Strategies – Web Ecommerce

There are many strategies for web ecommerce projects, but one has been proven over and over. Of all the strategies, the “need strategy” is the clear winner.

I always laugh when listening to mainstream marketing company blabber on about branding and demographics. On the web, ecommerce is boils down to one concept and only one. You must determine the needs of your prospects and provide solutions.


It is so important that you should start every day and meeting off by saying, “What are the needs of my prospects and how does what I am doing provide a solution to those needs?” If you cannot provide a quick, simple answer, you have wondered off the path to profits and need to refocus.

So, what the hell do I mean by “needs.” The trick with web ecommerce is to realize that there is lookie loo traffic and need traffic. A person shopping online for Christmas presents on December 15th has a serious need and is highly motivated to buy. A person that is drinking coffee on a Sunday morning and catching up on the news has no needs and isn’t going to get off their butt to find their wallet. Obviously, you are only interested in the motivated person.

Finding the needs of your prospects should be the first thing you do. Before you decide on a business name. Before you buy a domain. Before you even decide on the exact products or services you will offer. All of these subjects will be determined by your prospects once you understand their needs.

Okay, so how do you figure out their needs? In the real world, you would invest $50,000 on a market analysis, surveys and so on to find out their needs and the best location for your business. You are going to love this. With web ecommerce, you are going to spend under a couple of hundred bucks.

You first step is to identify the single word that best describes your business. If you want to open an online travel site, the word is “travel.” If you want to sell a book on investing, the word is “investing.” Whatever you business, pick the one word that describes it best.

Taking your one word, you want to use this program: WordTracker. With Wordtracker, you are going to do a keyword analysis. You will do an analysis for “travel” by entering the word in a provided form, hitting the return button and then watching the program kick out every keyword phrase that incorporates “travel” that has been typed into a meta search engine in the last 60 days.

Think about that for a moment. It is going to report to you the exact phrases used by your prospects to find something related to your business, in this case, travel. Each of those keyword phrases represents a need your prospect has regarding travel.

Let’s say you were going to build a travel site focused on cruises to the Caribbean. After you do the keyword analysis using the phrase “cruise”, you find there are tons of search for cruises to Alaska. Your prospects are telling you the subject the site should focus on. Instead of wasting time and money on the wrong area, you know where to go to pull in customers. Your domain name, advertising and search engine optimization should all be focused on the keywords you identify for your area of interest.

Of all the purported strategies for web ecommerce, there is one that always works. Identify the needs of your prospects and provide solutions to them.


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