10 Reasons Why Every Small Business Needs A Website.

If you are in a traditional business; a garage, bakery, window cleaner or book-keeping firm, why would you want to add the extra complication of a website?
The short answer is because you are trading in the UK in the 2010s!

According to the Office of National Statistics last year 70% of UK households had internet access, and that was up 11% on 2008. Many people research purchases online before actually going to a local supplier, so having a web presence is an important way of creating an image and getting your name in front of potential customers.

Many small business owners however find that simply delivering the service or product to their customers is enough to fill their days (and often their nights!) so they just don’t have the time (or the expertise) to invest in setting up a website. There are ways to be online that don’t require you to have 20 hours a week and an IT degree from Oxford. You can design and manage your own website quite easily using any one of several user friendly services online, but the downside is that you may still find that your technical and design skills let you down. Alternatively you can have a pay-as-you-go website professionally designed and managed for you by an organisation such as www.westcountrymedia.co.uk that can set up, host and maintain a site for you for a fixed monthly cost and no tie-in.

If you are still wondering why you should have a website here are 10 potential benefits;

1.
A website gives prospective clients confidence: You might actually be trading out of your spare room but if your website is professional and attractive you can compete with the organisations that are spending hundreds of times your budget.

2.
A professional looking website may present a more polished image of your business than you might otherwise be able to present: You may be a very professional nail artist but you might not be too good at all that advert copywriting and layout, with a well designed website you can let the internet do that for you.

3.
Your website markets you whilst you get on with the actual business of earning money: Say you are an independent road haulier, you spend a lot of time on the road, driving your existing clients’ goods around the country. It is difficult to be constantly on the phone taking or making sales calls, but a well organised website can be doing this for you as you deliver the service to your existing customers.

4.
A website markets for you whilst you sleep: Your website is at the very least a 24 hour a day shop window, if you have an enquiry/contact facility on your website it is also a 24 hour a day receptionist and if you have an online shop on your website it is a 24 hour a day shop manager!

5.
A website can run an alternative business for you without blurring your image: Let’s imagine that you run the local garage. Your main business is servicing, repair and maintenance of local residents’ cars. But you also run a specialist sideline providing custom parts and paint jobs for Harley-Davidson motorcycles. By using a website you can trade as Gloster & Means Motor Engineers by day and www.pimpyourhog.biz by night.

6.
A website allows you to sell to people who are outside your normal catchment area: If there simply isn’t the market in your geographic area to support your business you can run a website that is geographically non-limiting and provide your service or product remotely over the internet or by courier/post.

7.
A website is for life, not just this month: When you buy advertising in the traditional media it has a limited lifespan, today’s advert is tomorrow’s chip wrapper to corrupt a well known phrase. A website continues to carry your copy for as long as it exists.

8.
On a website your past clients can sell for you: Client testimonials are a great supporter of your marketing campaigns and on a website you can liberally sprinkle satisfied client comments in amongst your content, have a testimonials page or even have pop-ups of nice things past customers have said about you.

9.
A website allows you to update people and give your customers freebies: Lots of small businesses like to give their customers and prospects little freebies to keep them updated, positive and interested, a website allows you to provide no-cost freebies in the form of industry updates, how-to articles, case studies or other free resources. If you set up an opt-in mailing list you can cultivate a database of potential customers for your other marketing activity.

10.
A website allows you to buy smaller advertising space: Whether you are looking at buying advertising in a local paper or just putting something on the side of your van, the less you have to say, the less it costs. So if you can just put www.forheavenscake.co.uk it is going to be a lot less expensive than 15 column centimetres or a large and expensive livery paintjob.