As organizations work to evaluate, revise, and importantly - improve "first generation" Web sites, they can and should benefit from lessons learned over the past several years. Below are our top eight design and online marketing pitfalls:

1. Neglecting to put your telephone number in a visible and easy to find location throughout your site. One of the number-one reasons visitors will access your site is to find you. Make it easy.

2. Ignoring the search engines and search engine placement strategy. The search engines, however, unwieldy are your top marketing tool. Ensure that your site appears when top keywords are entered into the top 7-8 search engines. Registering with an automated search engine placement service won't do it.

3. Lack of value-add content. If you deliver information that is useful to your visitors, they will come back again and again.

4. Don' t use your site only as an online brochure. Static information dies fast online. Use the Web to deliver personalized resources for your visitors - encourage interaction.

5. To truly improve and meet your goals, you must learn: "who are your visitors, and why do they visit?" With this intelligence, you will be able to map site content and applications back to meet these objectives.

6. Don't ignore your site logs. User logs tell a story - delivering critical information including how your visitors are finding your site and how they tend to move through the site.

7. Lack of integration with other materials and programs. Your online presence should clarify and solidify your image and mission. To avoid confusion, this image and mission must be consistent with off-line programs.

8. Usability testing may save hundreds of lost visitors. However informal, before re-launching, or launching a site - ask a group of potential visitors to perform a number of tasks you assume to be common visitor tasks. Log their progress - how easy or difficult is it for them to navigate? How quickly do they find the information they seek?

For more detail on any of these strategies, feel free to submit a question to a Webjectives analyst, and receive a customized response.