Are you frustrated because your website doesn't generate many leads? Don't feel bad. This is one of the biggest issues with websites. You spend good money to have a nice site developed, and it seems like it just sits there like a teenager on a sofa. And sits. And sits. Before long, you start to wonder if it will ever do anything.

Giving good feedback is key to a successful design project.

Regardless of what you're having designed - logo, website, Annual Report, brochure, etc. - your input is important and totally necessary for your project to be successful.

You're paying good money for your project and you want great results, but the onus is on you to give good feedback. After all, designers aren't mind readers. No one knows your business like you, and the magic happens when your knowledge comes together with your design team's skills and expertise.

Below are a few guidelines on how to provide effective feedback and, just as or more importantly, what not to do.

We know how exhilarating it can be to see your website traffic numbers climbing, but we also know those numbers really mean nothing.

The only numbers that are really important to your bottom line (unless you sell advertising on your site) are how many site visitors turn into leads, and how many of those turn into sales.

Wouldn't it be awesome if you could see real time info on exactly which pages each visitor opened, what they clicked on, and even some intel on who they are? See when they come back and which pages they're returning to? And if you could integrate all that info into a customer relationship management system and automated email marketing it would be even better.

We've found that there's a lot of confusion about the difference between mobile apps and mobile websites, even amongst many so-called developers - believe it or not! The difference is very simple. A mobile app runs natively on your mobile device and must be installed on the device; many can be used regardless of whether you have an internet connection. A mobile website is a version of your website that is stripped down to make it faster to load on a mobile device and easier to read and navigate on the small screen. Usually there are less graphics and extraneous information on mobile sites, but you should always include the option for mobile visitors to choose to view the full site.

Face it, we're all bombarded with too much information today and the last thing we want to do is read more of it - UNLESS there's something in it for us!  If you want to make sure that your subscribers read your newsletters, and maybe even pass them along to their friends, you should concentrate on providing helpful or fun information rather than dragging on about your company and how great it is - BORING!

Newsletters aren't so much about promotion as they are about creating and maintaining relationships with your customers.  By providing helpful or fun content, you'll make your readers look forward to the next issue rather than just deleting it unread from their inbox - or worse yet, unsubscribing themselves from the newsletter.  Which brings me to another point: your newsletter should always include an Unsubscribe link; not only is it rude not to do so, it's actually illegal.