Reason #1
A small business website will enhance your overall reputation. Small businesses often times put a lot of work making their brick and mortar storefront look nice, but often times forget to treat their website the same way. A professional website adds validity to any product or service a potential customer has heard about whether it’s from on the radio, Facebook, or through a friend. We as the customer instantly fact check and research what the company is all about!
A big reason why small business owners do not treat their website like their storefront is because they can’t physically see the web traffic turning away. What would happen if we flipped this scenario? What would you do if people walked right up to your storefront, took a quick glance and walked right back out? Wouldn’t you ask yourself why that is happening, and what can I do to change this? Well, unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening to many small business websites that are not up to date or have a poor user experience.
Reason #2
Believe it or not, your customers are searching for you! Roughly 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes, if you wanted to search for your service, what would you do? Most people would enter the service and location in Google and click on 1 or 2 of the top search results. Now ask yourself how important is it to be showing up on Google for those top search results? Not many people go past page one when it comes to search engines. This process is known as Search Engine Optimization. Make sure your small business website not only looks good, but is showing up on Google!
Reason #3
Facebook is not the same thing as a website! Almost everyone has Facebook, including business, celebrities, etc… What really sets your Facebook page apart from your competitors? When you are looking for a product or service, do you search Facebook or Google? Each day Facebook is reducing the reach of business pages and increasing what people see from their friends, not businesses. Mark Zuckerberg was recently quoted saying “In total, we made changes that reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day,” “in a statement with the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report.” As a small business owner, it is important to show off not just your brick and mortar storefront, but your digital storefront as well.
Reason #4
Your customers are looking for quick answers to their questions about your service or product. We are way past the days of using a phone book and calling around business to business. If your small business website does not appeal to your consumer base, what is the point of having a website? Appealing to your consumer base means easy to navigate, mobile responsive, and fast load times. Today’s society is not only fast-paced, but consumers are searching the web on their phone more and more. If your website requires the user to “pinch & zoom” just to read the content, I can almost guarantee your bounce rate is very high.
Reason #5
Your small business website is available 24/7 and never closes. A website should show clear and concise information regarding your product and services. There is no better place to show off your testimonials and reviews from previous customers than your website! Most importantly, be sure to insert call to actions appropriately, so your web traffic can easily get in touch with you.