My personal favourite is Search Engine Optimisation - SEO - always. A new business start-up has to struggle with visibility - with over 4 billion webpages indexed, what is there to recommend a site ranks better than all the other competing pages? Therefore you need the visibility to generate targeted sales traffic.
Sure - you can try and do that with PPC such as Google AdWords or through Overture. But, these is a continuing expense, and it doesn't establish your business - once the PPC ends, so does your visibility. So I'd actually couple PPc with SEO.
SEO creates vsibility - and if the SEO campaign is done right, then that visibility will be long-lasting. It is, in effect, an investment that doesn't simply get traffic through the door, but also
maintains traffic flow - which IMO is the most important consideration in that regard.
Of course, the SEO industry is full of sharks and non-achievers offering glittering marketing phrases and empty promises regarding SEO. Primarily the pitfalls are people offernig automated software (no hope to rank with any), or else amateur SEO's who think that a few on-page elements and a couple of directory submissions are all that's required.
Links are the currency of visibility, and at the heart of commercial rankings for commercial phrases - if you ever look into SEO services then do ask about link-building first, and the number involved. Personally speaking, I routinely create around 5000-10,000 links a day, and for a 6-month SEO campaign will generally offer around 100,000 backlinks, before guarantees for specific terms. So do shop around, and don't at all be fooled by amateur looking sites and flashy promises.
That's the next part - presentation - as a sloppy website isn't going to invite custom. However, neither is a technically brilliant Flash site if most of your clients are modem-based and don't care to wait 5 minutes for the Flash to load up.
And, of course, within presentation issues you have the balancing of graphics vs page loading speed, PLUS you must be able to
deliver
information
quickly,
clearly
and easily
otherwise your visitors click out before you've hooked them.
Of course - and this is the key issue - you must be aware of who you are targeting.
For example, I'm just finishing a redesign of my britecorp site -
www.britecorp.co.uk - I know that in marketing terms it would help to add flashy marketing phrases - promises of profits, etc. But I'm not actually taregeting the wider internet - I'm targeting the local market first. So it's a case of providing information for my local clients first, and worry about wider internet users second.
Author