In today's business environment it's imperative that businesses of all sizes have a great website. Studies have shown that the majority of consumers find services and businesses by searching online. Having a well-designed, user-friendly, modern website goes a long way in attracting new customers as well as keeping relationships with your current customers. Here are 5 reasons to encourage all business owners to have a great website:
- A Website Can Make Your Business More Credible: a 2015 study performed by Verisign reported that 84% of consumers believe that small businesses with websites are more credible than ones without one. A website makes consumers feel a business is more legitimate when an owner has taken the time to build a web presence. If there is no way to verify a business on the internet, it makes most consumers feel uncomfortable and distrusting.
- Provides Information: an up-to-date website is a source of information for current and prospective customers. Customer want to be able to easily do business with you. They want to be able to jump on your website and find your phone number, find your hours of operation, find your email address or fill out a contact form. When a customer has no way to find even the most basic information about your business, they will move on to someone else that provides the information in a faster, more convenient way.
- Provides a Platform for Reviews: having a website can allow people to leave great reviews and personalized feedback. I know that when I personally am comparing businesses that provide the same service, I am more likely to go with the one that has multiple good reviews than one that has no feedback at all. Reviews can provide reassurance for potential customers when they are considering contacting your business.
- Branding: a great website allows you to strengthen the brand for your business. It's important that your website becomes a reflection of your company and who you are and what you represent. It's important that your website tie in with all your other branding elements, whether that's your logo on business cards, your social media pages, or print advertising. Having the same recurring theme and message between all your platforms, website included, is imperative when growing your business and therefore your brand.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization): SEO is a fairly new term to the business and marketing world, but it's an extremely important one. SEO is an ongoing, continuously changing process. There are several important benefits related to SEO, however, the two most important ones in my opinion are: SEO will attract applicable traffic to your website and you'll get to potential customers first. SEO helps to target those people that are specifically looking for your services as opposed to reaching out to any one and every one. It helps to drive traffic to your website that will result in more sales and higher rates of customer contact. SEO will also help your business show up on the top of web-related search results. We all have had the experience of searching for a particular type of service in our geographical area and a certain list of businesses show up. When you are properly utilizing SEO, your business will show at the top of those search results and will more than likely result in more clicks to your website.
Having a great website produces numerous benefits for businesses. The initial cost to build a great website can seem daunting, however, the long term payoff from making your web presence a priority can be significant.