Recent statistics, published by analysts IMRG, show British shoppers spent £265 billion online in the first six months of 2008

ECommerce is about converting visitors to your site into customers A bricks and mortar shop has to work hard to get a prospect to make a special visit or passing prospects to enter

Believe it or not the first thing is to have a website marketing plan including your site’s: - Mission – what is its task and purpose - Objectives – your goals - Strategies – the high level achievable actions to meet each objective - Tactics – the detailed implementation plans for each strategy - Measurement – you need to know how you will measure results - You also need a detailed bottom up budget (i

The UK has the most active online population of any country in Europe with around 21 million logging on every day and 72% using the Internet to make purchases According to the Office of National Statistics between 2005-2006 consumers spent £103 billion in online purchases in the UK alone But a recent survey has shown that for UK SMEs: o 23% of websites have not been updated launch o The average age of a website is four years o Only 8% of respondents had an e-commerce element to their sites o 25% of companies had no way of tracking their site o 38% had no budget at all for website updates o For those with a budget the annual spend was around £250 So, if you have built a web site and you find that your site hasn't been generating much relevant traffic and no significant sales the temptation may be to start “the blame game” but that isn’t going to help

Which is better, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay per Click (PPC) In our opinion, the best approach is to combine SEO and PPC

An effective site is one that does its job It has a clear message and purpose that any visitor understands immediately

You want your customers, potential customers, distributors, professional contacts, staff, distributors, the media, and other third parties who might be advocates for you to know as much about your products and services and your business as they possibly can And you want them to keep you fresh in their minds

Have you noticed how the feel of the web is changing Perhaps you use LinkedIn - http://www

Are SMEs missing an opportunity Just 18% of SMEs are selling on-line