A few years ago, it was a quite a chore to acquire information or brochures on the competition. Today, you can easily learn a lot about different businesses (and competitors) online.

Start your market research by looking at least ten websites of your competitors or businesses like yours around the country. This will help you to get a feel for the kind of information being presented by others and the overall purpose and intentions of other websites.

What Works Well and What Does Not?

This exercise is not to see what everyone else is doing and to copy them, but to see what is working well and what is not. This research will also allow you to see how you might be different from your competition, or to exploit a perceived weakness in a competitor by your target audience.

You may even want to e-mail the webmaster websites you find particularly well done, and ask questions about the website, unless it is a local competitor. When reviewing websites, look at them critically—look for static, unimaginative, difficult to use or web sites which have long downloads.

These are all things you will want to avoid in your web site.

When you find a few websites that have that special quality or combination of features that all seem to work together well, bookmark the site for a later review and make a hard copy printout. Also, make some notes on specifically what it is that makes you really respond well to a web site.

You may be surprised to find that it may not always be great graphics, but rather unique functions such as a database, great content or well-organized information.

Primary Web Site Goals

Now that you've done some market research, let's move to the next step: Define the primary goal of your web site. In the rush to establish a presence on the web, it's easy to overlook the obvious—what do you want your web site to do?

• Is the purpose of your web site to generate leads?
• Or is the purpose of your web site to tell potential customers simply who you are and what you do?
• Is the purpose of your web site to distribute information or offer on-line customer service?
• Or is the purpose of your web site to sell products and services?
• Or a combination of all of the above?

Write down the goals of your website. Think of your website as having one primary goal or function and perhaps two or three secondary goals. If you get caught up in trying to make your web site do too many primary goals, your web site will be all things to all people, and will probably not be very effective.

Whether you have an established business or you're about to launch a brand new business, make sure that your website is integrated into an overall marketing plan. While there have been some great website success stories, there have also been many disappointed companies who made their web site their primary or only marketing vehicle.

Ideally, your website should be a robust tool which fits neatly into your overall marketing plan, helping your company to pre-qualify leads, provide promotions, build prospect lists and other tasks so you can reach and exceed your marketing goals.

A common mistake made by businesses today is to spend the entire web site budget on creating the website but then limiting the marketing of the web site to search engine listings.

This is no different from a new restaurant spending all their startup capital on the restaurant's furnishings and kitchen equipment, and then having no money to let the community know they're in business. It's always a good idea to have a marketing budget and plan that helps you to drive visitors to your website.

To Sell or Not to Sell . . .

Soft sell, hard sell or no sell? Should your website sell for you or not?

In many ways creating a web site is like creating a brochure about your business and many web sites are created to work just like a brochure. But brochures or websites can't really replace the sales process, unless you are selling tangible products that website visitors can easily decided to purchase.

What does a good brochure accomplish?

A good brochure  tells the reader who the company is, what the company does and where they are located. Other brochures actually sell by focusing on all the many selling points or benefits of the product or service. A website can be a combination of the two.

Do not overlook the fact that your website can do something no brochure can do. Your website can collect information about what a potential client is interested in.

By letting the web site visitor request information (printed brochure, newsletter or other information) you can capture his or her e-mail address, phone number and area of interest and know more about the prospect when calling them.

Communicate with your reader

Besides just listing your company's capabilities on your web site, be sure to profile your successes. Be sure to mention major accounts or names of businesses that a website visitor might recognize. The fact that you have helped other companies large or small to solve a business problem will make them feel more comfortable with you.

Last, but not least, don't try to do everything at once. Create your web site in stages.

First create a general web presence and accomplish the primary goal of your web site. Phasing in additional website content or capabilities over several months and be sure not to neglect marketing your web site to reach your target market.