Do I NEED a Website ?

This is the big question that many small businesses ask themselves at some point.

When you consider that 44% of Small businesses do not have a website, then that clearly means that if you are one of them, then 56% of your competitors DO have a website.

So that’s 56% of your competitors who are effectively open 24/7. When your doors are shut, or no one is manning the telephones, prospective buyers can contact your competitors, and can get instant information about their products and services.

Your competitor is at the same time projecting a professional image. He is showing potential (and existing) customers that he cares about them and has made an effort to provide the information that they are looking for, in an instant. By doing that, he has instilled confidence and shown respect.

Your competitor’s website is easily kept up to date with news, prices and new products. The brochures you printed last month are gathering dust because you wish you’d put something else on them after they were printed, or the prices are out of date. Basically then, your competitor has a 24/7, information packed, up to date, on line brochure that prospective clients can see or even download, whenever they like, whenever they have the time.

While he’s watching the telly, your competitor, depending on his line of business, is selling stuff, right now, from his site. That’s business that will get nowhere near your door.

Your competitor has gone to bed, but his website hasn’t. It’s collecting information for him from potential clients. People making enquiries perhaps, or asking for a quote.

His website has instant information for anyone who is looking for what you and he sell. You don’t have a site, so you don’t actually exist to some potential customers.

Well, this is all well and good you might be thinking, but I don’t use the internet and I don’t know many people that do, so how does being on the web help me ?

Consider this then; research says that 60% of the population will look for something on the web once a day, every day; and 74% use the internet to look for services or products. It stands to reason then that three-quarters of the population will find your competitor, but again, you don’t exist.

Before you protest and point out that it’s only people of a certain age, maybe under 50, that use the internet, you should know that 60% of 50 to 70 yr olds use the web regularly, and this figure will naturally increase.

If you have a business, you MUST be on the web, or you simply may not exist at all