Why You Should Build a Web Site
Back in 1996 I received an email that said, “Thanks for working on my web site. I’ve had so many great comments about it.” The email came from Michelle Akers in 1996. I was on a team that had built her a web site before she headed off as the captain of the women’s soccer team at the Atlanta Olympics. After winning the gold medal she was inundated with well wishers at her site and she couldn’t be happier.
In the many years since that first web site I’ve worked on more than 250 web sites in roles ranging from copywriter to project manager to designer. After working in print for several years, I loved how flexible web sites are and how you can do so much with them. And I’m always surprised when I hear that a business doesn’t have a web site.
I was just at conference about local search engine marketing about we learned that 70 percent of the local businesses don’t have a web site and yet still want to be found by on the Internet. How are they supposed to be able to do that?
If you don’t have a web site already, why have you been putting it off? There are several reasons why someone wouldn’t build a web site.
One, the finances might be too tight. Maybe you think you need tens of thousands of dollars to create a good web site of value. There are plenty of places where you can create web site at a reasonable cost. You can always have an exceptional site designed when finances aren’t so tight.
Two, the owner is too busy running their business to concentrate on a web site. A web site takes time to write the content and to gather pictures and such.
Three, having a site built can be intimidating. There are quite a few technical aspects to consider in putting together a site. You don’t have to be a computer genius to create a web site. There are some places on the web where it is almost as easy to create a document in Microsoft Word as it is to develop a site.
Four, the owner is so “old school” they don’t feel the need to get a site. I just talked with a sales manager today who said he jumped the gun in talking with web design firms. Their company already had a site but it was very outdated and averaged less than 10 sales a month, but the owner needed more convincing before committing to improving the site.
But let’s take a look at why you should have a web site and the value it can add to your business.
Marketing Your Company
You can market your business on the Internet for a local business. All you have to do is figure out what kind of terms people are using to try to find a company likes yours, and then you build your site around these terms. It would also be good to put a map to your business if you are a store of some sort. Or if you are a service, you can put your hours of operation and areas that you serve. And you could put up prices.
By having a good site, you can show up in the organic listings of the search engines, but you can also use the site as a landing spot for sponsored listings. Services like Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search can be used to market your company on a pay per click basis.
Besides the value of being found on the search engines, you will have a place to send potential customers. You can put your URL on your business cards, voice mail message and much more. They can check our your work online and then call you.
Selling Your Products or Service
If you have a product you can actually sell then you can sell it on your site to people all over the U.S. and the world (if you want to ship overseas). By selling your product online, your store will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Supporting Your Clients
We have developed many sites that provide information for the customers of our clients. You can put many things on your site that will help your customers. You can create FAQs, have downloadable instructions or just more information about your product or service that will allow them to get answers to their questions, which will save you time from having to answer the phone at your business.
Building Something of Value
Because web sites are made up of a bunch of pictures and words, you’d like it wouldn’t have much value, but it’s the traffic that that will be of value once the traffic has build up over time. If you decide to sell your business, it can be an asset that you can sell along with your business.
It’s hard to believe that company doesn’t have a web site in these days, but creating a web site can be an intimidating task for those who aren’t technical. But in the end, it’s worth it to create a web site to aid in your business and add value to it.
Dave Carlson owns Green Chair Marketing Group, a Denver Internet marketing firm specializing in driving visitors to web sites by search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, and web site design/redesign. Call him at 720-922-3124.