Small businesses today can no longer overlook the fact that having a business presence online is the realm of large corporations. Instead, it is a vital instrument through which to showcase their own business, inviting prospective clients, patients or customers to their door. All businesses need a website.
A website is absolutely necessary to let people know what you have to offer, where you are, and how to contact you.
Most people today turn to the internet first when they are looking for a particular service of product. They make their decisions based on the information they find on the websites they visit. If they are indecisive they will return to a favored websites at a later date before making their final decision.
If you have a small business, you might advertise in the yellow pages or online. You may even have a website – but where are your clients looking in order to find you?
One survey recently conducted by a specialist medical practice was designed to identify where most of their clients came from, as the time had come to update the advertising. When reviewing referrals, they discovered that over 60% came via personal recommendation – the rest from their website. 0% came from the hard copy advertising.
Needless to say this year they dropped the conventional avenues of advertising and now solely advertise online. They had people from other countries make appointments for when they were travelling to Australia, where they were located.
This could never have been achieved through conventional advertising, so for a small business having a website is not a luxery but a MUST. Its irrelevant what type of business you have, a website makes you accessible to people all around the world.
Getting your own website does not need to cost a lot of money – great news. These days it is an easy thing to do yourself! The reason is that there is some professional, yet user-friendly website building software.
Your website can be a simple, yet elegant, one page information site, listing your products and services, and, of course, contact details. Or it can be a multimedia masterpiece. The best website building software will be able to grow at the same pace as your skills.
The best software packages will probably not be the most expensive, but will definitely pay for itself with a huge increase in customers.