A website is the most important marketing tool for your business – if you do nothing else to market your business online, you absolutely must have a website. Fortunately it is much easier to establish a web presence than it used to be. There’s no need to put this off for a lack of geeky coding experience: whether you hire a web developer or build it yourself using an easy-to-use content management system, creating and maintaining websites is more straightforward than ever. You can even add sophisticated functions such as shopping carts and event booking systems using low-cost third-party tools rather than having these coded into your website. And once you have your website, don’t forget to spread the word with social media to draw people on to it. The web is about connecting people, and your website is about connecting them to your business.
What sort of website?
It is no longer sufficient to have a website to say you have an online presence – you also need to be present where your customers spend their time online, such as Facebook and Twitter. But a website is your essential starting point. The aim of all your other online marketing activities is to drive people to it, but it must also point outward to your presence elsewhere on the Internet. It the hub of your online marketing activities. The other point of your website is to sell your products or services. Once you’ve gone to the trouble of getting people onto your website, you want to sell them something! Make your website your online point of sale.
Your market, your business and its needs will determine what sort of website you go for. Some options are:
A brochure website. Websites used to be static collections of pages that happened to be published online, but might just as well have been printed. Today we expect more from a website than uploaded business stationery. We expect dynamic, ever-changing content. We also like to be involved in a two-way conversation rather than the passive recipient of a one-way broadcast. A brochure site will establish a web presence for you – but it’s not going to get you as many leads as a dynamic website.
A blog. This is like an online diary, with posts in reverse chronological order. But it is really just a special kind of website that you can update yourself – not just posts but pages. This means you can use blogging software such as WordPress as a content management system (CMS) to build an entire website.
An e-commerce site. This is a website that is set up to sell products and take payments online. It is no longer necessary to invest a small fortune in creating a bespoke e-commerce site with your own shopping cart function coded from scratch. There is e-commerce software you can use on your site, or third-party websites you can use to sell through. It is now acceptable for any business to use PayPal to take payments on their websites without looking ‘unprofessional’. You can even sell your products through an Ebay or Amazon store that you link to from your website.
Why a website is essential for business
A website is the most important marketing tool for your business. An online presence is a minimum requirement if you want to present a professional image, reach new customers and increase profits. A website:
- is a ‘shop window’ that works for you 24 hours a day
- enables you to reach a global market
- promotes your products and services
- gives you credibility
- offers online support to your customers (which can save you time)
- provides a way for people to contact you.
Your clients and customers expect you to be online. How many times have people asked you for your web address, or said that they’ll Google you? If you’re not online, you don’t exist. And they’ll go to your competition, who are online.
