Marketing intelligence and market research are critical to your success. Business owners must understand their primary and secondary competitors, as well as have a clear picture of their target audience.

Using the keyword phrases you expect your visitors to use to find you, conduct a Google search and uncover your key competitors. Experiment with a few keyword variations. Complete a detailed analysis of your top competitors, examining things such as products and services offered (and prices charged), Website appearance and navigation, marketing tools (such as testimonials, industry certifications, social networking/bookmarking tools), and SEO items (including title, description, keywords -- which you can obtain from the "view page source" command on any browser).

If you are not currently collecting research on your Website visitors and customers, now is the time to develop a short survey so that you can begin to better understand who you are serving -- including how they found your Website and why they chose your services over the competition. Also install Google Analytics on your site so you can gain a better understanding of how your visitors find, navigate, and use your site.