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It was always an obvious gap (excuse the pun), but after many years in the wilderness, GAP has just launched its new e-Commerce website in the UK.

e-Commerce sites have long been a proven revenue-generator for retailers, so it was always a mystery why GAP (and its sister company Banana Republic) never ventured down this road.

This brave new dawn is a joint venture between the 2 siblings, allowing visitors to switch easily between www.gap.eu and www.bananarepublic.gap.eu, and as of today the home page contains a big splash to welcome its British customers.

What can an e-Commerce website do for GAP?

GAP is a famous high street brand, so the new site has little to do with creating and building a brand, but it will certainly trade heavily on its established reputation and customer base.  The site is evidently designed as a transactional website, and interestingly there are certain features missing that could otherwise help to engage its Web- and Social-savvy audience and blaze a trail with the latest technologies.  For example, no video, no blog, and certainly not the latest virtual reality technology that JC Penney have embraced for its "Virtual Dressing Room".

So, all in all, a long overdue arrival for the new GAP e-commerce website, an attractive and functional site, but certainly not something that will drag its competitors kicking and screaming into the next technological age...

For most businesses a website is the focal point of their Internet presence.  It's where visitors come to learn about your company and (hopefully) to be "converted" into customers.

But building a website is really only the starting point of a journey, and much like the picture on the homepage of our website, a website is one part of an overall Internet Strategy that needs nurturing and growing.

Here we look at some of the tried and tested ways of attracting more visitors to your website:

1. Create Content

Content is king.  The copy on your site should be well written and easy for your visitors to read and digest.  But content is also a rich magnet for others to link to.  If your content is valuable and compelling, it will get bookmarked by visitors and act as bait for other websites to link to.

2. Build Links

Google judges the popularity and relevance of your website by the number of inbound links (from other websites).  Building up links from relevant, authoritative websites is a powerful signal that your site is important and a good resource for the internet.

3. Use your Email Signature

A simple one, but often overlooked.  Create a professional email signature with your company logo and a hypertext link to your website.  This gives people an easy way of visiting your website.

4. Press Releases

Online Press Releases are a powerful method of promoting your latest business news and achievements.  But they are also useful for spreading content that links back to your site, giving people a ready-made pathway for finding you.

5. Article Writing

Likewise, articles that are useful to their readers and authoritative in nature help to spread your online reach, and act as a rich source of content that people will want to link to, creating pathways back to your site.

6. Business Directories

Another simple one.  Spend time to research and find as many relevant business directories as possible.  Think of all the places people might go to find a company like yours, and reserve your spot there asap.

7. Social Media

Social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn are highly effective ways of communicating a message.  Once people start to bookmark your material, and share it with their contacts, you can rapidly build up a network of links and create traffic back to your website.

What's the purpose of a business website?

Well, consider the advice of Stephen Covey in his best-selling book: 7 habits of Highly Effective People.  "Begin with the end in mind".  It's a great piece of advice in virtually any business setting, but certainly so when it comes to your business website.

But what does it mean?  Well, consider the following questions:

What is my website for?

You should have a very clear understanding of why you spent money on your website in the first place.  Is it a brochure site (i.e. little more than an electronic version of your company promotional literature)?  Is it a lead generation tool (i.e. do you want to collect email addresses and contact details)?  Or is it a direct sales tool (i.e. an e-commerce site or one that handles some other kind of monetary transaction through it).

Most websites fall into one of these categories, and knowing how your website needs to behave has a very direct impact on how it should be designed and how it should function.  It also dictates how you should measure the performance of your website, i.e. which are the most appropriate analytics metrics to track.

Who do I want visiting my website?

You should have a clear definition of the target audience for your business.  By understanding which demographic buys your products and services, you also want these same people visiting your website.  There is generally little value having all the wrong kinds of people passing through your website every day, as they'll either have little interest (they got there by mistake) or they have no need for your particular version of what you're selling.

It's possible using a well-defined Internet Marketing strategy to target the precise kind of people who buy your products and services.  The key to successful Internet Marketing is don't use the scatter gun approach.  Get your sniper rifle out and use it well.

What do I want them to do there?

Once you've managed to drive the traffic to your website, you need a clear understanding of what you want all those people to do once they're staring at your beautifully designed pages.

Good design is certainly part of the equation for a successful website ("is good web design important?"), but it has very little to do with the science of conversion architecture.  If you want your visitors to sign up now, then you must guide them down that pathway.  If you want them to download your latest whitepaper, then don't hide it away in the bottom corner - make it central to your website's layout and purpose.

So, back to the question: What is your website for?  Just remember - begin with the end in mind - and you won't go far wrong.

Feel free to call us at WSI Internet Marketing Preston on this or any other matter.

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A website is no longer an optional extra.  For businesses large and small, having an internet presence is a must.  Our lives are increasingly centered around the internet, and as consumers we're using it more and more for shopping, banking, keeping in touch, or just information gathering.

There is often a real misunderstanding amongst business owners who say:

• we don't need a website
• we don't have the time or money to invest in this
• we don't sell anything on the internet, so what's the point?

But of course having a website is not all about e-commerce.  Whilst many businesses (e.g. the amazons and the ebays) make their money in this way, there are countless millions of other websites who don't want to sell anything online but who still recognise the value of a website.

It is important to recognise that the average consumer (a title that fits all of us) uses the internet for so much research, that if your business doesn't have a website and isn't found by the search engines, you are effectively invisible.  A notable trend among the average web user (again, we all fit in to this category!) is that we usually research things online even if when we ultimately purchase it offline.  We'll go to a website to find information, pricing, etc and then pick up the phone or go in to the shop.  So in this scenario the website hasn't replaced the brick & mortar shop, or the sales person, or anything else, but rather it has just become an integral part of the end to end sale funnel.

Business owners who pick up on this are opening themselves up to a far broader client acquisition base, since a well-marketed website will appear (and appeal) to huge volumes of online traffic.  And unlike many forms of offline marketing (yellow pages, newspapers, TV, radio, etc), your website can appear right in front of the very people who are looking for you, just at the time they're exhibiting those buying signals.

So, a website isn't just an electronic magazine, but rather a finely tuned sales & marketing tool, which if embraced can have a positive impact on any business.