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Posts tagged small business websites
Think You Don’t Need a Website? Think Again.
Aug 21st
Let’s say your small business only makes sales through in-person presentations. Your customers don’t come to find you, you find them. Because of the nature of your business, you don’t expect any prospects to really search for you online. You don’t need a website, right? Your business is old school!
Wrong.
A website is a must-have item for a small businesses that prospects and other contacts can and will rely on as a reference resource. If it doesn’t exist, it creates a big strike against your credibility and perception as a reliable company. You truly never know what reason someone might have for visiting your company’s website, but you can count on this: if they can’t find it, it’s a problem.
Perception is reality
The lack of a website can create issues when working with suppliers, partners, employees, and various other parties. It doesn’t have to be the most informative site in the world, but it needs to exist and it needs to project a favorable image for your company.
Think about your own experiences. Let’s say you solicited bids for a real estate development contract, and a bunch of builders submitted their bid packages. You reviewed the packages, got a sense of the builders, and then decided to check them out online. What would you think of a builder with no website?
“Is this guy for real? Where is his website? Is this a scam?”
A website is a critical way to demonstrate legitimacy, but also attentiveness to technological developments. A business that doesn’t keep up with basic Internet technology may also not be keeping up with developments in its own field. It may be an unfair perception, but it’s important to present your business as one that embraces advances and that can provide state-of-the-art offerings to customers. Without a website, you can’t do that effectively.
Websites make you look bigger than you are
A well designed website lets you directly compete with larger players. On the Internet, a well made website can make you look like the industry leader, if it compares favorably to larger competitors that have let their site lag behind. To the average searcher who doesn’t know much about the relative positions of the companies in your industry, website quality will be the first indicator of each company’s relative rank.
Essentially, your website is your global storefront. As far as the world at large is concerned, you are your website. Not having a website is the equivalent of putting your flagship location on an unmarked island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and shutting the blinds. For this reason, it always makes sense to build a simple, clean website, and make sure that you aren’t losing points from any of the parties that may be searching for you to learn more about your business.
5 Reasons Why It’s Insane for a Small Business Not to Have a Website
Aug 6th
Some small businesses may be extremely special and may be able to get by without any web presence whatsoever. If your business is one of these, you can stop reading this article now (right after you leave a comment explaining how you can operate without one … seriously, we’d love to know)!
For the other 99.9999% of small businesses, you absolutely have to have a website nowadays. The advantages are too sweet, and the problems that come with not having one have become far too damaging.
Here are the biggest reasons why we say that:
1. Credibility
We’ll be honest. If we go looking for a business online and can’t find their website, our first thought is, “How legit can this business be? They don’t even care enough to have a single-page website so we can see who they are and how to reach them?” It doesn’t inspire confidence, and makes a bad first impression.
Your website doesn’t have to be complex, it just needs to exist to show that your business isn’t a fly-by-night operation. The existence of a website boosts credibility and reassures prospects that you are up-front and reachable. The most critical components are the address of your location, your phone number, and your email address. That way, prospects from the web can find your business and get in touch with you.
2. Reference
People are far more comfortable learning about your business from browsing online than from calling you, or visiting your location blindly. Thus, a website is hugely important for getting people the basic info about your business that they need. If you can deliver quick explanations of your offerings, along with testimonials and other information to round out your website, it can become a very robust reference point and an effective way to pre-sell customers.
3. It facilitates SEO (search engine optimization)
Without a website, you can’t take advantage of the thousands of searches that take place on Google for businesses like yours. Each search is a potential lead and a potential sale, and capturing 0% of that traffic is a massive missed opportunity.
With a simple website (and beyond that, an active blog), you can enjoy your share of the prospects searching in your industry, and get a big sales bump if you focus your efforts in a dedicated and intelligent manner. The science of increasing your visibility and rank in search results is known as “search engine optimization.” Done right, it’s as good as money in the bank.
4. In enables online sales and marketing
Email marketing is a tremendously cost effective way to increase your sales, but without a website to support your program, it can be quite difficult (if not impossible) to make use of this marketing channel. In addition to providing a base for email marketing, your website also allows you to participate in online pay-per-click advertising. This opens up another stream of leads to help your business keep sales and revenue strong.
5. Your competitors have one
This is the clincher. If people go looking for a business in your industry, or for your business specifically, and they can’t find you online, guess what happens? They immediately browse to a competitor. This strengthens your competition, sends your leads into their arms, and puts them at a huge advantage.
Don’t rely on old methods to keep your business afloat forever. Things change, and the Internet becomes more critical to small businesses each day. Stay up-to-date with an easy, low cost website, and make sure that tomorrow’s sales are strong as today’s.
