Why Your Small Business Needs a Website (And What to Do About It)

If you own a small business, it should be common sense that you need a website. We’ve had thousands of small business owners disagree with us over the years about this point – many of them now have websites. Of course, the majority of them don’t have websites – and they continue on a flatline of revenue growth. If you don’t have a website, but you want to grow your small business, you need to reconsider one of those decisions.

In a survey published by JupiterResearch last year, they found that just 36% of online small businesses – that is, businesses with fewer than 100 employees and an Internet connection – have a website. Said another way, 64% of small businesses don’t have a website. Even of those 36% that do have a website, we estimate less than a third of them fully-levarage online marketing to drive traffic and sales to their business.

Who has a website and who doesn’t should not be your justification for getting one, but you should consider the competitive advantage having a website would deliver for your business. Think of it as a sign for your busines online. When people walk by your business on the Web, they do so through search engines. They are looking for your business online.If you don’t have a website, you don’t have a sign, and therefore don’t exist.

Are People Really Using the Internet to Find Us?

If you don’t believe that you need a website, consider the following numbers for a couple of minutes:

• 94 million adults use the Internet every day
• 64% access search sites like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask each day
• 86% use search engines to conduct local searchs (looking for goods and services in their local area)
• 43% are seeking a local merchant to buy something offline

There are most likely thousands of people searching for the goods and services you offer – in your local area – every single month. If you have a website, your chances of capturing some of that action are much better. Of course, having a website is not the end all, be all. You should optimize your website so that search engines can better help people find you online (more on that in a later post – for now, you have to have a website).

How many people are searching for the goods and services you offer each day? If you don’t have a website – or some other form of online marketing – you’ll most likely never know.

Okay, So You Need a Website… Now What?

Let’s assume that you follow us. You agree that it’s time for you to finally get a website… where do you start? Here are some unbiased suggestions for you to get your website up and running.

• Friends and Family – as a small business, you probably have little budget to throw at a website. For this reason, you should look to find somebody you know that can do the website for you on the cheap for your first endeavor. There’s a good chance that one of your relatives, neighbors or customers knows how to develop a website. This could be an affordable path to choose, so in fairness, it’s an option we’ll suggest. There are some pitfalls to going this route, since cheaper options may not be able to produce a professional, custom design that you’ll be happy with, or be able to opimize your website so it will come up in searches on Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask.

• Hire a Website Development Firm – if you can afford to spend $5,000 or more on website design and development, by all means, hire an expert. You should be able to find many small to medium sized Web development firms in your area that will build you a professional website for as little as $5,000. Many will quote prices north of $10,000. If you can afford it, you may want to evaluate this option. Again, keep in mind that this won’t include search engine marketing as part of the deal. These services are typically additional, and can start at $5,000 for an initial optimization of your site.

• Do-It-Yourself – if you’re computer-savvy, you may want to start with a do-it-yourself website option. Many Web hosting companies offer template website options for a few hundred dollars per month. If given the choice of not having a website, versus having a do-it-yourself website, we would suggest the latter. Many of our customers have used template websites for years and are happy with the look and feel of their site. Unfortunately, many of these options aren’t search engine friendly – if they are, they don’t provide tools to make it easy for you to automate your search engine marketing. If you are interested in the do-it-yourself option, The Wall Street Journal recently did a story called “How to Create a Successful Web Site For Nothing (or Almost Nothing).” While we obviously don’t agree with this approach, maybe you will.

• Do-It-For-Me – a final (ok, maybe a little biased) option we’ll suggest is a do-it-for-me option. Service providers like Radius Online provide you with a professionally designed and developed small business website, along with initial and ongoing search engine optimization services. In the case of Radius’ programs, we offer options starting at $129 per month. Our solution also includes content management and other features than enable you to control the photos, text and functionality of your site, without needing to know how to code HTML.

But enough of the self-promotion. Any of these options can be good starting points for getting your small business website up and running. The most important thing is to get your small business website up and running quickly, from there, we’ll get into marketing your website so you can grow your business.

(Sources: JupiterResearch, The Kelsey Group, The Wall Street Journal)

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