By browsing the Harvard Business Review™, The Economist™ and similar bellwether business journals, one can quickly appreciate the importance of a thorough business and marketing plan to improve the likelihood of having a business succeed. And a web site is an important and highly visible part of a business marketing strategy, a frequently accessed and most important part. At HEI Consulting, we welcome enthusiastic entrepreneurs with open arms, but we believe that the enthusiasm must be tempered with a marketing plan to increase the likelihood of the web site meeting the client's objectives. And we can help that happen by ensuring good client understanding of the issues, helping to get the job done right without multiple iterations.

From a customer's perspective, a web site is there to help solve a problem. That's why an effective web site first and foremost provides information for the visitor — including aspects like who we are, what we are, why we should be your choice, how we can help and so forth. An effective web site's message is to make people aware of products, services or other similar aspects offered. Often, "institutional" web sites have less direct sell included, but usually include carefully crafted marketing messages and information to make a potential customer, investor or partner look favorably on the organization. At the other end of the spectrum are the storefront sites, where products are displayed on-line attractively as possible, to entice the visitor to purchase a company's products or services.

Site content needs to be carefully matched to the intended audience. One first must attract the visitor who might find your site from a casual web search, or who wants information about a particular widget or service. A carefully planned site will meet a client's need to solve some problem by facilitating their exploration, while carefully meeting both the visitor's and the organization's expectations, objectives and outcomes.

Imagine that your web site is like a magazine in a store. The search engine results are similar to someone glancing at the front cover — you then need to have the potential customer to pick it up and open it. What they then experience must provide a good feeling, that they have made a good decision, eliciting further exploration and activities relating back to the site's objectives. A visitor who only browses your site for 10 seconds or less is likely not going to be a return visitor — the longer the visit, the greater the probability that the site is fulfilling its objectives and the greater likelihood of a repeat visit.

And to get customers to return to your site, it must give your clients a helpful, satisfying experience. It must also be seem to the visitor, as a good resource for your product, service or benefit. With a successful site, people will tell their colleagues to visit as well!

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