Any business functioning without a web presence these days is a business in name only. There's no way you can effectively serve your customers, much less hold your own against competitors, without a website. But as we see on a daily basis, it takes more than just having a website for it to be an effective marketing tool. Too many businesses focus their efforts and investments on the wrong things-partly because we all like bells and whistles, partly because marketing companies masquerading as programmers are selling them a bill of goods.

If you want a website that will deliver customers to your door, not just sit there and look cool if (and that's a very big if) someone should happen to find it, these three elements are critical:

• Proper Architecture - It may seem redundant, extravagant, or even ridiculous to separate your website into several different pages if your company is small or offers only a modest array of products or services, but putting different types of information on different pages-a process called "information architecture"-- makes it easier for search engines to "crawl" (read and review) your site. Easier crawling means quicker, higher rankings--which translates directly to more exposure and, ultimately, more customers.

  All the pages of your website should focus on a single theme-the logical one being your business. Besides being just good common sense, that cohesiveness generates big points with the semantic-based algorithms currently favored by search engines. Save your football commentary or save-the-whales campaign for e-mails.

  But all the pages in the world won't help if visitors can't navigate your site, and find the information they want, quickly and easily. You have about eight seconds to give that potential customer a reason to stick around; tick him off with broken links, superfluous Flash dancing, or illogical programming and you can write that guy off for good.

• Easy Accessibility - "If you build it, they will come" might work for ball fields, but it doesn't apply to websites. You could build the world's most appealing website, but if no one knows it's there, it's going to curl up and die of loneliness. What's the number one key to accessibility? High search engine rankings. How do you get high rankings? Have a properly coded, error-free, search engine optimized, constantly evolving website.

  First off, face the fact that a website is an ongoing project, not a one-time event. Certain information will stay the same, of course, but you need to think of your website as a virtual store rather than a brochure. To continue with that analogy, your home page serves as your window display, while your other pages are shelves of merchandise; keeping your "store" clean, fresh, inviting, and interesting will keep customers, and those all-important search engines, dropping by on a regular basis. Keeping your store "fresh," by the way, doesn't mean completely revamping your website every quarter; in fact, once your site is being crawled on a regular basis and your ranking is high, you want to leave the basic structure alone. But adding a new product every few weeks, or posting news of a sale or special event once a month, will maintain your traffic flow.

  If you don't employ a technologist on staff, divert some of your advertising budget to pay for website updates. A good website is the best advertising you'll ever have and, if the architecture of your site is built correctly, you can track the impact and effectiveness of every change.

  Appoint someone-you, an administrative assistant, your techno-savvy 16-year-old son or, better yet, your completely untechno-savvy Aunt Ethel--to visit your site on a regular basis to verify its user-friendliness and functionality.

• Original, Appropriate Content - Your high school English teacher said it best: don't cheat and don't ramble. The most successful websites are those with information that can't be found anywhere else, presented in a simple and streamlined manner. Give your visitors valuable, meaty details about what your company offers instead of wasting their time on hype. They'd much rather know that your product comes in fourteen colors and four sizes than that it's "the world's best!" And while it's a fine idea to include product reviews, testimonials, photos, and commentary on your site, be sure you haven't "borrowed" them from another source. Not only will that negatively impact your search engine ranking, it may earn you a copyright violation.

  On the other hand, if you're an expert in your field-and if you own a successful business, that's pretty good proof that you are-use your expertise to create unique content for your website. It might be a list of criteria for choosing a product, a how-to guide, a time-line, or a list of questions to ask before deciding on a product or service. Anything that offers your visitors value-a free gift, if you will-creates a positive impression, gives them incentive to come back, and gives search engines a reason to rank you ahead of the next guy.

  Finally, all that helpful, original information needs to be rife with carefully selected keywords. While that sounds easy enough, it's actually a very complex blend of art and science to structure text that will attract search engines and appease humans at the same time. Just remember that tweaking even a word here and there can make a significant difference in the success of your site.

Put the above technological trifecta into place and the payoff will be dramatically increased traffic to your website. Now that's something to roar about!

And Speaking of Negative Impact...
You know how I am always telling you those "Increase your website traffic for only $2.99!" deals are a bad idea, as are all those e-mail requests you get to exchange cross links with Joe Blow, Inc.? Here's a chilling account of just how bad things can turn out to be: Google Hell