Every business should have a website.
It is easy, cost effective and an essential sales tool for any business.
Even if your business has no intention to sell online, it still needs a website. Most customers are searching to find products and services they want to buy. They are not necessarily buying online, but they are doing their research and finding physical shops where they can buy. If your business does not have a website you are losing sales, and letting a competitor have an edge. I am not saying you will go out of business, but you want to sell more right?
Here are some of my reasons you need to start a website now!
1. Yellow Pages and phone directories are dead. I know that is a big statement, but it is true. When was the last time you used a big paper phone directory. Even if you are looking for a local plumber, you’ll find someone easier online. The phone book guys are refusing to give up, and it is making the situation worse. A business closes down, but their phone number says in the phone directory. I dont know why, they dont have the time to update the listings, they dont want to give businesses the option to opt out. The result is you ring those local numbers and heaps are disconnected or you get some poor householder who got the recycled phone number.
2. Google. You know the word, they are an unstoppable tide on the internet. They make it easy for customers to find you. I’ll write about this another time, Google Places is the new Yellow Pages.
3. Free and easy. Follow some simple rules, use open source software and creating a website is not costly or hard
4. Content is king.It does not matter what the website looks like, it will be judged on its content. That’s you. What you uniquely put into it. That is why spending heaps of money on a design can be a waste of time. You want to get it started, get some content up, build up some traffic then improve the design.
5. It has to be now, catching up is hard to do. Think about a snowball rolled off the top of a mountain. As it rolls it gets bigger and bigger (you’ve seen the cartoons). Your website is that snowball. You have to get it started now for it to grow. If your competitor has already rolled his snowball it could be the size of a car thundering down the hill. What are you going to do? Build a snowball that size to compete? It is the same with websites, age, content, momentum applies to websites. Even the most basic start will pay dividends in the future.
6. Internet has no boundaries. There is not one business I can think of that would not benefit from an online presence. Even your local corner store could market themselves online. Build a community of customers, tell them of new products in stock, the ideas are endless.
7. Niche business thrive on the internet. Just because you are a small business does not mean you can not compete with big companies. My computer business sells PC RAM, which is memory upgrades for personal computers. Although it is a big business we thrive in our small niche areas such as generic memory like DDR or DDR3. We also do more specific memory such as Toshiba memory for laptops. If you can provide a quality product and service you’ll find more customers on the internet.
I hope I have inspired you, please come back and read more, and take some actions to get things started online. If you already have a website, there might be a nugget of information that will help you increase your sales.
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