Do You Ever Wonder If You Should Invest in a Website?

Shannan DuShane | December 12, 2016 |  www.SpectrumNetDesigns.com
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Should I Have A Website? Check Yes or No

Well this is the all mighty question that many business owners face daily, should I have a website for my business, because I don’t have enough time in a day as of now? As a designer and marketer I would always answer that question yes, definitely! Why wouldn’t you want marketing that can take you all over the world with just a URL and a little hard work on your part. Business owners need to look at building a website as a serious part of biding their business. It’s not all about brick and mortar storefronts. These days your customers almost expect you to have a website so they can view your products and services as well as get an idea or notion of your business and what your business represents before they take the time and drive to your storefront. 

Unless you are a large department store or corporate entity and you are well known, then you are good, but then even those stores like Kohl’s, Sears, Gander Mountain and Nike still have websites, why? To increase their customer base, and to reach those that would normally be out of reach from normal advertising and to sell their product online or show off their products and services online to get the consumer to purchase what they are offering.

I mean it makes sense right? Yes of course it does. You really can’t afford not to be in front of your audience these days, here are a few pro’s to having a website that you shouldn’t ignore:

1. Positive first impression! Because you are busy and you can’t be in front of everyone all the time and first impressions are everything, especially when it comes to professionalism.
2. Availability 24/7/365 Marketing. I mean what can be better, your customers can shop after hours on their time in their busy lives, so you can be better for your customers in store and give them the service they require.
3. Network Building. If you’re like me I love networking, and a website will help you because everyone loves getting love online on a website, blog, and linking to others website that will help your link strategy as well as promote local business.
4. Push & Sell …. There is no shame in pushing your own products or services, be biased but stay professional.  That is the purpose for a website is to push and sell your products! Introduce new services and products, clearance out old products, promote sales, so promote those products.
5. After Launch. After it’s built out, you can hire someone to manage it, write blogs, update content as needed, you can even hire out the content writing while it’s being built – just don’t let it get cold with content.
6. Directory Listings. This is a huge benefit of having a website, you are listed in 100’s of free online directories, and the other benefit is that directories normally rank higher for the search engines.

Websites can have a great influence on your target audience, but remember that it can also have a negative impact on your audience depending on a few factors.  Customers normally aren’t too fast to forgive a company if the website, views, or other factors are less than worthy of their paychecks.

1. Keep your religious or political views off your website. I can’t stress this enough! You’ll create an instant enemy.
2. Hard to navigate. This can be several things, hard to read font, to small of text, more than 3 steps to find information your searching for, an eternally long website, and most of all bad design. Please re-do your website if you fall into any of these categories.
3. Bad links. This is becoming more common due to Backlinking and link strategies and companies are trying to get out of planning a strategic link plan, and purchasing 10,000 links that aren’t relevant or possibly spam links or inappropriate links.
4. Poor Site Foundation. A poorly designed site can be spotted pretty quickly. Slow speed and large files can slow it down, and turn customers away. Learn about Java and CSS compression and other factors to help you out.
5. Thrifty Spending. Building a website is not a time to be frugal by hiring an amateur, it is not in your customers’ best interest, especially if they are new and don’t know the basics of file compression, CSS and more, so interview firms, look at their work, get a list of references and communication are your best ways for tactical project management.
6. No or insufficient SEO campaign. With many websites, basic seo is normally included with your package, there are always upgraded services to go a step further and push your site to the limits. Without SEO you are like a piece of paper in the vastness of space, it won’t go anywhere and it will be difficult to find.

A well designed website presence will definitely be an investment and will pay off in time, so once you get past the initial cost and setup you will be creating a healthy online presence with all of the accessories your website needs to prosper in the world wide web.  Remember that building your online presence is work, don’t expect a million followers and thousands of dollars sold on the week of launch, you have to build your credibility and your online customer base.  

Happy Marketing!