Should your business have a website?

This can be a big decision for some busi­nesses, espe­cially for the small one-man busi­ness. So I’ve put together this list of pros and cons to put things in perspective.

Start­ing with the pros:

Com­pet­i­tion

Hav­ing a well designed web­site puts you on a level play­ing field with the already estab­lished com­pet­i­tion within your industry. This is espe­cially import­ant if you do not oper­ate from a tra­di­tional bricks-and-mortar store. This also strengthens your cred­ib­il­ity and professionalism.

Mar­ket Research

Instead of hir­ing Mar­ket Research­ers you can use on-site polls and/or quizes to find out what your cli­ent base like or dislike.

Cus­tomer Care

Things go wrong at the worst of times, usu­ally out of busi­ness hours. By hav­ing Product FAQ’s (Fre­quently Asked Ques­tions) on your site, cus­tom­ers can fix most of the usual prob­lems. If not, you should have a con­tact form so that they can let you know of the problem.

Value Adding

By post­ing product care, how-to’s and tips you can increase cus­tomer sati­fac­tion with your products or ser­vices. This in turn gives you increased cus­tomer loy­alty and trust.

Increased Cli­ent Base

Because a web­site is glob­ally access­able, you auto­mat­ic­ally extend your mar­ket reach from just your local area.

Cli­ent Interaction

This is per­haps the most import­ant reason for hav­ing a web­site! People don’t usu­ally go to a web­site because they want a sales speel, they want inform­a­tion or to social­ise. By genu­inely enga­ging with them through the blog you build up not just a cli­ent base but a loyal fol­low­ing who will recomend you to their friends and give you ideas for new products or services.

All very good reas­ons to have a web­site, so what are the hassles with hav­ing a website?

Why not have a website?

Site Updates

In order to found by your pro­spect­ive visitors/clients, your web­site should rank highly in the search engines. To do this the web­site should be updated on a reg­u­lar basis with rel­ev­ant post­ings. This requires you set­ting aside time for writ­ing the post­ings. If you have dif­fi­culties in writ­ing or you can­not sched­ule the time, then you have to find someone who can do it for you.

Social Sites

To really grow your audi­ence you need to engage with them and this done most suc­cess­fully through social medis sites such as Face­Book and Twit­ter. Again you have another time-sink, while you are try­ing to grow your business.

Cost of ownership

Besides time, the site will cost money. First you have the ini­tial cost of hav­ing a web­site cre­ated for you. Then there is the ongo­ing cost of host­ing, renew­ing the domain name etc. Then there is the main­ten­ance, if you want to add fea­tures to it and finally after a period of time you will either want or need a com­plete redesign.

Return On Invest­ment (ROI)

Just like any other com­pany asset your web­site must have an ROI. Before you have the web­site you should really ask your­self WHY do you want a web­site? Increased sales, estab­lish or strengthen the brand or because every­body else has one? Whatever the reason, you need to know this so that the web designer can design the web­site accord­ingly. Then once you have the web­site up and run­ning you need to track it’s pro­gress. All of this requires a great deal of thought and self-examination of motivations.

The Learn­ing Curve

Own­ing a web­site is not some­thing for the tech­no­phobic. You need to be able to use a com­puter, send emails, make post­ings, crop or alter images. These skills may be easy for some, but if you haven’t got these skills when and how are you going to learn them to a point where you are con­fid­ent of your newly aquired abil­it­ies? Or are you going to pay someone else to do all the “dirty work” for you?

So what do you think?

So should you have a web­site for your busi­ness? As can be seen from the cons above, the ini­tial cost in your time can be a major factor in not hav­ing a site at all espe­cially for a new one-man busi­ness where you are pos­sibly strug­gling with get­ting the busi­ness star­ted. You need to be disip­lined in your approach to hav­ing a web­site. Set aside a fixed amount of time, say an hour each even­ing, and eaach even­ing focus on one aspect for example writ­ing a post one even­ing, set­ting up a social mem­ber­ship the next etc.

Just as you have a busi­ness plan, have a plan for the web­site. Your web designer, if reput­able, should be able to help you setup a real­istic sched­ule for things like post­ing top­ics etc to get you going, he/she should also be able to provide the ini­tial train­ing so that you can con­fid­ently use the site. In fact that should be one of ques­tions you ask before you hire the designer, what train­ing and or sup­port do they provide?