Many of us are proud of our websites—sometimes rightfully so—sometimes for no good reason. Knowing what your customers think about your website is important to your success in communicating an online presence as well as an offline presence. If your site is interesting, relevant and easy to navigate your problems should be few. There is a quick and easy way to solicit your customer’s feedback online.

Ask them to take an onlline survey. Make the survey accessible from a few key locations on your website such as on your home page, your "about us" page, your "contact us" page, and anywhere else that might be relevant. Ask them questions that are designed to generate feedback such as:

• What in your opinion is unique about the site?
  If they don’t have a strong answer or answer nothing, then you may need to analyze your site to see what can be done to make it more memorable.
• Is the site easy to navigate?
  Pay close attention here. A hard to navigate website is a huge turnoff for many would be customers, leading to poor response rates.
• What features are most useful or least useful?
  This will give you insight into what is working versus not working for your customers and can help guide you to make necessary changes.

Always acknowledge and thank a customer for providing you with feedback whether online or offline. It shows them that you are listening.

One major pitfall to avoid is making the site overcomplicated. Cool Flash intros are nice but only if they load quickly, have a meaningful message for the audience and enable the repeat user to navigate quickly beyond it. Remember when in doubt K.I.S.S. (keep it simple sitemaster).

To summarize, if you listen to your customers and keep things simple your website will be effective whether it’s end goal is generating sales through e-commerce or serving as a virtual representative of your company.