Why Do You Need A Website?
The answer is that the way we shop as consumers have changed in recent years. In the past, people used to turn to their local phone book or walk down Main Street to find products or services they needed. During that time period, it was essential to have a great phonebook add and a convent location in town. Recently people’s habits have changed, and most people are using Google to find products and services. The internet allows modern-day consumers to find the right product for them in a shorter amount of time. This is great for consumers, but the issue is if you don’t have a website you’re missing out on all these potential customers. Your old yellow pages add isn’t reaching the modern customer like it did in years past.
There are certain advantages that modern businesses enjoy that simply weren’t available to companies in the past. It allows your company to interact with more customers per day than you did before. Brick and mortar stores have certain hours and physical locations. Unfortunately, no matter the location you choose or the store hours you pick, some potential customers might not be able to make it into your physical store. However, on the other hand, a majority of people have smartphones nowadays and therefore access to the internet. Plus, most internet hosting companies can handle more customer traffic than most physical stores. This dramatically widens your company’s potential customer base, to anyone with an internet connection, anywhere in the world, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
A company website can also help your business advertise more effectively. Every business needs to reach its customers with an accurate up to date representation of the products and services they offer. The problem is that available products change, and the prices of those products change over time. The issue is that continually printing out new brochures/flyers can be expensive. Plus you’re going to end up with a lot of old advertisements that are no longer useful laying around. You don’t want to lose potential customers to a competitor with a more accurate add. It’s also difficult getting that advertisement into the hands of your potential customers. In the past, they used to hand out massive amounts of flyers to random people that lived in a certain area or walked through a certain area. The problem is that your paying for every single flyer handed out to random people, none of which might be interested in your service/product. The advantage of using your website to advertise is that your advertisements are always up to date. Also, the cost does not increase the more potential customers see your advertisements.
A website allows you to inform potential customers about sales and new products your company is offering. Customers might not visit your brick and mortar store every week, but they might check out your website. Especially if you had new content that kept drawing them back. This is why I recommend that my customers start a Blog on their website that covers a subject matter your customer base will care about over a prolonged period. A good example would be if you ran a bike store, you could write articles about bike trails in your area and upcoming rides.
Maybe your product or idea is aimed more towards a more specialized audience. Maybe in your hometown, there are only a few potential customers, but online there are groups where many potential customers all visit. Well, you can post about your product and tell people to check out your website. People are more likely to click on a link than potentially travel across the country to visit your shop.
A business can also use a customer review section on their website to make themselves seem more credible and reliable to potential new customers. This will help to put potential customers at ease and make them more likely to order from you in the future. People like hearing about all the satisfied customers you have had over the years. However, don’t worry, your customer review section doesn’t have to be perfect. People know that issues come up. The important part is that you work hard to resolve these issues quickly and professionally. No one wants past customers walking around town talking about how terrible his or her experience with your company was. A customer review section on your website allows them to resolve their problem. A brick and mortar store don’t usually have any contact with the customer after they leave the building.
A website allows you to save money you could be spending on a store and sell all your products electronically. It also allows you to sell custom-made products directly to the customer. Customers can use your website to tell you exactly what features they would like from a list of options. Then after you receive their money, you can make their product exactly as they want it and ship it to them. This helps you not to waste money on the stock that isn’t selling.
A website isn’t just for businesses through, all different sorts of people can use it. It allows you a personal place to showcase your thoughts, ideas, products and overall your companies message. Artists for example used to have to rent a studio and have a show to sell their art. Nowadays they could do that all online.
