Article #1: 10 reasons your business needs a website
Posted: June 11th 2008

1. Convenience for customers
Using the Internet to search for businesses and products is much easier and faster than any time in the past. Millions of searches are done every day and it is commonplace for businesses to find their next supplier over the web. Most businesses don’t have staff available 24 hours per day, but a well planned and intelligently designed website can answer all of your potential customer’s questions and even close the deal for you; no employees needed.

2. Provides greater exposure
Your website will be visible to all your potential and current clients. You will no longer be tied to the limited geographic exposure of the phone book or domestic advertising. Your customers won’t need to visit your office or retail outlet to see examples of your products or services, nor will they need a brochure or other marketing materials sent to them. And with the price of today’s catalogs that can save you quite a bit of money.

3. Say so much more
You can say so much more on a website than you could in any print advertisement, phone book, brochure or TV/radio advertisement. There are no space or time restrictions on a website, so you can say as much as you want; thus giving you endless possibilities to make your pitch and close your deal.

4. Inexpensive, effective advertising
Your customers will have a better knowledge of your products or services, as they are able to research your products or services in their own time, instead of having to rely on a furiously paced TV or radio ad to gather the information they need. There is an extremely low cost to maintain your website so the cost per exposure is very low.

5. Fulfils your brand promise
With a professionally designed web site that is an extension of your brand, your site becomes part of the experience of doing business with you. A professional image online will separate you from the competition as the supplier of choice.

6. Saves money
You can save money on printing and postage costs for brochures, flyers, specials, newsletters, and other mailings. When it comes to advertising we can deliver guaranteed targeted visitors to your site with an Internet Marketing campaign.

7. Always available
Your website is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When you are unable to answer the phone, you can be sure that your website is available to answer your customers’ questions for you.

8. Saves time
The time that you would have spent on the phone answering customers’ questions can now be used to invest in growing your business. A integrated customer or product management system can be used to automate most if not all of the sales process.

9. Creates measurable results
A web site allows you to track the number of visits and where they came from, e.g. an online advert or search engine. It can record the number of inquiries or online sales in the case of an ecommerce site, thus producing a ratio of inquiries to visitors which gives the conversion rate. With this information you can take steps to improve this ratio and increase sales.

10. It is easier to test new ideas.
The web allows you the quickest medium for publishing new ideas. With a content management system attached to your site you can create and publish new content within minutes at no cost. Within minutes new visitors to your site will tell you if your message is working or not. Additional tweaks to perfect your message can be carried out easily thus allowing you to test your ideas before committing to an expensive advertising campaign.