Is a Website Right for Your Business?
As a member of my local chamber of commerce and a marketing committee, I was attending a colleague’s seminar about various ways you can market your business. After covering everything from direct mail to email marketing, this question came up:
Do I need a website?
Let me put is as simply as I can. YES.
Why Do You Need a website?
Let’s explore the various reasons for different businesses:
-
- You own an architectural, landscape design, or commercial design firm and don’t feel you need a website because you get enough business from word of mouth.
- You are losing business because you don’t have a website.
- Your potential customers can’t take an easy look at the various projects you have completed, read through the articles you have written, or learn more about your team.
- Sure you could send them a nice expensive glossy portfolio, but in today’s age of I-want-it-now mentality, I guarantee you are missing out on business because you are not making it as easy and straightforward as possible for people to get to know you.
- You are a real estate agent, sales consultant, multi-level sales agent and have a subdomain under your parent company’s name.
- Did you know that all your blog posts aren’t yours?
- That all that hard work to get people to connect with you also puts them on the same page as your competitors?
- All the work you put in to get people to your website is doing a great job of promoting your parent company’s website and relatively nothing for you.
- What if you leave that agency? You lose that following because it never was yours.
- You own a company that manufactures widgets. Other companies buy your widgets not consumers.
- BUT you don’t sell widgets to Company XYZ. You sell widgets to Joe at company XYZ, and Joe wants to know are your widgets any good?
- What goes into making the widget?
- How is the widget made?
- Where is the widget made?
- You sell to Joe because he can see that you care about high-quality widgets and fantastic customer service.
- You own an architectural, landscape design, or commercial design firm and don’t feel you need a website because you get enough business from word of mouth.
I could go on but long story short, no matter what your business does, your business needs a website. A website can be as dynamic as you wish from e-commerce to regular updates to a simple “business card” site.
A website validates your business. It is similar to when 10-15 years ago you’d have ad space in a phonebook. If you don’t have a website that is yours — you are missing business.