Content is the reason people will be coming to your site in the first place. Content is also the only reason that they'll be coming back. In cyberspace content is the king. Does it mean that a company with e-business ambitions needs to get into the publishing business? Absolutely! By putting out a web site you are in the publishing business. Successful sites provide meaningful resourses (content) to their target audience. That is what makes them successful. But it doesn't mean you need to take up courses in journalism or creative writing at the local college. What it does mean though, is that for your site to become well trafficked, you must give reasons to come. Some of that content you will be providing by yourself. The rest can come from your employees, business partners, trade associations, other web sites, and most importantly, your customers.
If you are working on a commercial Web site, you need to seriously consider things like product catalogs, customer tracking, and secure online transactions. Now that users are gradually beginning to trust e-commerce, one-stop-shopping sites are growing in popularity. Do you need this functionality to stay competitive? If you cannot afford to do so yet, maybe you should at least design your site around this inevitability. Spending the extra time and effort to consider and plan the future expansion of the site can save time redesigning the entire site nine months down the road.