Make a strong first impression. A Web site makes small businesses appear much larger than they are. The way your Web site handles technology of Internet — serving up Web pages, taking orders — can make visitors feel they are dealing with a large, established business. Check out WorldSpy (http://www.worldspy.com/). This company’s Web site gives customers impression it’s a large shopping mart, when in reality it’s staffed by a handful of employees.

Reduce your marketing costs. Putting up your Web site makes your marketing information available to millions. You can save cost of printing and mass mailing a brochure by publishing your Web site address on your letterhead and business cards.

The Web is a huge opportunity to launch or expand your business at a fraction of cost of offline world. If you’re considering a business or looking to expand, mastering Web should be a top marketing priority.

This is a tool for e-commerce. It is not intended to replace existing search engines or email permissive marketing techniques, it solves a problem these facilities are not very good at. It enables users to declare their intentions and enough about themselves so they are self- qualified at moment they make a search - and it enables you to reach them at just this key moment. Isn't this what you want to do?

For user, they remain completely anonymous, they are simply looking for virtual people who are just like themselves. We don't need to know their name, address or anything at all that can be used to identify them personally. The vexed privacy issue in target marketing is nicely sidestepped. There is no data collection or tracking involved. We know everyone but no one!

So take a new look at your web site. If you know who your customers are you now can think more about what you want to tell them - individually - in depth, they want to know. If, however, you don't know who your customers are then you have a perfect way of finding out. Your page stats will reflect distribution of people visiting, helping you to focus on repeat sales and lifetime custom. The possibilities are enormous and costs are trivial. I will be looking closer at both of these in follow up articles.