Should A Small Business Invest in a Website?

Small Business Investment in Website

If you run a small business, it’s wise to ask whether it’s worthwhile to invest in a website. The list below offers some insight to help you decide whether a new or redesigned website is right for you.

People Learn About Your Business Through Online Search

In the “olden days”, we found businesses with the yellow pages. Today, the bulk of research is online. 81% of shoppers conduct online research before buying. Additionally, 94% of B2B buyers research online for purchase decisions. Customers and businesses are already out there looking for you. If you don’t have an online presence, or your old site is not optimized for search engines, you aren’t being found.

Customers Perceive Your Brand Through Your Website

As small business owners, we work hard to establish a strong brand and identity. We want customers and prospects to know the quality of our work and our commitment to their success. We do this by investing in our business — our employees, our facilities, our marketing efforts — to create a strong impression. Today, a visitor’s first impression is often made after an online search and a visit to a company website. If that website doesn’t exist or hasn’t been updated in the past five years, those offline efforts aren’t going to help.

Your Competitors May Already Be Online

As noted earlier, the majority of people and companies get their initial information about a business from an online search. If you don’t have a website and your competitor does, you may as well be sending them a referral. If you happen to be in an industry without a strong web presence, you can gain an advantage by being the first in your area to do so.

A Website is Like An Employee Who Works 24/7

A well-designed website conveys that your business is legitimate. It describes and promotes products and services. It builds leads. It sells goods. It answers commonly-asked questions. It provides a way to contact your company at all hours without waking you up. And with a modest investment and regular maintenance, it does this hour-after-hour, day-after-day, year-after-year. If your current site isn’t working for you, it may be time for an redesign.

You Gain New Insight Into Customer Behavior

Analytics goes hand-in-hand with a professionally designed, search-engine optimized website. With a good analytics package (e.g., Google Analytics), you can discover which products or services your visitors are most interested in. You can learn which keywords they searched for when they came to your site, uncovering new areas to focus on. You can gauge how interested they are in your content. You can measure how effective your lead generation tool is working (e.g., newsletter sign-up, free guide, etc.) and update it as needed. In short, you can learn how your visitors use your site and optimize it to work even more effectively.

You Stay Mobile With Your Customers

We’re all online now. And it’s not just from our desktops or laptops. According to Google, there are now more searches conducted on mobile devices than on desktops. If your site is not mobile-friendly (meaning it adapts itself to the dimensions of a mobile device), then it may be displaying a desktop-sized view crammed into a mobile screen. Suffice it to say, it isn’t an enjoyable experience. Google agrees, and they now penalize sites that aren’t “mobile-friendly”. A well-designed site will be “responsive” (the technical term for mobile-friendly), and keep you in Google’s good graces.

Conclusion

If you were on the fence before reading this, we hope these reasons are compelling enough to convince you that an investment in a professionally-designed website or a website redesign is a good one.

706 Media specializes in understanding your business needs and delivering affordable, working solutions for you and your customers. Contact us today. We’d love to help make your website work for you.