'Lihong Real Estate Services Interview'

Name of your website?

Lihong Real Estate Services

Your name?

Allan Tan

Your Location (city, etc)

Beijing

Please give us a short summary of your website?

Properties for lease in Beijing targeted at expatriate families relocating to the city.

What inspired you to launch your own website?

A window to the world. Show potential clients what we do and how we do it.

When did you launch your first website, and what was it?

2000, www.home2nest.com

How did you decide on a name for your website?

My wife's name - we're a family business.

What makes it different from other, similar offerings?

Critical structured information and an iterative search process. User friendly interface.

What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)

Increase functionality and improve content quality and accuracy. Ultimately, to ease the process of finding a home in the city.

How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?

The site does pay off, but mainly in providing information for clients we have acquired via non-web means.

If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?

It is an on-going project so features are being added each month. Being in China, I wish I could buy the bandwidth to be able to host locally, but speeds are too slow.

If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?

Yes, a quick hardware upgrade would do the trick. We have constructed the site with scalability in mind.

What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?

Slow internet access in China.

What has been your biggest challenge?

Finding the right people to write efficient and secure code.

What method has been most successful for promoting your website?

Google Adwords, but there are too many advertisers in the category pushing up costs.

How has running your website differed from your expectations?

I've learnt that content is king.

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 current site has been running for 2 months, but we've had a website for 7 years.

Could you run your business without the website.

Yes we could, but it would be difficult for us to differentiate ourselves from the competition and provide an insight into the kind of company we are.

What is your website address?

Lihong Real Estate Services

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