In college, we used the case study method to learn to analyze and solve business problems. I liked this because case studies, like real life, are messy and complex and not easily solved with a single answer.

Recently, I stumbled across a blog post that caught my eye. I confess that the stumbling was completely accidental. But I stopped and read and thought: “this is like reading a case study in college… and there are some good lessons to be learned here.”

On the CNN Money website, in their small business section, they have a “website remedies” blog in which people write in with their website problems and the bloggers make suggestions. The one I stumbled across was an interesting case: The website owner has a service that allows visitors to register and receive a certificate for a date. In other word, you could register any date and make it “your” day. Strange; interesting; compelling. But his site wasn’t doing the brisk business he was hoping for. So the experts took a look and identified a number of places where he could improve.

Their insight was really valuable:

They talked about his overall message being unclear. That’s a lesson for any website owner: Make sure your message is clear, straightforward, and “hits ‘em between the eyes” as soon as they click to your site.

They talked about his site lacking attractive colors or thematic tie-ins. That’s a good lesson for website owners: Your site needs to look good if you’re going to keep people there.

And, they talked about the sales flow once people started thinking about buying. How easy and clear is the sales process and what happens as they click through to buy.

Clear message, the attractiveness of the site, and the clarity and efficiency of the buying process are evergreen problems in the world of online business. It is a daily battle to get traffic to your site and to keep it there. If I had a nickel for every resource and idea that were designed to do one of those two things, I’d be sipping margaritas on a beach.

You can read the full text of the article here. Their advice in this post, and in this blog in general, is extremely valuable. At first, website owners might say “but their problems aren’t my problems”; to which I’d counter that this is just like those case studies in college. Their problems are not EXACTLY like your problems but you can still learn something because their problems may have similarities to your problems.

This blog – which CNN Money called “Website Remedies” is going in my regular reading and I think it should go in yours, too.

photo credit: TAKA@P.P.R.S