In this article:

• The difference between building a website and creating opportunities
• Designing websites with search engines in mind (CATTLE)
• Using technology to build an online reputation

Fundamentally, business is about creating value that customers are willing to pay for.  And at its most base level, customers buy products and services for what they help accomplish and how they make them feel.

But rarely do customers buy for technology for technology’s sake — most don’t even want to think about it.  A cell phone is a great example.  It helps people keep in touch with their family, friends, and colleagues in a way few would have imagined just a few decades ago.

People don’t want to think about cell phone towers and radio spectrum.  They want to communicate with other people conveniently and immediately.  Even technologists who always buy the latest phones aren’t buying the latest EV-DO capable handsets with MP3 capabilities — they’re buying a satisfaction to their curiosity, which makes them feel like they’re on the cutting edge.

So when people come to me with their businesses, I feel it’s critically important for me not to emphasize the technology (which is my responsibility for my clients), but to translate the technology into the opportunities it provides.
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In this article:

• Determining the lifetime value of a customer
• Choosing the right customers to focus on
• Developing higher value customer relationships (CARLA)
• Building an effective referral system

Earning the business of a new customer is six to seven times more expensive than retaining an existing one according to Bain & Company director emeritus and author of The Loyalty Effect, Frederick Richheld.  So it makes sense to focus marketing efforts, not only on new customer acquisition, but also on increasing the lifetime value of your existing customers.
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In this article:

• Understanding the goals behind your web presence
• What makes a web presence successful
• Investing vs. advertising, and doing both at the same time

When I talk with people about their Internet presences — not just their websites but the development of their reputation on the Internet — I almost never talk about the underlying technology first.

To me, it’s more important to understand their underlying goals and what people want to accomplish by establishing a presence online. Their goals usually fall into one of three categories, which help shape the framework of the project and how much potential is has for their businesses.
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In this article:

• Why some websites won’t return your investment
• What a good-looking website can and can’t do
• The 5 C’s for building productive websites

One of the most common issues I hear from clients is that they built a website but aren’t getting any return on their investment.  The complaint is the same from clients who spent a small fortune at an ad agency to ones who tried to cut a few corners: no ROI.

The problem is so pervasive that many businesses not doing e-commerce think of websites purely as cost centers or online brochures and not as a steady source of leads and revenue.  Companies using this type of conventional wisdom are leaving money on the table.
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