1. Has a defined target market/audience
   In order to serve relevant content in your website, you must have a defined target audience and you should be familiar with their needs, wants, level of knowledge and goals.
2. Has an Email-Marketing component
   Your email-database is a key way of maintaining communication with your customers through a well designed newsletter. The newsletter can contain new service offers, news/events, or well thought advice that you believe will benefit your clients. This will compel recipients to visit your site and take your desired action. Through your website, you should capture more contacts for your newsletter.

When you tell entrepreneurs that relationships are the key to developing a personal and professional network, they often smile and acknowledge the concept without fully appreciating it. Let me put this notion into perspective.

Imagine you're standing in a large room full of people, and I ask everyone to pull out their key rings. Visualize everyone holding up the keys to their house, their office and their car as I ask everyone to show them to the room.

Now here's my question: Would you hand over your car keys to a perfect stranger? What about those to your office or home? Of course not!

Now instead of a key to a car or a home, imagine you have a key that opens the door to an important relationship with a colleague that another person would like to connect with. Let's say you hold the key to this relationship, but you don't know the person who's asking for it. Would you give it to them? Of course not! Why? Because when you give a referral, you give away a piece of your reputation. If it's a good referral, it helps your reputation; if it's a bad referral, it hurts. Intuitively, you'll only hand over the keys to someone you know and trust.

Every time you turn around these days, a business hands you a loyalty card. From the paper punch card for your local CD store to plastic Borders Rewards and frequent flyer memberships, your wallet is undoubtedly stuffed with bait that companies use to lure you back time after time. After all, it's easier and more profitable to generate business from repeat customers than to troll for new ones.

For that reason, startups must develop strategies for generating repeat business even before they hang out their shingle. The process begins with the business concept itself and continues with everything from how you answer the phone to how you keep your name in front of your customers. The mission is to cultivate loyal customers who not only keep coming back themselves, but who also spread the word to friends and family.