It is important to understand local differences in online behaviour and digital business culture in the regions where your target market is situated.
Although websites in South Africa are mainly developed in English, there is opportunities for businesses to differentiate themselves from competition and to obtain community goodwill by developing their sites and other forms of digital presence into the home language of their target markets. We can develop websites in all South Africa’s official languages including English, Afrikaans, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho (Sesotho), Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu.
We develop websites, apps, software and digital business and online marketing consultation for clients in the following areas, where we also make an effort to adapt the design and content to appeal to local cultural preferences.
Gauteng's small business websites tend to be more interactive and less personal compared to the rest of South Africa. Web copy tend to follow formal or standard language rules more strictly while regional dialects are not adopted. E-commerce functionality are much more important compared to all surrounding provinces. It is very important for websites in Gauteng to adopt a writing style and design that facilitate the establish credibility and trust. Websites in Gauteng are under more pressure than create awareness and to differentiate the small business compared to all other provinces. Websites tend to convey a much more corporate feel compared to all other provinces in the country, especially in the case of Sandton and Rosebank. Pretoria websites tend to focus on specific neighbourhoods as target market, while Johannesburg websites focus more on cultural or sub-cultural market segments rather than narrowly focused neighbourhoods as target markets. There are huge opportunities for small businesses in Gauteng to use interactive websites to focus on niche markets, especially cultural and interest niches and "long tail" or rare products and services.
Mpumalanga websites tend to emphasize aesthetics and be more professionally designed compared to towns of similar economic status in other provinces. Highveld towns such as Witbank, Secunda and others tend to reflect politics more than in other areas we operate in. Middelburg websites reflect the Pretoria digital business tradition rather than that of Mpumalanga.
Free State websites tend to be simple and to-the-point, with a friendly and down to earth look and feel.
North West Province's digital culture are characterized by web copy that aim to appeal to the human desire for excitement, especially in Rustenburg, Brits and Klerksdorp. Hartebeespoort Dam websites follow Gauteng digital tradition rather than that of North West. Community cohesiveness reflects in websites of Brits, Potchefstroom and Lichtenburg. Digital business and marketing channels are not well adopted in the rest of the province.
Limpopo websites tend to be less interactive and more personal (except for high-end tourism websites). This is especially true for Polokwane, Mokopane and Tzaneen. Phalaborwa and Hoedspruit websites are generally more like websites found in Mpumalanga, while Thabazimbi websites tend to follow the website tradition of North West Province. Lephalale websites tend not to follow national trends.
Digital culture in Africa tend to be set in 3 main centers on the continent, i.e. South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. South Africa is the area we specialize in but we are also in a very good position to develop websites, apps and software for the rest of southern Africa, eastern, central and western Africa. Our team have African experience, and can develop content in any of Africa’s major languages. We also know the business and social culture of the different parts of Africa very well. Websites, apps and software in Africa needs to be able to handle low connectivity and offline very well, and should not be data intensive. Cultural sensitivity is very important for all forms of digital presence. Competitive positioning of apps and software should usually fall within the high value for money and aspirational categories. There is a huge need for web services, digital business models, apps and software that facilitate technological leapfrogging.
We can develop websites, apps and software for clients in Afrikaans (South Africa and Namibia), English, French, Portuguese (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe), Spanish (Equatorial Guinea, Western Sahara, Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla), Chewa (Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe), Swahili (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, national language of Democratic Republic of Congo), Shona (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana), Sindebele (Zimbabwe), Tswana (South Africa and Botswana), Swati (South Africa and Swaziland) and Sesotho (South Africa and Lesotho).
South Africa is an excellent country to outsource web and software development projects to because we have highly skilled software professionals whose skills is available at very reasonable rates. We can do the following web development work for global clients: