Part II: Does Your Business Really Need a Website?

Author: Rachel Durkan Category: B2B, B2C, E-commerce & Retail, Marketing, Nonprofit, Social Media & Digital, Web Design Date: October 20, 2016

Last week we started to have a conversation with you about whether you think that your small business really needs a website. The statistics show that consumers turn to the Internet when they are looking for more information about a product or service. If you don’t have a professional web presence, you may be overlooked by some of your competitors. In addition to these statistics, here are a few other reasons why your small business should absolutely have its own website.

Five Reasons Your Small Business Should Have a Website

1. Increase the value of your business
   Let’s just say that you’re interested in growing your business, but you might need a small loan to make that happen. Whether you’re approaching a bank or an investor about this loan, you’ll want to show off the value of your business by presenting your website. Your website will be the tell-all of what your business is and a bank, in particular, is absolutely going to want to see a really good website from you.  If you do not have a website, not only would the value of your business look lower to a bank, but also to your customers. Perception is everything. Increase the value of your business with a [great] website.
2. Time to show off!
   Your website is a reflection of your business. This is where you can showcase your work! Do you sell products? Get some spectacular photography done and showcase it on your website. Or, maybe you offer a service? You can include testimonials from your clients, or you can take behind-the-scenes photos, write stellar blog posts, show off videos explaining your services or even take video of your services in action. You can do so much with a website; this is the time to show off your skills!
3. Marketing tool
   As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post, your website is a marketing tool. Here’s more information about how to leverage your website as the best marketing tool for you. In the long run, your website is actually a low-cost marketing tool.
4. Customer service
   Your website is active 24/7, and your customer service phone line or e-mail may not be, especially if you’re a small business. You have the opportunity to include troubleshooting answers, FAQs or just general information about your products or services that your customers are looking for answers for.
5. Establish your expertise
   You can offer so much on your website, as we’ve outlined above. In addition, you can and should include an active blog on your website. Your blog is the best way to establish authority in your industry or field. You can also use your blog to update your readers on news happening with your company as well as outline your opinion on debatable topics. We highly recommend that if you have a website (which you should!) you should have an active blog. Additionally, your blog will help your website in climbing search rankings for particular keywords associated with your business.

These are just five reasons why it’s a good idea for your small business to have its own website.  We understand that the appeal to have a free Facebook page, or some other type of web presence (i.e. Yelp or other directory site pages), but it does not help you with any of the aforementioned benefits. Now that you’ve decided you want to look into building a website for your business, you’ll want to look into what it cost to build a website. Feel free to look back to our recent blog post about what it actually cost to build a website.