For example, if you want your visitors to buy a product or even subscribe to your newsletter via your website, but are not able to convince them to do so, then you definitely have a usability issue with your website. Website usability forms a crucial element of your website’s overall performance. Here, I will describe in detail three proven techniques for improving website performance.

• Website analytics
• Usability testing
• Personas

With the help of these three elements, you will be able to understand how well your website performs. For example, you will be able to understand who effective your website is in converting visitors to buyers or how effective is your website in providing key information to users.

1.    Use Website Analytics to measure progress
There are standard ‘website statistics’ programs available on the market that do nothing much to help you understand the effectiveness of your website spot-on.  Rather, you can develop your own analytics strategy to help you discover your problem areas. The best way out is to start with the objectives. If you want to increase the number of visitors on your website, then that is an objective. Next, track the number of unique visitors that you get and how long they stick to your site. Now, determine your conversion rate by tracking how many visitors do the key action that you want them to do such as signing up for your e-zine or buying a specific product. These actions will help you focus on the core area – of determining where usability analysis can help you the most.

2.    Perform Usability Testing
To understand how people interact with your website, you actually take people to your website and watch them use it. You can watch them alongside, or watch them from behind a one-way mirror, or even record their behaviour on a computer and watch it later. To get things done better, you can even hire a usability professional to do the task. The usability professional will mostly conduct a test which will involve the following steps:

• Define the objectives of the test – what is it that you would like to accomplish with this test?
• Recruit the participants who are willing to do the test – though this can be frustrating, you will really succeed if you find the right people
• Prepare and conduct the usability test – include what you would like the person to do. The success of the test is in determining whether the person was able to do what was expected.
• Present and report the results of the test – study the results and determine where the issues exist

3.    Create Personas
Though this may be difficult to understand right away, these are user profiles that explain who the person is and what are the issues they encountered while seeking what they expected from the site. Though personas are ‘fake people’, they are created from real data and explain the real situation they encountered while using your website.

To conclude, your website can indeed be a top performer once you know how people utilize it and are able to meet their expectations through it.  With the knowledge of website usability and how people interact with your website, you can improve your website design and website marketing strategy for ultimate business success.

The following opinion is probably highly debatable and may not even be a popular stand at that. I feel that the craze of Twittering is a waste of time in terms of ROI. As is many of the other forms of marketing that is not directly related to the Internet.

Hopefully some of the dust has settled from that last paragraph!

I personally subscribe to the philosophy of exerting 20% of my effort toward realizing 80% of my returns. Rather than spending 80% of my time to gain only 20% return on my time invested. That is how I feel about some of these avenues of marketing a business.

Please don’t get me wrong I have a Twitter account and Twitter on a semi-regular basis. But I am realistic as to the hopes of ever realizing a return on my investment of time.

I don’t think anyone has ever sold a John Deer tractor on Twitter!

When you want to design e-commerce website, it is very important to have optimized website structure. I believe that owning and operating an Optimized business website can’t be beat when it comes to return on investment.

When asked by a business owner that wants to realize additional revenue from their business on the Internet how this can be accomplished my answer is always the same.

• Develop a business website that reflects the business personality and professionally offers the public your products or services offered.
• Aggressively invest in that website with an off page optimization campaign. This means invest not only in having your website optimized but engage in a back link campaign that enhances your website, the keyword phrases you are marketing, and the products or services you offer the public.

Many a business owner has had a beautiful website designed and unfortunately not by a website designer that is well versed in Internet Marketing or SEO. Unfortunately this website will never be a real asset to its owners without marketing it properly. It is lacking the juice that will drive it to the top of the organic search engines. This where profits are generated, ranking well in the organic search engines.

Internet marketing starts with a business website that is designed with SEO in mind from conception and once launched live invested in with back link building.

Back links can be procured by many means. Below is a list of the most fertile means.

• Article writing and publishing online as a guest blogger on other peoples blogs.
• Press Releases published professionally on the Internet.
• Adding your business in directories with links into your website.
• Commenting on other peoples blogs so long as they do not have no follows.
• Link baiting is the best way to generate natural back links

This type of work acquiring links is very time consuming and sometimes it is more cost effective out sourced to companies that specialize in this type of marketing.

Bottom line of all the ways you can participate in Internet Marketing there is better way of realizing a good ROI  in both time and money than with a well engineered business website that is participating in an off page optimization campaign.