The short answer to this question is YES. Even if only to have a simple web presence and the main reason is, that these days it is almost expected for a business to have a website.
Potential customers, future employees, business partners and investors all search online to research, find products and services or just give peace of mind before making enquiries.
You may have little experience of the internet and websites and possibly, you may not want to bother but the truth is that there are a mass of people out there who love the internet, spending most of their working day with instant access to millions of businesses, products and services. For a lot of people, searching online is their primary way to find information.
If you don’t move with the times and adapt you may find yourself losing out to competitors that are quick to respond to changing market places.
There are some business people who would say that having a website is a pointless exercise, wasting time and money. They don’t know of a single sale or enquiry that their website has generated. All this means is that they have failed to maximise the potential of the website through poor planning, marketing, design or all of the above!
Used in the right way your website can provide your business with so many opportunities. You can use it to communicate with your customers, test out new products / services before rolling out fully, learn about your customers’ likes and interests through website statistics, create a buzz about your business to get and keep more customers.
Too many businesses create websites and then leave them to stagnate. Over a short space of time they look outdated and actually reflect badly on a company.
Make sure you:
- update the website frequently maybe add some special offers, promotions
- provide useful free information about topics relating to your business
- collect customers details and send out an email newsletter to keep in touch with your customers
- update product / service information when things change
You may be tempted to try your hand at creating your own website to save money or because you think having a website is not very important. My advice is to stop right there!
Its better to have no web presence at all than to have a badly designed and constructed website that will make your company look amateur and untrustworthy.
After all you wouldn’t have a go at your own dentistry if you needed a tooth out?
If spending a lot of money on full blown website is hard to swallow the solution is to start small (and reasonably priced) and build on it over time – make sure it is designed and created by somebody who has a proven track record of professional web site design.
Compete with the big boys…
One of the many advantages of having a website is that you can compete with businesses that are far larger than you. It doesn’t matter whether your company is one person or 10,000 strong, if your company website is professional and functional it will project a far better image than a larger company that has asked a friend of a friends 12 year old son to do it.
You can reach people that you may miss out on without a website reaching people locally, nationally and even worldwide. Plenty of remotely located businesses have flourished due to having a professional website.
Unlike printed media a website is easy to update. As your business evolves you can adapt your website to promote your new products and services. Those leaflets you had printed last week might be out of date before you know it – what a waste of money.
Of course it’s a little bit more complicated than just having something online.
Be aware that having a website online doesn’t mean that hundreds of people will stumble across it by chance. There are so many websites out there that you have to work at getting your website visited. You have to think about how people would find you and market your website appropriately. If you don’t market your website properly no one will visit your website. It would be as fruitful as flushing a lot of money down the loo.
All of this website stuff can be daunting but hey, you’re reading this so you must be interested in trying it out. If you are willing to put the time and effort in to having a business website then you will benefit from it. Good luck and remember if you snooze, you loose!