Are you often wondering if you should sell that new product?

Or if you should lower your prices?

Or if you should reduce your inventory?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to make these decisions based on your “gut feeling”? If you let data decide you will be much better off. The data is there – and it’s free. You just need to sit down and analyze it, or hire someone to do it for you…

A data driven business is one where actions and decisions are based on data – in our case web analytics data.

Here are 5 Tips for Creating a Data-Driven Business

1. Create and Measure Goals

2. Make Business Sense of Your Data

3. Test Your Decisions

4. Segment Data to Find Meaning and Behavior

5. Research Before You Launch

Do you have any questions on data driven decisions? Let us know in the comments or chime in at the forums!

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This video is “5 Tips for Testing Emails” from Linda Bustos of the GetElastic blog.

5 Email Testing Tips & Tricks from Elastic Path on Vimeo.

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I know your excited – I always get excited too before launch. It’s never a great idea to launch a website without a web strategy plan, but if you don’t have time for a full plan – make sure you cover the basics. There are rare circumstances where a website is successful right away without up front planning. It has happened for me in one case with IowaFlood.com – but that was a good (lucky) implementation that was right place at the right time.

Before you hit the “ON” switch on that shiny new website (hopefully a WordPress site!) here are 5 things you should take care of…

1. Define your Goals
We always recommend you define your goals for the website before you launch. By defining your goals right away you have a clear focus and easily measured milestones. If you have no goals for the site – maybe you should think twice about launching. Afterall – it’s a lot of work.

2. Checkout the Competition
You probably already have an idea of another website you have used for inspiration for your idea – some that you wish to emulate. Combine that list with the first page of Google results for the search terms you are targeting on your website. Now visit those sites and simply check out what they are doing… How are they converting leads? What content are they producing? How is their site structured? If they are successful there are tangible reasons that you should emulate on your new site.

3. Analytics, Analytics, Analytics
Before you launch – make sure you have web analytics software installed – whether it is Google Analyics, Clicky Analytics or something else. Just make sure it’s installed and working before you publicly launch your website. You need to track everything – from the beginning. This data will be extremely helpful later on in your web strategy lifecycle.

4. Develop your Workflow
Admittedly this is something we have learned the hard way. It’s hard to keep our website running well without a schedule. This is analogous to scheduled maintenance for your car.. If you don’t keep servicing your vehicle it will break down on you. An effective web strategy should have a scheduled workflow associated to it. If not – I guarantee you will never check your web analytics, produce regular content, or find time to participate in your community. Set aside time for your web strategy. Add it to your calendar. Trust me – this will make you more productive and allow you to keep a well-oiled website.

5. Seed your Site with Content
Don’t launch a website without content – and please, please, please, please don’t launch with a “Coming Soon” or “Under Construction” image on your site. Nothing will deter future visitors more than being 100% underwhelmed on their first visit. Before you publicly announce your site be sure there is sufficient content to keep people there once you announce it. We recommend having at least five blog posts along with your traditional “about” and “contact us” content.

What do you recommend? Let us know in the comments

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One of the initial points we try to make when beginning work with our clients on a web strategy plan is that your website is only one piece of the puzzle. A proper web strategy plan includes much more than just building a website. In the last episode of our internet business podcast we started a new segment called “Don’t” – during which we gave the advice “If you build it, they won’t come”. This means just having a website isn’t a web strategy. If you build a website and expect people to start visiting it with no additional work you are setting yourself up for failure.

Here are some tips to broaden your web strategy beyond your website…

• Find your audience, Build your community, and Engage people in social networks
• Develop Content Outposts
• Start an SEM campaign

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Here are 5 ways to start learning about Web Strategy, aside from this blog – which is your best web strategy resource

1. FriendFeed Web Strategy Workshop Room
2. Diigo Web Strategy Group
3. Facebook Web Strategy Group
4. Subscribe to this blog
5. Check out our Glossary

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These tips are not specific to any locality and should work anywhere your business operates… These five tips for local business web strategy are for businesses whose targeted customers are local – like restaurants, service companies, and consultants.

1. Own Your Domain
There are sooo many advantages to owning YourCompany.com and for $9/year there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t take this step. Even if you don’t use it – own it. You are going to need it if you want to compete. This is your #1 marketing tool, and why we are here to help you master your domain.

2. Be On Google
There are several ways to “be on google”. The first, and easiest step is to register your business in Google Maps, Google Local, Google Knol, and others. These are all FREE and have much higher visibility than yellow pages and bus stop benches. This make you “findable”… for FREE.

3. Get A Website
A simple, optmized website can do wonders for your findability online. Use the domain you bought in the first step, setup WordPress or equivalent optimized CMS, and start adding content. Being there is the first step on being found. Now you are findable via two paths… Google and your own website.

4. Target Local Keywords
Targeting localized keywords is a great tool in an effective Search Engine Marketing campaign. This is a very easy way to optimize your website and your Google placement. This can have an exponential effect on the traffic you are driving to your website. If you are a local Italian restaurant, don’t target the keyword “Italian Restaraunt”. You want to target people in your neighborhood and there is no way you are going to get to the top of Google Search Results for “Italian Restaurant”. Use geographically targeted keywords like “Des Moines, IA Italian Restaurant”. Just think how you would search for a local service and target those keywords.

5. Engage and Participate in Your Community
Chances are there are a large chunk of potential customers for you on social networks that you can find by searching for your locality. Get in touch with these people and create a community around your business. This is an essential step in an effective web strategy. Word Of Mouth Marketing is key to success for local business and you can harness your social networks to ensure this buzz is positive.

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