This is intended to be the top 10 IT and ITES sites, while we are compiling the list, do send in your suggestions for the list

Introduction

Most companies believe their business will benefit from leveraging the internet, but only a precious few have succeeded in translating that belief into financial success. What separates the successful ones from the rest is having a comprehensive online strategy before spending money on a shiny website or buying some fancy web applications and technology.

In the Indian context, poor broadband penetration has been cited as an excuse for companies to invest very little in the online media. Often it’s just that: an excuse. Examples of successful enterprises abound in the Indian online arena, not only in the conventional domains like recruiting, travel ticketing, matrimonial and financial markets but also in non-transactional models like real estate, services, consulting, education, hospitality and many others. If you still don’t have a good web strategy in place an unique opportunity may be whooshing past you, soon the Indian online space is going to be crowded beyond recognition and you may be left paying catch up instead of establishing an early advantage.

We have been repeatedly surprised by how many large companies in India have no real answer when we ask them about their online strategy; in fact some confuse having a website with having a web strategy. The situation is no better with the more nimble and dynamic mid sized and small firms, they are often spending 40-50% more on offline media, to address challenges that can be solved effectively online.

Ironically the web is the one place where marketing is truly flat; you have the same 15 inch (give or take) screen to talk to your consumer as does a multi billion dollar enterprise. Compare that to marketing in the conventional media, a large enterprise can drown your display advert with a full page blitz or dwarf your outdoor campaign by covering an entire building! In other words, scale in the online world is not about size, it’s about creativity and reach.

Granted that big money can buy big reach, but the smart move is to go after targeted reach. It’s like using a sniper rifle while others are spraying bullets with a machine gun. Since ROI lies in targets acquired per bullet, you know who the winner will be. Following are some steps to a successful online strategy.

To go online or not

Identifying challenges that can be addressed online and those that are better left offline is a key question to consider. As a general rule if your target consumer is online or has influencing members who are online, you can reach them for brand awareness, sales, recruitment, promotions, brand recall and increasing your network reach to name a few. If your organization is interested in any of the above, its game on! Pick your reasons and remember to set tangible short term and long term goals, so you can evaluate success.

Build it before you market it

Once you know why you are online, its time to package the offering correctly. In many cases it’s your website that creates the first impression. A few important points to remember while building your site are:

1. Keep it simple; do not make it a challenge for the visitor to find information. If you must make things flash and jump around on a web page, get a personal webpage and knock yourself out.
2. Do your company a favor and build WebPages that a search engine can find, do not hide your most valuable information deep inside a database.
3. Ensure your content is crisp, concise and error free. Get a copywriter to give your content a once over if needed, and choose appropriate imagery, its best to click your own pictures and give the stock shots a miss if you can.
4. Update, update and update. If your “latest news” section says “company picnic – Jan 2004”. The visitor is left wondering if you are still in business.

Marketing and positioning for success

Its Google’s online world, we just surf in it! If your site is not featuring well on hugely popular search engines like Google, a large section of consumers can’t reach you. Many believe it must be costly to advertise there, but the reality is that these systems run on a pay-for-performance model, you do not pay for the thousands of times your advert is displayed but only for the times a visitor actually reaches your site. What’s more you also get to decide how much you pay per visitor and overall budget.

Innovate to Succeed

One of the key objectives of xtde is to help companies build innovative and cost effective web strategies as alternatives to paid advertising. Some of the strategies one could explore are leveraging social networks, corporate bloging, establishing thought leadership, back link building, viral marketing and organic listing strategies. The entire online ecosystem was built on innovations and it still hold true that an innovative campaign can outperform a large conventional one.