Benefits Of A Business Website
- Jessica Kane
- Jan 27, 2016
- 4 min read
Benefits Of A Business Website
Most businesses without a website in this day and age of the prevalence of the Internet are either new businesses or small businesses or both. It's hard to think of a large or even medium sized business that hasn't had a company website for a while now. Entrepreneurs should not discount the importance of having a website even if they are small or just starting out. There are definite advantages to having a website for your business and critical disadvantages when you don't.
Advantages of Having a Business Website
Visibility
Even when looking for a local service or product, a lot of people, especially young people, check their smartphone to find it. A company that at least has an Internet yellow page or other similar local Internet business listing may be found, but what happens when people want more information, but there is no link to a company website for them to click on? You may as well not even exist to these potential customers.
A Website Makes You Look More Professional
Everyone in business wants to convey a professional image to help get more customers. Not having a business website in a day and age when many people who are not even in business might have a personal blog does not create the impression that you are a pro in your field and that you are in it for the long haul should a customer need you to act on a warranty or fix a service related problem after the fact.
Having a Website Cuts Your Costs
Advertising a website online is typically cheaper than traditional advertising media such as radio or television ads. A given radio or television station will have a given viewing audience and will have fairly set advertising rates. With a website, however, you can start small, advertising it online by bidding on only a few targeted keywords in pay-per-click advertising as well as various other options where the costs can be more easily scaled to your budget.
It Lets You Interact With Your Customers
A website is more interactive than other advertising or promotional tools. There's no way for a customer to interact with a print ad, but a website can be made to enable customers to leave reviews for the business's product or service. It can also be set up with a blog that they can reply to with a comment when there is a post of interest to them.
Expanding Your Market
Some businesses may not be online because they are a local service business, and they feel the national or international nature of the Internet doesn't really make sense for them. As already mentioned, this assumption is not wise as a lot of people use their smartphones to access the Internet to search for local services as well. Some others may be able to open up to a larger audience, but just haven't done so yet. In this case, it can definitely pay to open up your doors to people across the country and even the world.
Disadvantages of Not Having a Business Website
You Fail to Utilize a Simple and Inexpensive Tool
You lose a practically free way, given the low cost of website hosting, to provide potential customers with more information about your company. Even if advertising your website online might cost money, you probably have a business card or other simple types of advertising anyway. Being able to put a website on that card is free, additional advertising beyond the card itself. In addition to the low cost, some people in business may not realize how incredibly easy it is to create a website today. You just type the search phrase “free online website builder” into Google and pages of options come up for online services that provide step-by-step website creation tools. It hasn't been necessary to know HTML or other programming to create a website for a while now.
Potential Customers Are Shut Out During Non-Business Hours
When you don't have a website, people can't get any information about what you have to offer them after you have closed your doors for the day. Perhaps they can't buy or hire you to do what they need right now if it happens to be late at night when they are searching online, but they may at least want the information to know if you are the person they want to hire.
You Will Lose Many Young Customers
People under 40 especially use the Internet even to find a local business. It may be easy for a business to sit on its laurels and be content with the customer base they already have. However, people move, die, you name it. Life is about change. The lifeblood of any business is a continuing stream of new customers coming in. Catching people when they're young can make them customers for life. Young folks are the ones, though, who are more likely than anyone to search for even a local business on the Internet through their phone, tablet or laptop.
Inflexible Advertising Options
If you only use print, television or radio media to advertise and something major changes in your business during the ad campaign, you can't change the campaign once it's done and out there running. The information on a website can be quickly and easily updated and so can many methods for advertising a site. Pay-per-click ads advertising a site can be quickly updated as can other online advertising.
Customer Service is Limited
The options you have to provide your customers with customer service are limited when you have no website. In addition to just calling when there is a problem, through a website, they can fill out a help ticket request or you can have a live chat option setup on your site. People like having options when they have an issue or problem. Some may be more comfortable chatting on the phone, but others may want to express themselves in writing.
To get started on your website, please reach out at www.SPBWeb.com today!
Jessica Kane is a professional blogger who writes for Faxage, a leading company that provide internet fax services for individuals and businesses.
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