If you’re a small business owner with a tight-knit workforce that doesn’t sell products or services online, you might be thinking to yourself “do I really need to take that next step and build a website?”
Put simply, the answer is a resounding YES.
Now we know you might be thinking that having a Facebook page is enough of an online presence for the needs of your business. This may be enough for ultra-small businesses with no growth prospects in mind but for those wanting to expand and become competitive in their market space, a business website is an absolute necessity.
Charley Reese has said it time and time again, “Credibility, like virginity, can only be lost once and never recovered.” One of the top reasons why your business should have a website is to cement your credibility. A website is the first impression that people have when they come across your product or service, so you not only need to make sure it’s a good one but at the same time, you want to create a sense of trustworthiness from the outset.
A business website is much the same as the billboard you see on your highway commute, the only difference being you need to work a little harder to get traffic to your online page. Either way, having a business website is a great way to highlight your brand, who you are, what you represent and what you stand for. Failing to do this not only limits your exposure but also gives your competition a significant leg up in terms of market dominance and attracting clientele. Using the billboard analogy above as an example, imagine an entire stretch where only your competition advertises their brand. That wouldn’t be good for you now, would it?
Remember how important it was to ensure your business was featured in the white pages? And even better if you managed to get yourself a tiny block of ad space amongst your competitors? Well in today’s digital world, having a business website is a must if clients are to find the product or service that you offer. A well-built website helps to drive traffic from search engines like Google which is will help to build leads and ultimately sales.
Before ecommerce, sales were predominantly generated through brick & mortar retail stores. Nowadays however, nearly 20% of all global retail sales occur online with that number set to eclipse 22% by 2024. Having a website therefore is a highly useful sales channel for your business to take advantage of to increase revenue and profits.
There are plenty of businesses out there that wish they could stay open 24hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. With a website, you can! This may be more angled towards the ecommerce type businesses where orders can be placed, picked and shipped within 24 hours, but even service type businesses can reap the benefits through automated quotes and AI customer service queries.
A website is a great way to offer beneficial customer service which in the long run will save you time and money. Incorporating a frequently asked questions (FAQs) page offers useful sources of information that your clients can seek out to help with their enquiry. Web chat functions are also great tools that gives customers a live response to their enquiries, either with a real person or the help of AI, further adding to the customer experience.
Websites are a powerful platform for alerting your viewers to updates about your business, promotions that you are undertaking and important announcements where information needs to be dispersed quickly.
For start-ups and small businesses, establishing a strong social media presence is crucial to connect with your audience, grow your presence and provide better engagement opportunities. Once established, the next logical step for a business is to build a website which can easily connect to all your social media channels. This allows customers and followers access to a great amount of information about your brand.
It’s estimated that around 65% of small businesses have a website. Or in other words, 35% of small businesses are at a competitive disadvantage in terms of having an online presence and connecting with their target market. A properly implemented website will greatly increase your engagement and exposure, giving you a leg up over the competition.
Optimizing your marketing budget is the goal of any small business. By building a business website and implementing a thorough Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan, a website can be an excellent cost-effective marketing channel that acquires traffic and develops warm leads.
If your business is tearing away with record breaking sales that you can barely keep up with, then you don’t need a website. Why? A well-established website will only add to your headache of explosive growth.
If you have a product or service that completely dominates the market, giving you a monopolistic advantage that is never in fear of being competed against, then building a website would be a waste of time. Although it doesn’t hurt having a nifty website for those customer enquiries.
Business websites should be looked at as an investment, and like any investment, you need to spend money to make money. Websites can vary in prices from virtually free to thousands of dollars. The cheaper you go, the more basic your website will be which in some circumstances may actually not be of benefit to your business as customers may then perceive your brand as cheap and unreliable. Therefore, a decent website should always be the goal but this can sometimes be outside of the marketing budget.
You would be shocked if you knew how many small business owners want a website to ‘look’ successful or ‘expect’ instant success. Don’t fall into this fallacy whereby having an online presence automatically translates into raging sales. A website is an organic platform that needs the same level of love, care and dedication as one puts into their business in general.
A big part as to the valuation of a business is how well their website is functioning. The man reason for this is that a website accrues real-time data that is fundamental in assessing its success and trends. This would help prove to a potential buyer that your business is growing, has a loyal consumer base, ranks highly on google and many other metrics.
Taking the time and investing in a website for your small business is a decision only you can make and validate. If your goal as a business owner however is to grow, flourish and succeed, creating a website should be on your list of priorities as it can meet numerous business goals like lead generation, visibility, social proof, and authority.
For more information or enquiries about building a business website, why not get in touch with one of Cemoh’s web developer experts here.
Business, Content, Facebook, Instagram, Marketing, SEO, Social Media
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