by Jonathan Fink

Business owners and managers can be forgiven for being obsessed with search engines. Services like Google, Yahoo and MSN are used for every conceivable purpose, from tracing family roots to booking holidays, buying books and selecting services.

The creative and destructive forces of e-commerce are re-shaping markets as diverse as media and retail.

Most businesses now have a website; some understand the impact of the web on their markets but few know how to increase the performance of their online marketing.

Momentum Web Solutions has just completed an assessment of 300 commercial websites to identify the factors that ensure a business is successful online. The conclusion highlights the gulf that exists between website aspirations and actual performance.

Around 70 per cent of the sites assessed scored poorly across all criteria, with only one per cent of websites scoring highly overall.

The poorest performing sites were product websites, followed by e-shops and services sites. Of the business types assessed, start-ups performed worst, followed by individuals' and small businesses' websites.

The sites of medium-sized enterprises fared slightly better, with 29 per cent achieving a high rating. Compare this to start-ups, which were categorised as 92 per cent poor.

Given that a few well-placed keyword rankings in a search engine can mean the difference between a business just ticking over and one that is multiplying its online orders, gaining visibility in search engines has become crucial.

But why does one company outperform another online?

Well researched and positioned keyword phrases have become the holy grail of online marketing.

Yet the art of enhancing a company's performance in search engines is shrouded in mystery and is more often than not viewed with suspicion.

Alongside professional practitioners of the new online marketing techniques, a whole array of charlatans, spammers, hobbyists and search engine snake oil' sellers have arisen to confuse, confound and cheat businesses seeking to expand online.

Even if a company chooses a reputable provider to promote its website, there are several areas where things can go horribly wrong.

The most common barrier to achieving sales aspirations online is the inability of three elements to co-operate, or even communicate effectively.

These are the marketing or strategic elements, web designers and the IT function. The level of mutual incomprehension and suspicion with which these camps view each other, especially within larger organisations, can confound all efforts to build and promote a web site.

Successful online campaigns require an acute understanding of where the issues lie, and a relentless focus on achieving positive return on investment (ROI) for all online marketing activities.

If properly implemented and measured, online campaigns can achieve far lower customer acquisition costs than traditional marketing activities, together with increased understanding about how your customers think, behave and change.

Choosing a successful online strategy is difficult enough for well informed practitioners, let alone small businesses owners who have a million challenges to contend with.

The challenges to overcome are immense, not least the need to raise awareness of the problem of website under-performance.

But the market opportunity for companies to increase their online revenues is tremendous.

Web marketing is providing the impetus for many businesses to grow rapidly and overtake competitors, but still too few are using the web to its full, revolutionary potential.

This page is compiled by The Oxford Trust, www.oxtrust.org.uk