Why Your Business Should Have a Website

Many businesses do not realise the importance of having a website. These days, a website is an essential tool. Many business people will use the Internet to search for other businesses or products, yet do not have a presence online themselves. The Internet today is the Yellow Pages of the past. In many cases it is the first place potential customers look when trying to find a product or service. If they do look at the yellow pages, they then see the website addresses on advertisements and will go to the web to check these places out. If you do not have a website, you are missing out on the best and most effective marketing tool there is today.

1. Your website is your business card to the multitude of people who are online searching for the product or service you are offering. A website can provide customers with information that they just cannot get in any other media. For example, you may want to include a map of your business location, your business hours, contact information, and to give your customers and potential customers an opportunity to make an inquiry at any time.
2. After potential customers find your product or service, your website will allow them to contact you easily and quickly in a way that you choose (email, phone or fax or through the website, itself). Many business owners will tell you that the most important customers are the customers that you have already. There is no easier and more convenient method to maintain customer contact than through the online medium. Through your website, you can maintain a contact database of your customers, distribute newsletters, take surveys, and update customers so that they feel you’re taking the effort to keep them informed. This will help the customer create a favourable and lasting impression about your business.
3. Your website is accessible to your current and future customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your website is working for you, even when you are not. Your customers have the ability to go online any time of the day or night. With today’s analytical tools, you can track your customers actions on your website and learn more about them and your business.
4. A good quality website adds credibility to your business (and a badly designed website will hurt your credibility). A website can help provide a customer with the impression that a business is legitimate. A professional looking and functioning website demonstrates an investment by a business, increases customer confidence, and can increase sales.
5. Your website allows you to introduce yourself to your customers in an image-rich and descriptive way. People want to know details about your business. One of the main reasons that consumers use the Internet is to learn about products and services. Background information about your company and your products, testimonials from other customers, information about your staff and management, and some helpful and pleasing graphical information will all help to promote your business. Online consumers are typically looking for enough information on which to base a decision. Your website can help to educate people and help to generate trust.
6. Your website allows business owners to reveal their personal side and or community activities, engendering trust and loyalty in their customers. This is what business blogs are all about. Connecting with your customers, or potential customers and building relationships which engenders trust.
7. In today’s business environment, businesses are expected to have an online presence. This expectation will only increase. I have made this point earlier, but it is worth reiterating. It is very likely that many of your competitors have websites, and almost certain that your larger competitors have a significant online presence. A well-designed website is a way to level the playing field, to present a professional online image, and to expose your business to a wide audience in a way that cannot be done with any other marketing methods.
8. Your website is an extremely useful tool for answering your customers Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). This alone can save you and your staff from spending a lot of time on the phone during work hours. Your customers can get answers to those smaller enquiries without having to phone you up.
   
9. Enhance and extend all printed marketing materials and business cards with a link to your website.
10. Your website is the cornerstone of any current or future online marketing campaigns. Building an effective website and developing an online marketing strategy can be one of the highest return-on-investment initiatives a company can take. Another marketing advantage is that there is no other medium that is as versatile and responsive as a website is to your business, your clients and potential customers.

When you make a decision to develop a website or to improve your existing website there’s no need to feel alone as you decide what is best for your business. Please feel free to Contact Me and I will be pleased to provide you with advice and guidance to turn the website design decision into a most rewarding experience.