A: That is a question that has been asked by every business person who has ever launched a website. If I build it, will they come? Of course they will -- if you've built a website that appeals to dead baseball players.

For those of you who didn't get "Field of Dreams" reference, let me put it this way: No, Sean, if you build it they will not come, at least not without some effort on your part.

Assuming that a website will automatically attract customers is single biggest mistake that many business owners make. It is this mistake that eventually leads them to dismiss their website as a failure and abandon their online sales efforts.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard a client say, "Well, I threw up a website, but nobody ever came to it and I didn't sell a single thing from it! Dang thing was a waste of time, if you ask me …"

Forgive me, but "threw up" is operative term there. These short-sighted entrepreneurs (God love them) mistakenly think that all they have to do is throw up a website and that their business will automatically double overnight. And when nothing happens they blame it on infallibility of Internet, on El Nino, on Bosa Nova, on their customers… everything but their own lack of marketing efforts.

If you build it, will they come? That, Sean, depends totally on you.

When it comes to attracting customers, opening an online business (or an online branch of an existing business) is no different from opening a traditional brick and mortar shop. Without a little fanfare and a well-devised marketing plan, chances are your website will become just another spot of roadkill on Information Superhighway.

The first step in devising your marketing plan is to ask yourself this question: Who is my customer? Who is it that I want to attract to my website? Believe it or not, this is a question many entrepreneurs fail to ask. The identity of your customer is incredibly important because if you don't know who your customer is, how can you expect to market to them?

The next question concerns locality of your customer. Do you want to attract a local or global clientele to your website? If answer is local, then you will gear your marketing efforts toward customers in your own backyard, which means incorporating your website launch with your offline marketing efforts.

If website is online branch of a brick and mortar business, include website URL in all your print materials and advertising campaigns. Consider running ads in local paper, on radio or TV announcing launch of your site. Use direct mail or in-store posters to announce site launch to your existing customer base.

In short, keep doing what you're doing to attract customers to your physical store, just add your website address to mix.

Just remember, it's important to consider your website a branch of your brick and mortar business because that's exactly what it is. A good business website will help you sell more products, widen your range of clientele, and increase your revenue without adding overhead. Don't sell your website short. Make it work for you.

There a many opinions and conclusions being expressed by so called “experts” at this time. We can’t turn a blind eye to all this information but nothing will replace our own logic and powers of observation. I would like to take a minute to summarize and express my own observations. Some will obviously disagree with these statements and views. Such is nature of free speech and our ability to draw our own conclusions. I suggest that those that disagree are ones that are reluctant to use their own logic and change with needs of present time.

Google is presently in a state of change. Their objective is honest – to produce valid results for your searches. However in quest to do that they may stumble a bit in process. That is a big challenge. They are presently considered number one search engine and want to stay there. Their processes would seem a bit unstable at moment but they must and they will stabilize to maintain their own position. There will be changes and modifications aimed at improving whole exercise. Be observant and move with needs of present.

If you visit forums you are going to see a lot of chatter and a lot of views about what is going on. Thoroughly discussed issues revolve around keyword placement and a term some of so called experts are abusing “search engine optimization”. Some of these so called experts are in my opinion misusing that term “search engine optimization” They are claiming that they would never participate in that dastardly practice. Well, just look at term. What does it mean. To me it simply means putting together your website so that people will find it when they search using their favourite search engine. If these guys aren’t doing that, they aren’t going anywhere. Of course they are participating in practice. They just prefer to call it something else. I can’t figure out why though. The term doesn’t indicate anything under handed when used in itself. We all practice search engine optimization, it’s difference in success and failure.