A good Web strategy works with your business strategy to create a website that meets your business goals. Once you've started building a Web presence, you want to think about how your website can improve your business. Strategy includes community, personalization, your content, ecommerce.

Business websites are different from personal Web pages. They require a lot of thought and control so that they send the right message and keep the site successful. Do you always set up business websites with a specific analytics package? Or maybe you feel that ecommerce is critical and should never be left out? What are the most important tools you use to build and maintain a business website?

Business websites are different from personal Web pages. They require a lot of thought and control so that they send the right message and keep the site successful. Do you always set up business websites with a specific analytics package? Or maybe you feel that ecommerce is critical and should never be left out? What are the most important tools you use to build and maintain a business website?

What is Important?

Not too wordy
Make it short and sweet...concise. I don't have time to read your drivel (no offense), Just give me the info, then we're done.

Navigation
Make the navigation CLEAR -no "mystery meat" navigation. Also, what kind of business, what do you do - ought to be on the home page.

standard retail site features
I'm thinking retail right now. I usually offer a db-driven catalog (they can upload photos to any item), a subscription/newsletter feature for sending out specials, a testimonials component, and a shopping cart (if they want to do ecommerce). An events calendar can double up as a listing of scheduled specials. So far, a blogging feature is not turning any of my retail client's heads. The thing that they seem to need is help in writing content -- we might not see this as a feature, but to most clients it clearly is value.

Opt - in - Box
It is really important to have a place you can capture visitor information - give away something of value in exchange for an email an name so you can notify people of specials or new items when they become available

Who Am I Doing Business With?
The number of anonymous sites out there is endless. So I make sure to include some background information about the people running the show, and images if possible. Potential clients have expressed to me that getting to know a company via the website and seeing a picture of who they will be working with, made a difference in their decision to hire. And there’s the testimonial. People love a good referral even if they do not know the personal giving the referral. It is another glimpse at what you might get or experience when doing business with a particular company. Your site can stand out if you can show your visitors who you are and what you can deliver.

Web Strategy
Perhaps the question should be what should NOT be on a business web site. Being forced to register (presumably so I can be added to their database) before being allowed to find the most basic of information. Perhaps worse is filling out a d@*!> form and then waiting for a slow auto-responder to send authorization.

5 Critical Items for Business Website
1. Content Management System. 2. eCommerce. 3. Customer Relationship Management 4. eMail Marketing. 5. Analytics If you don't have these, you have a website only, NOT a Online Business, Just my thoughts, Thanks, Peter.

Navigation
Make a business site easy to navigate. If your business site is too difficult to get from one place to another, people won't come back.

Make it easy to contact
I hate business pages that play games with their contact iformation. If you want to do business with me, prove that you're a professional business and provide a way for me to contact you. Phone (preferably free) and email are best. Stupid forms that lead to nothing are the worst. Okay, 2nd worst, worst is no contact information at all.