A website isn’t the only interface through which companies can interact with their customers and users. Thanks in some part to the success of companies that have used APIs to help build significant business value, a growing number of companies in both the B2C and B2B markets are building and launching their own APIs.

Most APIs, of course, aren’t going to achieve Facebook-like success, and companies often make fundamental mistakes when developing an API strategy.

So what are the keys to success when API-ifying your business? Here are seven of them.

1. Know your consumers, and understand their needs

Before designing your API, it pays to know who will be consuming it and what their needs are. While this sounds obvious, it’s not too difficult to find APIs that are of limited use and/or are challenging to use because they were clearly not designed with the consumer in mind.

2. Make your business model transparent

In both the B2C and B2B, APIs can be powerful assets and direct and indirect drivers of revenue. But they can also be liabilities when the business model for your API is opaque or worse, not determined. Don’t invite the kind of criticisms that plague Twitter: make it clear what your intentions are on the business model front, up front, even if the details haven’t been completely ironed out. – href="http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/11132-seven-keys-for-building-a-successful-api?utm_medium=feeds&utm_source=blog">Seven keys for building a successful API by Patricio Robles

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