There are many reasons why you need a website to be successful in business, one being because your competitors will likely have one and you will therefore be at a disadvantage if you do not. If any competitors do not have a website, then you need one to get an advantage over them – so what advantage does a website offer you?
Advertising and marketing are critical to the success of any business. For many businesses, their advertising budget is their most important financial outlay. Where are clients or customers to come from if you don’t promote the business and its products? We shall class services as products here. People are not queuing up to buy anybody’s products – at least not these days, and you must persuade prospects that yours offers them the greatest benefits.
A website can play a very large part in your marketing strategy, particular when you consider that internet use is rising exponentially every year. More people now look to the internet for certain goods than visit shopping malls – in fact, more non-food buying decisions are made online than offline. Yes, people might make the actual purchase in a mall store, but their decision will have been all but made after an internet search.
If you offer a service, you can make very good use of the internet to promote what you are good at, and you need a website to do that. It doesn’t matter a great deal whether your site is a regular website or a blog, although many find a combination of the two to work well for them. Others are happy with either, although they may not have tried both.
What is the importance of a website and what benefits can it offer? Here are some of the reasons why you need a website to be successful in business:
Global Reach
Your website has a worldwide reach, and if your product or service is a global one you can reach the entire world with a website. Without this, you would have to pay a great deal of money in global advertising to even begin to compete with the internet, but it is unlikely that you would ever be able to do so. People use the web every second of every day looking for information and products – they might be looking for you! Are you ready?
Local Reach
Websites with a local customer base can be listed on search engines such as Google so that your site appears high in the listings to those living in your geographical area. You gain a great deal of local advertising for the cost of your site. This will usually be a significantly more efficient way of spending a marketing budget. You can promote your products and services in your own words on your site or blog and target people in their own homes.
Secure Your Brand
Unless you have a domain name directly related to your business, somebody else will have it. You will gain a definite business advantage if you can achieve brand awareness on your website. There are many ways of using social networking and blogging to improve brand awareness online. The importance of a website in securing your brand before somebody else steals it from you online cannot be overemphasized.
Easy Contact
If you put a contact form on your site people can contact you at any time of day or night, irrespective of where they are. Many use cell phones to search out products, and by offering a simple contact form on your home page they can ask for information or simply request that you get back in touch with them. Use a Captcha tool to prevent spamming by spambots.
Automation
One reason why you need a website is automation: you can provide a potential customer or client with the information they want instantly. A visitor to your website can click on an information link and will immediately have the information requested emailed or available for download. This is all done using an autoresponder and downloadable links. People can purchase products online 24/7 and receive an invoice and email telling them the expected dispatch and delivery dates. They do not have to wait until your store opens.
Disadvantages of a Website
Not everything is 100% beneficial and the internet is no exception. One of the benefits is also one of the disadvantages: keeping everything up to date. It is possible to keep everything online current, such as your latest prices, newest promotions and brand new products. However, you must also make sure that it is all kept up to date or people will stop visiting.
Your website must be properly maintained and downtime kept to a minimum. There is nothing worse than visiting a website and finding it unavailable, so keep testing to make sure your site is functioning as it should and that it loads quickly. If you use a web developer to create your website, everything will work as it should: in fact we offer you two free updates each year to make sure everything is current and up to date.
Another disadvantage is that it is easy for disgruntled customers to make their complaints on open forums and blogs, thus debasing your company. You must make sure you do what you say you will do, and also that you offer a good standard of customer service. If things go wrong you should be proactive, and do not wait for the client to complain before you contact them.
Finally. . .
While these are valid reasons why you need a website to be successful in business, keep in mind that it will not run itself. It is a tool for you to use to your advantage, and can be a very profitable tool to use. You must keep an eye on your site and your list of customers and visitors. Try to collect contact details of every visitor so you can keep in touch with them – otherwise this will likely be their only visit to your site.
In the past a company website would be very expensive to start up, but now a modern web design and development firm such as ours will provide you with a website to meet all your needs at a much lower cost that you might expect – and that includes updating your site twice each year at no extra charge.
