This past month, I’ve been asked to critique several online store websites (. These days, I rarely have time to take a look at random reader’s websites simply because I’m swamped with other things and taking care of little people aged 3 and below. Also, since I run an ecommerce course, I reserve most of my non-family time for my students.

But I felt compelled to respond to these review requests because all of them had the same or similar mistakes.

And when 4 consecutive websites have the same problem, I feel compelled to write about it. Here were the problems that I found with the stores I looked at this past month.

Whenever I land on an unknown store while surfing the web, especially a site where I might be spending some of my hard earned cash, the first thing I look for is what’s in it for me. Why the

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When Woody Allen said that “80% of success is just showing up,” he probably didn’t have online marketing in mind. While it’s true that 49% of small businesses have a website, new media users on average only follow five brands or companies online. If most of your competitors have an online presence, where does that leave you? Simply being a bystander may garner some attention, but if you want to stand out from the crowd and make fans out of your prospects and customers, you need to offer more than a product. Your brand needs to transform itself into a thought leader, a go-to source for information and forethought in your space. Easier said than done, right? For small businesses, becoming a thought leader may seem like an overwhelming task. Creating new ideas, pushing your message out and staying ahead of the curve is time and resource consuming.

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Whenever we talk about small business, we usually have discussions about the user, or the customer. While “the customer is always right” is somewhat of a cliché, the good news about having a small business is that, especially with the globalizing village effect of the Web 2.0, more and more consumers seek out a very customer-centric experience, the sort of experience that a small business actively promotes. Here are a few tips for standing by your customer in every stage of your business plan’s unfolding.

1. 1. Don’t only encourage, but incentivize customer feedback.

Far too many businesses make a show about how they want to hear from their customers. And far too often no one listens. If you really care about your customers, make it as easy as possible for them to give you an honest assessment. The best

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The economy seems to be picking up for most small businesses. I hope that means your business is doing well.

I dont know how much you pay attention to connecting with your customers using email, but if you arent you are missing a really good opportunity to build a long lasting relationship and to grow your business.

Email has been a mainstay for a long time now and is still one of the best ways to connect to those who know and love what you have to offer.

But there are plenty of people who still make tons of mistakes (and miss a lot of opportunities) when connecting with customers using email. Specifically, if you have a blog or create regular content for your website, you have many chances to really grow and connect with them.

Are you taking advantage of all those opportunities?

I know I wasnt.

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Improves search capabilities in information management platform

Security giant Symantec has announced it will buy eDiscovery firm Clearwell Systems in a deal worth $390m, net of Clearwell’s existing cash balance of approximately $20m. Clearwell will sit within Symantec’s Enterprise Vault eDiscovery unit and tap into its growing information management division.

Clearwell Systems specialises in eDiscovery, which Gartner defines as, “the identification, preservation, collection, preparation, review and production of electronically stored information associated with legal and government proceedings.” The company’s technology enables businesses to find and store data where it cannot be altered for checking by a legal team, known as legal hold.

The move will increase competition between Symantec and other eDiscovery firms such as Recommind, Guidance Software, Autonomy, kCura and ZyLab.

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