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If you want to build a successful online business, you need customers and you need to offer something your customers want. The more you know about your customer, the more money you will make. It's that simple.

Know Your Customer, Make More Money

This is lesson 1 of a free 7 lesson series on how to make money online.

Seems pretty obvious. Know your customer and you will make more sales. But here's something you probably didn't know. There is a boatload of information about your current and future customers sitting right under your nose. Savvy internet business people know how to use this information to their advantage. So should you.

The Real World: Bowling Equipment Shop

Let's say that you own a store that sells bowling equipment. You sell bowling balls, gloves, shoes, shirts, and a whole lot more. A customer, John, walks in, wanders around and looks a little lost. Being the good salesperson that you are, you ask John what he needs. John tells you, "I'm looking for a bowling ball for my daughter." You walk him over to the kids section and you show him your selection. Voila ... you've made a sale.

The Online World: Bowling Equipment Website

Now, let's change the scenario and assume you own an ecommerce website. You sell bowling balls, gloves, shoes, shirts, and a whole lot more. John does a search on Google for "youth bowling ball", and clicks on your link which takes him to your home page.

John is completely lost on your website. He is looking for information on youth bowling balls, but he doesn't see any. Since he has nobody to ask, he does what most people would do. He clicks back on his web browser and finds another site. You just lost a sale.

Using Customer Knowledge To Make More Money Online

John was ready to buy from your website. But nobody was there to give him the information he needed. So John left and you lost a potential sale.

This could be happening to you hundreds of times each day. Don't let this mistake happen to you.

If you use a website analytics program ( Google Analytics is free ), you can see a lot of information about your users. One of the most valuable pieces of information is what search engines send you traffic, and what keywords people typed to find you.

If you knew that a lot of people found your site by searching on Google for "youth bowling ball" you could do the following:

• Feature youth bowling balls more on your home page to all visitors
• Feature youth bowling balls more when people visit after searching for youth bowling ball
• Create a new section in your website dedicated to youth bowling products
• Find other search terms similar to youth bowling and optimize your site for those keywords too

So what should you do? You should consider all of the above. Here's the potential impact. Let's say 20 people find your site after searching for "youth bowling" each day. None of these people buy from your site today because they get lost. Now assume that you could get 5% of the people to buy. That would be 1 new customer every day.

In other words, you could get 365 more customers per year just because you paid attention to where people were coming from.

Remember, it costs almost nothing to find out how people are coming to your site. Tailor your site to meet the needs of your customers and you'll have more conversions and more sales

I hope you found that lesson to be valuable. My next lesson will focus on how to know what your customers want even if they never visit your site.

About Startup Tips

Brian Park is the founder of http://www.startuptips.org , a site which teaches people how to make money online. Brian offers a free course which includes 7 lessons, just like the one above.

Before starting Startup Tips, Brian worked for several highly successful internet companies including Yahoo!, which has become a household name, Friendster, the website which pioneered social networking and inspired sites like MySpace and Facebook, and Xfire, a gaming social network which sold for $100mm.

Brian has launched several companies on his own using viral marketing, social media, and search engine marketing to gain critical mass.

He has an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, and specializes in building Internet businesses.