An age-old question is, Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg? In ecommerce, the same question can be applied to site designers and Internet marketers.

Before we settle the answer, we need a few parameters. For purposes of this discussion, a marketer is some formulating and creating Internet marketing strategies and campaigns. This includes search engine optimization. In using the term designer, we are throwing a bigger net to include programmers and people writing html.

Introducing the Designer

After deciding to start a site, most businesses will hire a designer or design team as one of the first steps. Intellectually, this makes sense. We need a site, thus, we need someone to build it.

Introducing the Marketer

After a lot of time and money has been spent on the design of the site, the first thought is given to marketing. Books are purchased, online articles such as this are read. PPC is often discovered and, typically, the business decides this looks easy and starts pursuing campaigns. The site starts making sales, but at a loss or a rate that cant be increased despite a variety of tips. Frustration sets in and professional Internet marketers come on the seen. At this point, things start to get very ugly.

The business interviews a number of marketing professionals. All of them offer services, but on the condition major and expensive changes be made to the site. At this point, the business owner decides one of two things, the marketers are wrong or the designer is incompetent. Both views are wrong.

Holding Hands

Which came first? The marketer or the designer? Neither!

An effective site design combines the practical needs of the design team and marketer. While a designer will create a database to facilitate the showing of products, the marketer will want the designer to keep database parameters out of the sub-domain URLs. Other issues that must be jointly addressed include meta content, load times, abandonment issues and landing pages.

Both design and marketing have to be addressed at the outset of the creation of a site. There is simply no other way to approach an overall e-commerce effort.