I have been working commercially on the internet since 1999 it’s been fascinating to see the explosion of virtual trading over the past decade.

Everyone now has a web site and they been convinced by family, friends, consultants or designers that the internet is essential for their companies long term growth. It’s true to say that every year web activity grows exponentially and more business is migrating online.

E-commerce is not just about putting up a few pages on the Internet to highlight your company or your facility. It’s a shop window to the world and it’s your opportunity to stand out from the crowd. You need to think why would prospective and current customers come to your site and why is it going to add anything to their lives. The web provides a wealth of free information and content and if you don’t give prospects and customers a good reason to visit your site, quite frankly why will they.

Most people now use the internet for research. It might be for finding a restaurant, a holiday, a car, music, friendship or just free stuff, the list is endless.

But most importantly they use it to compare the different service providers. So if your competitors web site is easier to use or it has some great content that makes prospective customers lives enriched or it just appears higher in Google’s search engine.

Guess where those prospects are placing their business?