These days we hear that we're facing or some would say we're already in the midst of a global economic slowdown, and that times are tough for businesses. Indeed, many businesses are laying people off or deciding to not grow their headcount at the moment.

What a lot of organisations often don't realise is that they have a great sales tool at their disposal already - their website.

To be effective as a sales tool, the website has, at a minimum, to be:

• Findable - A measured and planned out SEO and SEM strategy can make all the difference in getting users to your site.
• Usable - Once you get visitors to your website, can they be converted from browsers to consumers?
• Trackable - There are many free tools available on the web that measure and track users actions on your website. Data is the key here, if you know what you users are and just as importantly aren't doing, then you can do something about it

The key thing here is that these actions are not one-off events, they need to be repeated regularly to ensure your website stays ahead of the curve. However, with many of our of clients we often find that using the above as guiding principles is an effective starting point.

Over the coming weeks, I'll be exploring each of these areas in greater depth, with some simple advice to get started, so watch this space!