Don't settle for a cookie cutter website that costs you time, money, and customers.

To appreciate the capabilities and bottom-line benefits that a fully loaded web application enables, it is necessary to distinguish between three key concepts:

• Web Design

• Web Development

• Web Application

What a Web Design Is . . . and Isn't.

If well done a Web Design is a little better than nothing, functioning basically like an electronic poster hung in the vastness of cyberspace. Depending on one is not unlike dropping your business cards on the sidewalk and hoping that the right person sees it, picks it up, and calls you to buy.

It does not compile visitor databases. It does not tell you whether or not a person you sent an e-mail has opened it or not. It does not tell you which portion of the website's copy is drawing the most interest from readers. When changes or updates are needed, more than likely the web design's coding will necessitate frustratingly long turnaround times during which customers have no access to you. During this downtime, they will probably hit their browser's "Back" button and log on to the next competitor on their search engine results. You lose.

A Web Design's primary strength is its visual appearance, unsurprising since most web designers are visual artists. Their work can arrest the eye and draw the reader in. If the copy is well-written, the site can be informative, though it will not be interactive beyond some very basic web links.

Web designs make up a majority of what you see when you log on to the Internet. But they are not appreciable e-business assets.

Design by itself is style without substance. A front end without a back end; Yin without Yang.

Web Development introduces substance to the equation.