Your website provides you with an opportunity to make a good first impression. People who find a site visually attractive, easy to navigate, and trustworthy are more likely to want to purchase your products/services or visit your business. The time and money you put into a professional site design will pay off down the road. If you walk into a clean,tidy, store or office, you’re going to be more likely to feel good about that business as apposed to a messy, dirty, run-down location. The same is true for a website.
2. It's not as Expensive as You Might Think...
At the low end of the scale, you'll pay about $10-25 a year for a domain name and $5-25 each month for hosting. That ends up being $75-325 a year to own a website. For a complete custom design with eCommerce functionality and more, you might be looking at anywhere from $2000-20,000 or more. That is way out of reach for most small businesses and that is understandable.
But, a well designed, functional, and professional looking site can cost much less these days. Web design companies build beautiful and effective sites, but it's often overkill for a lot of small businesses. I believe that small local businesses should have the same advantages on the web as the big guys and sometimes all it takes is a simple little site. It can cost less than advertising in a local paper.
A full page ad in the Penny Wise running once a week for 16 weeks will cost you $722. A one page website, combined with some social media provides you with a 24/7 full colour, interactive ad that has the potential to reach a much larger audience at a lower cost of about $150 to build the site and $100/year to host it on the web. That's very cheap advertising!
"It's really frustrating when I want to check the menu at a restaurant, the hours for a hairdresser, or the hourly rate of a mechanic. Maybe I just need an address, or a contact name, but there's no website! I've come to expect businesses to have one, and it's nice to be able to check a business out before I call."
3. People Expect to Find You on the Web...
The "information age" means that people have access to and expect to find the information they're looking for instantly on the net. Customers assume that your business will have a website. To them, a business that doesn't have a website doesn't have much credibility.
They aren’t looking for you in the yellowpages anymore. They're looking for you and more information about your business on the internet.
4. 24/7 Access and Convenience...
While you're sound asleep or on vacation, your website is hard at work providing information to existing and potential customers. Think of your one page website as a digital business card that can't end up lost or thrown away. A 2-5 page site is like a full colour brochure that can provide far more information at a much lower cost.
5. Social Networking...
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn, are just a few of the social networking sites on the internet. You can set up an account with any or all of these networks that refer visitors back to your site and you can use "like" buttons on your site to get more exposure on Facebook.