6 Reasons Every Small Business Should Have a Website
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If you’re planning out a business or about to roll out, then you might think that a website isn’t necessary, at least for now. But the answer to that is that you do need a website for your business, no matter how small. The surprising thing is that many small businesses are still not online and making the most of all that the internet has to offer them, in order to grow a customer base and improve business. Even if the business is just you at the moment, or a small group of colleagues, you can still be using a website to your advantage.
For starters, that is where your customers are going to be a lot of the time. Thanks to smartphones and tablets, potential customers can be browsing online during their commute or when waiting at the doctor’s office. So if they are looking for something that you offer, you need to be able to be found. Surveys have found that nearly 90% of US and Canadian residents are online. So that is a lot of people that you’re not going to catch if you aren’t online. But if that isn’t reason enough for you to get your business online, then there are plenty of other reasons why you should be online. It is a business expense, but it does make business sense.
People Search Online
Gone are the days when most people are searching for a phone number of a local service through a phone book. But now, even if you have a local business and want to offer your services to local people, you need to be online. It has become the new phone book, so to speak, where people will look up plumbers near me or graphic designers near me. You want to be coming up in those searches, rather than them choosing another local business that offers a similar thing. So treat the internet as just an online phone book. For many people, that is what they will use it for. They don’t need to do the legwork anymore, especially when the information can be seen right there for them.
It Makes Your Business Look Legitimate
It is simple; people expect that a proper business will have a website that they can view all of the products or services, as well as contact details and a physical address. If you don’t have either of those things, that is can raise a few questions with potential customers, as well as make you seem like you’re business is not trustworthy. How would they get in touch with you if there was a problem, for instance? So you are certainly missing a trick by not having a website. You don’t want hesitation or feelings of being untrustworthy to be coming into customers minds. So don’t even give them that option.
You Can Get a Business Email
Align the same lines, you can get a business email (or several), for your site. When customers order something from you or you give out business cards, it is going to look so much better, and again, make your business look better if you have a proper email address. If the email comes from a Gmail or Hotmail account, for instance, it looks very unprofessional. An email with your domain name is what you want for your site and you can get that easily with your host when you have a website of your own.
Data Collection
When you are just in a store and ask people for their email address on a piece of paper, it is simply that, and email address. But when you’re online, it makes data collection so much easier. Not only can you get their email address if they sign up to your site, but you can know whereabouts they are visiting from in the world, how they found your site, what time they view pages, and how long they stay on the site. The list goes on and on, as there is so much more you can find out about your website viewers. Then you can really use the information to make sure that you’re posting the right things and targeting your products at the right people and location, for example. So it makes sense to keep on top of the stats and use them to your advantage. Something you’ll be missing out on if you don’t have a website.
Rank Higher on a Search Engine
When you have a website, it gives you the potential to rank higher on a search engine. You can’t come up higher on a search engine if you’re not online. From backlinks, internal blog posts, and using the right SEO keywords, you can rank much higher for certain searches. It can take time and effort to do so but can make a big difference. If it feels a little out of what you normally do then somewhere like Magento managed services could help you to gain customers trust and to optimize your site, much better than you might be able to do alone. So that could be worth looking into. If you’re there with something to sell, you want to rank higher than your competitors, right?
It Can Lead To In-Store Sales
If you have a physical store that you sell from, then building an online presence is just as important as getting people through the door. In fact, the two can work really well together to get people through the door, as well as increase the businesses offline profit. People can search for items that they want before making the journey to the store to buy it. So don’t just think that you don’t have to focus online if you have a physical store and a local presence. It can all help to make a difference.
So if you don’t have a website yet, then the first step is choosing a domain name and getting registered. Then there is nothing stopping you from getting your business online. Other than upfront cost, there are really no downsides to being online, so get your business on there today.
