When setting up a business on the internet there are many different factors to consider, including where to target your budget, how much you should put aside for the future, and how best to attract and keep your readers. These are all vital questions which may sound a little complicated, but are they really that difficult?

The bottom line is that if you have a decent product / service to sell then the rest should fit fairly easily into place. If on the other hand your product is not uncompetitive or not popular, then you can spend all of the money you like on advertising and web design, but it will just never happen. The internet is a market place which offers very little compassion, you are either up there with the best or you are no where - or possibly fighting over the scraps at the bottom of the market.

Once you have a product, you need to allocate a budget for web design and search engine optimisation (SEO), but which is more important?

The truth is that both SEO and your web design are important, if you cannot get the customers to your site (SEO) then you have no chance of closing a sale. However, if your website design is not user friendly then your potential customer will not stay long, and a sale may be lost. The trick about a tight budget is finding a balance, and maybe planning to invest more, as and when income starts to flow into your site. The best business and the best sites on the internet are self funding, i.e. they bring in sufficient income to finance their own future development.

After all, who can afford to finance a loss making business forever?