This post is about a very big point that almost every e-commerce site misses. Here it is:

Most e-commerce sites aim at that little green circle: they only cater for visitors who are actively looking to buy. This makes sense to them because their business model is purely to cater for active buyers. Shops have been doing exactly this for years offline & it’s worked perfectly well, so why do things different online? Why would you want to focus on more than just active buyers?

Keep Reading this entry –»
 

Small Businesses (at least those that don’t totally revolve around the internet) generally have two thoughts when it comes to the web:

1. “We need a website”
2. “We need to get to the top of Google”

You may need one or both of those, but, before spending a lot of time and money to get there, it’s a good idea to ask why you need them. Why do you need a website? A website (just like a top google ranking for any particular keyword) is really just a ‘means to an end’. Yet each of these is often treated as an end in itself. Businesses are often happy to spend a lot of money on a website without much consideration of the return they’re likely to see, or how it benefits them.

How To Figure Out If You Need A Website

Before you jump into the process of putting a website together (or making changes to your current site), it’s important to work out how you can benefit. Unless you are fully clear on the end result you’re trying to achieve, you risk (at best) not achieving your potential and (at worst) wasting a lot of money on something that doesn’t really help you at all.

Before spending time and money on your website, try to answer these questions:

1. What’s your vision for your business? What are you trying to achieve?
2. How could a website push you closer to that vision?
3. Who do you need to get to that website to support that? How will you get them there?
4. What do your website visitors need to do to push you toward your goals?
5. How will you measure your success?
If you can’t answer question 2 with any certainty, it’s worth speaking to a few web firms or consultants and asking them that specific question before spending your money.If you can answer question 2 with certainty, make sure that your web designer, employees & partners each understands the end result that your website is designed to achieve.