Like no other time in the history of mankind, small and medium sized businesses have the ability to intensely compete with large companies. The Internet opened up a whole new marketplace where business size does not directly correlate to competitive power. The catch is, to be successful on the Internet, one must learn a new paradigm of how to do business. The information age has taken over the industrial age. Many rules have changed. The successful learn and diligently practice those new rules.

The Zero Sum Game

Too many Internet consultants promise, kind of promise, hint at, or downright lie about their ability to get your site organically listed on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and MSN for your keywords. The fact of the matter is, they all can't, because in this regard it is a zero sum game. There are only a limited number of prime spots, some say 10, others say 30, but whatever the objective, if there are 100 companies competing for those precious 30 spots, not everyone is going to get in. And when you search for one of your terms and see that there were 6,456,900 pages competing for that keyword, you know the competition is a lot higher than 100.

The fact of the matter is, the Internet is growing so rapidly and in complexity, it is difficult for any organization to be a master of all elements. To be successful on the Internet, these are some of the disciplines that need to be addressed:

Market Research

Success on the Internet starts with market research. Before a website is even thought of, one must determine that the market would benefit from another website. One needs to look at the various products and services that can be offered, how many customers there are, who the customer is, and what are their buying habits.

Web Design and Page Layout

Once market research is performed, one can start looking at Website designs, layouts, color themes, and how they want the pages to look like. We are avid fans of content management systems (CMS) that allow for powerful back end control, easy ability for clients to add/modify/delete content, and systems that automate routine tasks. Most CMS platforms have providers of templates offering styling, layout, and typography suitable for the market.

Content Creation and Scheduling

Copywriting: The art of writing content for the web.It's not as easy as it sounds. Internet viewers are not like paper readers. Internet viewers usually scan a screen seeing only the highlights of a page. Add to it the challenge that success on the Internet comes from owning your fair share of the Internet. These days, a site that isn't changing and growing, is dying. Take a look in various Internet directories and click on some of the blog's and sites listed. You'll find many are up for sale and no longer active. As these sites disappear, countless others are coming to take its place. To stay competitive, a site needs rich content that is consistent with the theme of the site. Content needs to be planned and scheduled, accounting for the various seasonal or business cycles.

Traffic Generation

Without visitors you have a website that is nothing more than a brochure sitting on a table under a stack of newspapers. It's lost. Fortunately there are many ways to generate traffic to your site. Many are free. Others cost a little to a lot. It all depends on how fast and how many you want. Here the 80/20 rule applies. Of all the traffic generation techniques available, a few will do the majority of the work.

Website Monetization

How will the site generate revenue? Does it sell a single product, multiple products, or does it count on advertising or affiliate revenue? However it is monetized, the site needs to make it easy for visitors to take the desired actions. Sites today need to monitor what's working, what's not working, and emphasize the former. Generating additional revenue may involve some creative thinking. The new business rules definitely apply to website monetization.

Competitive Analysis

As a site is being developed, it is always beneficial to review the competition, see what they are doing, what keywords they are going after, and how they are monetized. Today there are many tools that can gather this information. Unfortunately, just as it is easy for you to gather the info on your competitors, they are also gathering it on you. This is where a clear understanding of a fundamental truth about the Internet is mandatory. The truth is that success on the Internet is not as simple as putting up a website and they will come. It is a business that takes constant care and developing. Let's say that you displace a competitor for the #5 spot on Google for your best keyword. Maybe others are also making changes and this particular company drops off the first page and down to the 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th page. When they realize this, the game continues where they will make changes trying to reclaim their spot. If you don't maintain the competitive edge, you will lose ground.

Web Analytics - It's All in the Numbers

Web analytics, or web statistics, are what can make a marginally successful site a hugely successful site. Web analytics provides actionable information you can use to give your visitors what they want to see. How will you know what they want? The numbers will tell you. Besides the usual unique visitors and page views, the data can tell you what search terms were used to find you, what pages they came in to, what pages they left from, how long they stayed, how many pages they saw, etc. Every web analytics package offers more data than most can ever look at. Smartly using the key data will save time and money.

Lakeside Analytics, Inc. Makes it Easy

We offer consulting services for small to medium sized businesses. We do it in a way that is simple and affordable. Since consulting is only a portion of what we do, we only have a limited number of hours we can adequately devote for optimal results. In any given month, we offer 4 packages of 10 hours of consulting time. Each package of 10 hours is $1,500.00.

If your requirements demand more than 10 hours of time in a month, upon availability, a 2nd and additional packages of 10 hours can be acquired for an additional $1,500.00 each.

We are flexible. While it is often beneficial, depending on your needs, to lock in a 3, 4, or 6 month block, we can also work on a month to month basis.

Contact us to let us know your needs. Send us an e-mail and explain what you are looking for, what is your time frame, and what kind of results you would like to see.