europe
2. ARY Digital Asia
3. ARY Digital Middle East
4. ARY Digital USA

I chose one of the options, obviously it was ARY Asia and landed on the homepage. (ARY Tried to open a pop-up for its website www.sahulatbazaar.co.uk, which the browser blocked) The homepage of ARY’s Website seemed run of the mill, but decent. It’s divided into boxes, where programs are featured by flash based banners again. The developers of ARY websites are IN LOVE with Flash. (remember ninteys again?) The site is then further divided into the various sections which are Profile, Programs, Schedule, How to get ARY, Contact Us and Downloads. Fine till here but wait.. what’s this annoying music running in the background… is there way to pause this music? Sorry no option, you can either switch off your speakers or stick some cotton in your ears while you do the browsing.. or else , how long am I supposed to listen to their background music? I opted to switch my speakers off (no cotton here).

Two of the links, schedules and programs don’t work. Amazing right? When you click the programs link, you are shown the promo banners again, yet clicking on those banners takes you nowhere. Whereas the schedule link is plain not working. Remember everything is in FLASH and I am just LOVING this website. How to get ARY provides technical info about the frequencies and all, and the contact link provides, well the contact information. Then the download section is there with some outdated content.

That’s about it. Oh yes, I almost forgot, right at the splash page, there is link named ARY TIMES. I was like, WOHA, what the hell is this, and clicked. It’s a PDF 14MB in size and comprises of interviews and program profiles.

My suggestions would be to provide a option to watch ARY LIVE on the web. Also to get rid of this excessive use of flash, make the website browser compatible, block those pop-up windows and put in some content.

related:
Ary One World News Website Review
The Musik Channel Website Review
QTV Pakistan Online Website Review
FTV Pakistan Online Website Review

After successfully launching the HEC Jobs Portal, today, our team at Binary Vibes has launched the HEC Online Book Store, “Monograph and Book”. It’s a conventional online bookstore, offering books and monographs for academia in Pakistan.

The Bookstore lists books from a wide variety of sections, including agriculture and veterinary, arts and humanities, biological science, business education, engineering, medication sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences.

Users can read user reviews (not many are available right now) and also rate books. Online payment options are limited at the moment, but more options will come soon, hopefully.

There’s also an e-newsletter, to keep the subscribers updated with the latest releases and news from HEC.

Link to HEC Online Bookstore

Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology & Telecom (MoITT), Ministry of Industries & Production (MOIP) SMEDA, and UNIDO have jointly been running Pakistan’s first B2B Online Portal, named IIN which stands for Industrial Information Network.

Website URL: http://b2b.iin.com.pk/

IIN B2B Portal in Pakistan, provides Pakistani businesses an opportunity to explore international markets, new technologies, and above all, provides a trade platform, where businesses can interact with each other.
B2B Portal Review

By signing up as a free member, you are free to post trade leads, and also follow the leads that are of interest to your business. The website provides an intuitive and easy platform for doing so.

Business Directory
There’s also a business directory section where IIN members are listed under their respective categories. The data right now is not overwhelming, but will grow with time.

Auctions
The Auctions section provides members a chance to place their products for open bidding, where others members can bid and buy the product. I personally think it’s a pretty useful feature for Small Businesses who cant afford to advertise their auctions in newspapers and handle it physically.

Get a Free Website
Wow! So if you are really on shoe string budget, you can get a free page, where you can upload your content and product images.

Information
Other than the web based tools, there’s some really good informational links such as the Business News section, shipping and logistics section, trade events sections

Areas of Improvement

1. Search Engine Friendliness
   The website is not built in a search engine friendly environment. The URLs and Meta information needs major revamp for the website to appear on competitive keywords.
2. Cross Browser Issues
   The website is not ideally compliant with Firefox.

Today in our website review series, we are going to review the website of GEO TV. GEO TV Network, owned by Independent Media Corporation is the largest media and publications group in Pakistan. Apart from GEO, the groups own, JANG, THE NEWS, GEO Entertainment, AAG TV, and various print publications which we will cover in the posts to come.


From many of you who don’t know, GEO has recently updated their website. The previous one wasn’t the kind of website you would not expect from a media group like them. The current and new website is by far a much better experience. Firstly it’s more readable, organized and the news presented on the website is more organized.

The main page is a 4-column design with navigation, current news, other web properties of geo and promotions getting their share respectively. The news is now presented in a blog like format, with a headline and an except which leads to the full story.

The banners are also placed well and do the user friendliness of the site is not compromised. In fact I am personally surprised as the group’s other properties such as JANG’s online version and the print version has an annoying number of ads with no regard for the reader/visitor.


Like any other TV channel website, the content of the website focuses on providing program information, and links to the regional versions of GEO, which are

• GEO UK Website
• GEO USA Website
• GEO ME Middle East Website
• GEO Canada Website
• GEO Europe Website
• GEO Japan

The Website also provides links to the websites of its own network, which are

• GEO Super Website
• AAG TV Website
• GEO Entertainment

if you are away from your television or in a place where you can’t watch GEO on TV, you can watch GEO TV Online or listen to Audio Live. This is really useful features while you are away from Pakistan, or the government decides to blackout all the TV channels! There is also a GEO Podcast section and RSS feeds for subscribers. And last but not the least, there’s now a GEO Blog, which covers the latest happenings in a more personalized way.

Today in our website analysis series, we will review www.ufone.com

Ufone is a subsidiary of Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd and is one of the top mobile service providers in Pakistan. Some stats published recently indicated that it currently holds the second highest number of subscribers

First Impressions
The website opens up to a well designed layout, carrying the brand’s color scheme. The good thing is that the orange color is used intelligently looks pretty neat. he homepage then features a neat navigation bar to help users navigate to the desired information pages. Apart from the navigation bar, the rest of the website is flash based. There are 3 main banners currently featuring, the latest promotions, products and services, and latest launched campaign respectively.

Under the featured banners, there is small sub-unit of banners for wallpapers, ring tones, and game, again all flash based. A small section on the bottom right corner features, tools and some interesting features such as special number auction.

Areas of Improvement

1. It was surprising to see no ufone online community. I even failed to find a newsletter subscription link (please point me out if there is one) also there were no options to connect and chat with other ufone online members. I think this area definitely needs improvement and development. See how sentiments express is using facebook (see, find us on facebook link)
2. Less usage of heavy graphics and flash can considerably increase the usability. By this I do not mean to take off the graphics and make the site look boring or unexciting. But for example all pages of the website carry a flash banner, which contains just graphics, and feels a little excessive.
3. 3. The sub-link in the navigation menu open up horizontally and since this creates less space for sub-links, the use of abbreviations is unavoidable. For example, under the Mobile Products Link, you will find links labeled as UIS, TQ, PDS etcetera which don’t make sense. Although I observed that tool tips are used to elaborate, I thought vertical navigation bar should have solved this problem.
   

Overall the website is in good form and should suffice to the needs of Ufone Customers.