Website Market Worksheet

a worksheet to help bUild your roadmap

This article is part of the series Change Creates Growth. This article addresses our goal to provide practicle tips for increasing traffic in current internet conditions.

The worksheet below is made up of questions. The answers will help you develop a roadmap for planning your website and business growth.

executive summary: in a nutshell

In the spirit of Web 2.0 spirit we have compiled a list of the best resources we could find on subjects covered in the article Website Market Positioning. Here is a worksheet you can use to learn about your website environment. You will also find a list of links to websites that provide insight to these issues.

the questions to ask: the answers will provide direction

There are two sets of questions. The first set is about your website environment, the second is about your website. 1) statistics for your website and 2) for your sector on the internet. These are two separate sets of information. Learn about your field or market, and the competition. How does your website fit in to your market sector? How do you stack up to the competition?

part one: understanding your website environment

An analysis of your environment will help you plan, for example tell you where to advertise; go where people are. Ask why people are going to the places they go and determine if there is overlap with what your website does.

Where is my target audience? Where are people going - how do they use the internet?
Click here to read: Why you need to meet your target audience where they are.
Anticipate. What changes are taking place; if you know where traffic is now, and was a year ago, where will it be next year?
Click here to read: Global CEO study: The enterprise of the future.
Click here to read: Small business of the future.
Market conditions. How is your business affected by changing conditions - market getting bigger or smaller, more or less competition. Is Google entering your field?
Click here to see: Alexa the web information company.
Click here to see: Yahoo! Alerts.
Compare to Competition. How do you stack up to your peers and competition- do you need to change in order to compete or survive?
Click here to read: Tools for keeping track of competition.
Are you positioning yourself into the right market or environment?
Click here to read: How to position yourself in the marketplace.
Innovate. How can you utilise Web 2.0 for your data-collection and action strategies. Can you improve your strategy by updating your site to Web 2.0?
Click here to read: Why you should let Web 2.0 into your heart.

part two: understanding your website, standard questions

Incorporate information about your website environment into your website strategy. Use statistics to determine if your efforts are working. The process is ongoing and continuous. These questions will not change over time although the answers will change as destinations change on the internet. These are questions that you should ask on a regular basis. We recommend that you ask these questions at monthly production meetings. You will need to use opentracker or another tracking and statistics package to answer these questions with real data.

Who is coming to your site
Click here to see our answer to this question.
Why are they coming there
Click here to see our answer to this question.
What do they do on your site
Click here to see our answer to this question.