Name of your website?Samui Real Estate Locatore
Your name?
John Smalls
Your Location (city, etc)
Koh Samui, Surat Thani, Thailand
Please give us a short summary of your website?
A real estate website focused on bringing quality listings to an international audience in an easy to use and convenient format.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Trapped in a real estate business, as an employee. Recognized that marketing shortfalls were limiting the customer base and lead generation so significantly that the business owner decided to close. Decided to take up the challenge, and start a brand new business focused producing a website that attracts clients, and provides us with the opportunity to find them their perfect dream homes in Koh Samui
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This is the very first website my wife and I have produced. As we have coped with the trials and efforts of designing a workable and attractive website, we are now realizing the extent and efforts required to produce something different from our competitors.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
The name has been based around key words Samui Real Estate. We hope this gives us some more ranking points.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Our website provides a number of ways to search and we hope is easy to navigate around. We have purposely used large photographs and descriptive text for each property listing. We hope this give our viewers a lovely platform to search for properties for sale and rent.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Our goal is to support or lifestyle on Koh Samui, in this tropical Island resort destination. We are happy to run this as a full time family business.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Hoping to make some sales in the early part of 2009. It takes time to get results and the property sales market in Koh Samui is flat, making sure that we have to put maximum efforts in to create a successful business. We would expect nothing else.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Employ professional Search Engine Optimization specialist, to confirm we have designed and written a nice website that the search engines consider for high ranking.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
We don't expect a large demand, as our clients take their time before coming to koh Samui and then may make many visits before purchasing property here. We would have the opportunity to employ local staff if we are able to make sales ahead of our forecasts.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Delays in completion of the website, and additional designer hours have added to the overall cost. Our designer, Phuket Design based in Phuket Koh Samui have agreed to extended terms for the additional costs. Considerations now are turning more to SEO for page ranking which is essential in our market.
What has been your biggest challenge?
To manage our own expectations, and remember that we are new in this local market. We hope to make more of an impact in the later part of 2009.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
To soom to answer this question, we are still in the early stages, having just submitted our site.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Yes, although have found that as the design process has progress, have started to understand some of the HTML programming which will improve content and quality of our real estate website.
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?
We are in the real estate business in Koh Samui for the long term, and expect to develop our business slowly over the coming months and years.
What is your website address?
Samui Real Estate Locatore
