In this day and age, pretty much every business you can think of would benefit from having its own website. However, despite just about everyone below the age of 80 being online in some form or another, there are still businesses out there that don’t have a website.
Just about any business would benefit from a website, and many that don’t, or choose not to have one are sorely missing out on a powerful marketing opportunity.
When you think about it, how often do people turn to the internet, to find something they are looking for? The answer of course is people use search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo by the millions every single day of the week, 24 hours a day, worldwide! The internet does not keep high-street shop hours. Neither does it close at weekends. The main use for your website is to advertise your business for you 24/7, even when you are sleeping the night away.
Of course there will be some business owners who think that just because they don’t sell their products or services online, that they are not in need of a website, and would view the work of building and maintaining one as just another drain on their precious time. However, this sort of thinking is automatically building a wall preventing them from gaining a lot of potential new business.
Even when you set out in business with no intention to sell online, it can be easy to forget that people will still want to research your business, find out about your company and the people behind it, and for local customers to locate where you are. How are people going to learn about your business if you don’t have a site for them to visit?
When you are building your business from the ground up, you are attempting to create something credible and trustworthy. You want to be able to reassure potential new customers that you are genuine and reliable, and can be trusted to deliver the product or service that they desire and expect.
Having a website is an important part of building your credibility as a company. A website will help you to establish your name and brand, and as most people will assume you have a website, just like any other business, they will be looking for one from you too. The lack of even a basic business website can often cause potential customers to become a little suspicious of you, and may even give off the impression that you don’t take your business very seriously.
It is all about reputation. If you don’t have a website, then you are making it harder on yourself to establish your credibility as a genuine business. Without a good reputation, it is going to be very difficult to make people trust you enough to make any sales.
If you are clever with your website design and set up, you can really help to create the impression that your business is much larger than it actually is. At the end of the day, on the internet it does not matter what size your business is, as long as you are presenting a professional face to the public, and you are delivering on your promises. This is why so many sole traders and entrepreneurs have set up some really successful businesses from a spare room of their home, without the need to rent bricks and mortar business premises.
When you are ranking your website well on Google, potential customers will not know if you are a large multinational company, and medium sized family affair, or a sole trader working out of a spare bedroom. As long as you are trustworthy and can deliver what the customer needs, you don’t need to have a suite of posh offices, or a large shop on a busy high-street to do business.