10 Good Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Website

In 2009, 18.3 million households in the UK had internet access which amounts to 70% of the population.

If that wasn’t reason enough to make sure your small business has a website, then here are 10 more;

• You can sell around the clock

One of the massive advantages of having a website for your business is that it can sell your products around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Even when you’ve finished working for the day your website can still be generating money.

• Generate leads

If your company offers a service rather than physical products, a website can generate warm leads at any time of day or night for your sales team to follow up on.

• Convenience

Having an online presence makes it quicker and easier for people to find your business rather than wading through a paper directory. It also allows people to buy products almost instantly as opposed to travelling to a physical shop in the town or city they live in.

• Provide more information

If you buy a classified advert in a local paper or national magazine, you don’t get a lot of space to put your message across. Another benefit of having a website is that you can provide a great deal of information to your potential customers about your products or services online.

• Reach more people for less

Having a website is a far more cost effective way of reaching your target market locally, nationally or internationally than advertising in trade publications, magazines and newspapers, or on radio or television. You can also target more relevant traffic by using online marketing methods.

• Portray a professional image

A great website can give potential customers a very favourable impression of your small business and portray an image that’s more in line with a bigger well established company. Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean you have to come across that way online.

• Update information quickly

There are many excellent content management systems available which allow you to make changes to your website instantly and without having to rely on a web designer or 3rd party to make them for you. Having a website means you can keep your customers and potential customers up-to-date with what’s going on in the industry or within your business.

• Test new products and services easily

You can trial new products and services easily if you have a website for your business. For example you can use pay per click marketing to direct people to a specific page on your website which details your new offering and then monitor the results using Google Adwords.

• To compete

These days most people expect businesses of all sizes to have a website and if you choose not have one, then you’ll lose out on a large share of your target market to your competitors who do.

• Internet use is growing

Remember that over 18 million households in the UK had internet access in 2009 and this is expected to rise in future years, so you can’t afford not to be online. If you’re planning to sell products online, it’s worth noting that online retail sales totalled £49.8 billion in the UK alone in 2009.

If you liked this article you may also want to read 10 questions you should ask a web designer

This entry was posted on Monday, November 8th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.