Pad and Pen: Beyond Code: Getting Intelligent About the Business

This may shock a few of you, but running a successful commercial website is and always will be about the business. The most comprehensive software component can't help you, unless you can tie it back to a measurable business need. So before you go and hire that dream team of webdesigners, start with a checklist. You'll be happy you did.

Establishing Business Requirements
You can't nor should you expect your hotshot designer to cover all aspects of your web enterprise. If you haven't taken the time to document your business from start to end, why would he? The only way your site will ever meet your expectations is to be able accurately communicate business requirements.

What do established business requirements do for you?

Help you to define your ROI
Assist you in moving the business forward
Gives your marketing folks a frame of reference.
Provides accountability for your business and its stakeholders
Helps you prioritize your next projects
Your Business Begins with You
The business starts with you, and moves downward to the project manager, the designer, your data modeler, and primary stakeholders. Anyone and everyone who works on the business, should know the business. As owner and operator of your ebusiness that mission begins with you. As you develop a roadmap towards success, there are a few things you should have in mind before you begin your hiring process.

Setting the Marketing Trend
If you are in business, you will need to sell or promote your services in one way or another.You'll want to establish some reasonable goals based on your research. Think of a marketing plan as a road map to assist you in setting and realizing goals while keeping you on course.

Your marketing plan is a crucial element of the overall business plan.Your marketing objectives should help you to generate and realize sales objectives. It has the secondary function of helping you better define your business model in relationship to those sales.

Ultimately, site success depends on how well your site performs with respect to those goals. Measuring actual results against those goals tells you how well your site is succeeding and ultimately, this provides you with one of your most valuable commodities of your business, a benchmark.

Developing the Content Plan
Smart businesses value the importance of content, but successful ones thrive on it. Plan the appropriate care and feeding of your web content before you even hire your webdesigner. Let your business define your content. Plan your content early and document it via a calendar. This should help you visualize the business/content need. Finally, consider your content as a way of shaking hands with your customers.

Good Content Should be:

Timely.Your writing topic should be reflective of the industry and its ongoing changes. Be prepared to research your content, as to address real customer needs.

Persuasive. Don't just write content, move your reader through to the next steps. Build your relationship with customers. Think conversion.
Targeted. Write to your audience or segments. View your logfiles for popular content groups and relevant key search words. This should help you define what content your customers associate your brand with or need.

Searchable. Don't forgot, your readers can't read, what they can't find. Pay very close attention to metadata. Consider pay per click opportunities, in addition to page optimization techniques, overall.

Summary
Starting your online business can be daunting. It's a difficult thing to accomplish from start to finish. Talk to people who have already started their web enterprise, they may have some insight into what you are about to begin. Review the steps provided to you in this article and you will likely find the process successful and rewarding.

Find out how Metaclix can help you optimize your business