Small Business Blog

You might think it’s a great idea to launch a new type of hair comb. But if no one’s unhappy with their current hair comb, your product will fail.

As an entrepreneur, you need to have some insight into the minds of your potential customers. You already know this. But when you’re managing the details of a start-up or Web site launch, you need to be reminded. It’s just too easy to forget that your needs aren’t the same as your customers’ needs.

To sharpen your customer focus, start thinking about why your potential customers are using the Internet. To shop for shoes? To get driving directions? To kill time? You could list out a thousand reasons, and all of them will fall into one of two categories:

• Entertainment
• Problem solving

To reiterate, people only use the Internet for two reasons: to be entertained or to solve a problem. Knowing this, you need to do two things before you publish your new business’ Web site:

• Identify which need your site will fulfill
• Determine how to fulfill that need in a distinctive and compelling way

Say, for example, that you are planning to develop a Web site for your pizza restaurant. Which need type will that site fulfill? If you put the site out there without addressing this question honestly, your site won’t entertain or solve any major problems. If you’re lucky, the site will only serve to give your phone number out to customers who already know the restaurant’s name. Those folks will be thinking about your pizza and wondering what your hours are. They’ll search for the restaurant by name, locate the site and write down the phone number.

What happens though, if the individual can’t remember the name of your restaurant? That’s a different problem from not knowing your phone number. He or she might search “pizza in Garden Grove” or “Italian restaurant on Main Street.” In the course of searching for you, that Web user may locate another restaurant that looks equally appetizing. And, boom, you just lost a customer — because you didn’t solve the problem.

How about if a potential customer decides he or she wants pizza for dinner, but doesn’t know where to go? Again, a different problem. This individual wants suggestions and is ready to try something new. In the previous scenarios, you had the opportunity to keep an existing customer; in this situation, you have the opportunity to solve the problem and gain a new customer.

Taking an even broader view, you could also consider the individual who wants to eat out, but hasn’t yet selected a particular type of cuisine. The search phrases used by this individual will be different from those used in the previous two scenarios.

Of course, your site won’t appear in SERPs for certain search phrases unless you optimize the pages accordingly and build appropriate incoming links. This is why you need to address your site’s function, from your customer’s perspective, early in the process. If you want your site to convince hungry people in your city where they can find the most delectable, casual meal within 20 miles, you need to build your site with that purpose in mind.