Find the Sweet Spot for Your E-Business© James Lewin
Oct 8, 2000
Anyone building a web site should start with three common steps. Failing
to follow these steps is a sure way to waste money and may lead to an
unsuccessful site.
These steps are:
- Setting goals for the site. Why are you building the site?
There may be many reasons. Some of the reasons may overlap each other,
and some may conflict with each other. Some common reasons for
building a site are: getting additional exposure, selling products,
and offering services such as customer service. List these reasons for
putting up a site, and then condense them down to a short list
of site goals.
- Determining the audience. Who do you want to attract? Your
audience springs from your goals. For example, if the goal of your
site is to sell products, you obviously want to determine the
demographics of people that are likely to buy your products. On the
other hand, if your main goal is offering customer service on the web,
you know your audience is going to be people that have purchased your
product. When you determine your audience or audiences, make sure that
you don't limit your vision by your offline experience.
- Determining the goals of your audience. What do visitors to
your site want? It's usually best to get this information straight
from the source. Talk to the people that use your site, or that you
expect to use your site. Some of their goals may be looking for the
best deal on your product of service, finding out information about
your product or service, or getting customer service.
Often, businesses don't take the time to set goals and determine their
audience. This results in an unfocused site that meets no one's
expectations. Users come and can't find what they want, while the site
owners don't get a good return on their investment.
There is no way that anyone involved in a e-business web project can
properly do their job without knowing the audience and goals. Setting
goals and determining your audience should come before everything else.
The goals for the site should be set in writing, along with a description
of each of your audiences.
If you have a site and haven't done this, take the time to do this! Do
it before you do anything else on your site, and before you spend
any more money on it. If you use outside consultants and they aren't
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The copyright of the article Find the Sweet Spot for Your E-Business in E-Business Basics is owned by James Lewin. Permission to republish Find the Sweet Spot for Your E-Business in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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