YOU DON’T HAVE A WEBSITE? A website for your business is an absolute MUST if you want to be taken seriously. Without a website, how will people find you? If they are searching for what you are selling and they can’t find you, who will they find? Why would you want to give your competitors a HUGE advantage by not having a website? I’m sure they appreciate all the extra business, but wouldn’t you rather reap the benefits of a strong web presence?
Your business website is one of the most valuable tools you have in building a new or existing business. When utilized correctly, you can reach a much wider audience and even sell your products to people all over the world. Your website should be in place even before you open the doors to your business, letting people know you are coming! Once its built, a website costs next to nothing to run and maintain.
Let a Professional Do It
We all see the commercials for easy, do it yourself website packages that are available all over the internet. While it may be tempting to save some money and try to do it yourself, you are better off letting the professionals do it for several reasons.
Time
If you are bogged down trying to learn how to build a website, who is going to be running your business? While it may cost you more money to hire a website designer, you will be free to concentrate on what you do best. Run your business!
Quality
Hiring a Website Designer to build your company website will help ensure the end-product is a high quality website that will represent your business in the best light while helping you collect leads, convert sales and attract new business. You should also end up with a website that is set up on an expandable platform so that you can keep it up to date while adding content as needed.
You Own It
A lot of the “Build-Your-Own Website” deals out there are on web-based membership platforms that require you to pay a monthly or annual fee to host and maintain your website. You might end up with a decent website, but it is still running on their platform and in most cases, must remain there. This limits your options later on when you decide you want to move it or maintain it yourself. Many businesses find that they have to abandon the website entirely and start from scratch, which will cost you even more money in the long run.
Avoid the headaches and start off on the right foot with a professionally designed business website. It is well worth the money!
Don’t Forget to Make it Mobile
Having a mobile website is becoming more and more necessary as technology improves and people begin to rely on their mobile browsers more. Many websites receive 50% or more of their visitors through mobile devices. Having a responsive, mobile friendly website that accommodates visitors on any platform (desktop, mobile, tablet) makes it easy to communicate with everyone in the same manor without sacrifices quality!
The good news is going mobile is relatively easy if you already have a decent website in place. CMS platforms such as WordPress and Joomla already have mobile capability built in which make it easy to integrate as long as you have been keeping up to date with your themes. There are also several mobile plug-ins available that can help you add mobile functions to your website.
If you are still using an old outdated website, now is the time to upgrade to a CMS platform that is responsive and mobile friendly. The investment will pay for itself in no time and help you draw in new business while communicating with your existing client base.
Keep it Up to Date
There’s nothing worse than an outdated website. If you are still in business, your website should be clean and crisp while providing visitors with the latest information on your available goods and services. If prospective customers land on your website and find outdated information, chances are they are going to hit the back button and end up doing business with your competitors. Always keep your pricing and product lists up to date to avoid lost sales and unhappy customers and make sure the contact information is correct and clearly visible.
Add Quality Content Frequently
Adding new content on a regular basis is valuable for so many reasons. If your visitors know that you frequently post new content, they will be apt to visit more often giving you more opportunities to communicate and sell them something. Google also loves websites that add new content regularly and will crawl your website more often which can help you with your SEO and potentially attract more hungry visitors to your website looking to spend money.
Don’t Skimp on the SEO
Now that you have a website for your business, you will want to continue to build content and strengthen your web presence with a solid SEO program. Most designers offer ongoing SEO programs designed to add content to your website on a regular basis while optimizing your existing content to attract your target audience. Just having a great website is not enough if your customers can’t find you. This is where a lot of businesses go wrong. They underestimate the potential of SEO. Imagine if you had a line down the street of eager customers waiting to get into your store? A website that captures that kind of traffic can work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
