Identify Your Internet Business- Ask yourself why customers would come to your web site. Is it an extension of your bricks and mortar store? Or will it be a stand-alone operation? What can you provide that no one else can? Of what value is your site to customers? Even if you don't sell online, you need to answer these questions. Customers don't always come to a web site to buy products. Sometimes they come for information. Tell them about products you sell, give them your store hours and phone number, provide a map so they can find your shop. Even though you haven't sold them anything, you've given them value. Customers will come back to your site if you provide value.

Create a well designed, easy-to-use, fast, and functional web site- Your web site should have a clean, straightforward design. Customers don't like busy, cluttered web sites. A customer should be able to find a product in two mouse clicks. Any more and they feel like they're being led through a maze. Or worse, they may lose interest and leave.

Keep graphics and text simple and small. Animation and sound files can be interesting, but don't force customers to view these items in order to buy a product.

There are many options for managing orders. The most popular way to manage orders is through shopping cart technology. The customer goes through site and picks items s/he wants to buy. At check out, s/he fills in billing details and purchases items. Building a shopping cart requires programming knowledge or a software package that can manage behind scenes work.

Can customers pay online with a credit card? They increasingly like convenience of this. The order is placed quickly and they receive an instant confirmation receipt. However, your store must be enabled to accept online credit card purchases. This requires both a merchant account that accepts online orders and an electronic gateway that facilitates transaction.

Companies don't understand difference between Internet and "the Outernet," Ries' name for everything outside Web. "Taking your real world name and putting it on Internet is line extension and that is wrong on a fundamental level," pundit insists.

While many Internet mavens may disagree strongly with some of Ries' views on new economy, there is one important thing to remember. This man has been right about branding issues many, many times in past 35 years. And often his was a lone voice in forest.

"Branding for Internet is more important than in Outernet," says Ries, who invented concept of positioning products to achieve a share of mind with consumers. "That's because Internet has no visual clues to get you into a site."

BRAND INVISIBILITY Internet brands are invisible until you input brand name into keyboard. If you don't know brand name and how to spell it, no sale can happen. Therefore, online, name recognition is paramount.

In Outernet, you can walk past a shoe store and have something in window catch your eye. You can go inside, try on and buy a pair of shoes and walk away without really remembering name of shoe store. A similar experience can't happen on Internet because it lacks visual clues that can attract casual shoppers.

Ries disagrees with new economy observers who believe bricks and mortar companies can also sell online, and with those who say luxury items can be sold on Internet. Ries says Internet will turn out to be a place to find low prices, not high service.

Despite Web business' ability to automate many customer service functions and provide a convenient shopping experience, Ries says people will always want to touch, feel and try products before they buy.

Internet brands have an advantage where communication with customers is involved, Ries says. The Internet can provide better two-way communication with customers than real world stores. But it can't provide a smile and a cup of coffee while you shop.

ADVERTISING IS USELESS: PR IS KEY The most widespread misunderstanding of Internet, according to Ries is idea that advertising can be used to establish online brands. "Unless your site has some angle for creating news it isn't going to be successful. When you try to save situation by advertising, people ignore you. Yet most dot.coms are advertising because their names are unknown and they think advertising can solve problem. It can't."

Another widespread misconception is that search engines can direct a great amount of traffic to sites. Early on very few brands are strongly registered in mind so people have to use search engines, Ries says. People go to search engines now because we are still learning how to use Internet, Ries says, but he suggests that long-term they will become less important. As people continue to use Internet they will go directly to various sites.

What Internet businesses need to do before advertising is PR. "Unless you are relatively known - maybe not well-known -- but have some degree of presence in mind, advertising is almost sure to be a total waste."

While there's much talk about integrated marketing today, Ries says, "It usually has to do with launching a program with a big bang: using advertising, direct mail and publicity all at once. I am talking about sequential launches - launch with a massive publicity campaign. After gaining some name recognition and acceptance, shift to advertising for name reminders."

HIRE PR FIRMS FOR STRATEGY, NOT INK Dot.coms must have publicity, Ries maintains. "It's not easy to do, but if you tell me your site can't get any publicity I will tell you there is something wrong with site. Generally only first mover can get publicity - but there always is an opportunity to create news by narrowing focus."