You can spend hours, days, weeks or even months getting your website to look wonderful. There is nothing in world that feels beats feeling you get when someone comes to at your site and tells you that it looks great. All your hard work has paid off!

But has it? Apart from looking good your site has to work smoothly for it to be successful.

By looking good I don't mean that it has to have loads of pictures and graphics and animated gifs. In fact opposite is often case. A well designed site that is clear and simple to navigate will stand head and shoulders above one that is full of complex graphics making it visually confusing. Just remember, when it comes to website design, LESS is MORE.

OK, so you have kept site clean and simple. That's a great start. But not only must it look great it has to work smoothly and that means regular maintenance and checking.

There is nothing more frustrating than to visit a site offering say a software product where you read synopsis on home page and you are interested in what program could do you for you. You want more information, so you clink link marked "Detailed Product Information". What happens? The page can't be found. You try again, and again page still can't be found. Are you impressed? No, not at all, particularly if site belongs to a company that is supposed to specialise in software programs designed for analysis of surveys carried out on web!

Precisely this happened to me today with a company I read about in a professional market research journal. I gave up on this site and checked out site of one of their competitors - and all their links worked perfectly and their product looked every bit as attractive. Guess which company I would choose if I decide to buy package?

As business people we look at many propositions that will help us take that next, much desired growth step. We hear that we must "brand" ourselves and be easy to do business with. The list of ideas goes on and on.

THE GOLD MINE IN YOUR BACKYARD

Many people overlook how hard (and expensive) it is to create a new customer. Yet, we focus most of our time and energy in just this area, thinking that if we just could get more customers we would achieve our goals. But what about getting more OUT OF your customers?

If you have been around for a while you have a customer list. That list is GOLD. Please understand that I am NOT talking about renting out your customer list of email addresses. What I AM talking about it approaching those customers, who know you and trust you already, with a totally new and different product.