It’s difficult to believe that there are some business owners who still do not have Websites for their businesses. Most of them are businesses which are largely land-based and don’t take mail or Internet orders for products. This, they often reason, is why they don’t need a business Website.
Sometimes, though, this is just an excuse, and the real reason is actually one of these:
* I think that creating and maintaining a Website is too expensive.
* I don’t have time to create and maintain a Website. I’m too busy running my business.
* I’m not an Internet user myself, and therefore I find it hard to believe that there are really that many people out there who are dependent on the Internet as a major source of information and commerce.
* I don’t have the skills or knowledge to get a Website started for my business.
* My business is so small it doesn’t warrant having a Website.
* My business is located in a small town. Everyone knows it and everyone knows me. No one would have the need to visit a Website about my business.
* Technology scares and confuses me.
* Even if I had a business Website, I wouldn’t know what to put on it.
If any of these sound like you as a land-based business owner, you’re not alone. But you shouldn’t continue making excuses for not having a Website. Instead, you should take an honest look at why you’re really hesitant to create one. You’re the only one who knows those reasons, but we can give you six compelling reasons NOT to put off creating and launching a business Website to complement your land-based business:
1) The number of Internet users more than tripled in the years between 2000 and 2011. That number is only expected to continue to grow for years to come as WiFi is becoming standard fare in North America and as even places like third-world Africa are getting Internet access.
2) A majority of North Americans turn first to the Internet before other information sources (such as the local Yellow Pages) to find out basic information about businesses and destinations, including phone numbers and hours of operation.
3) The longer a Website has been live on the Internet, the more “credibility” it has with search engines. When search engines index Web pages and rank Websites, one of the factors they look at about a page or site is how long it has been live.
Generally speaking, the longer the main site has existed on the Web, the more credible it is. The more credible it is, the more “weight” it’s given when it comes search engines deciding how highly to rank its individual pages.
What does this mean for you and your business? The longer that you put off launching a Website, the harder you’re going to have to work to gain credibility and, therefore, elicit better search engine rankings.
4) The face of the average Internet user has changed considerably over the last decade. In the early years of the Web, users were largely older students and young urban professionals.
That picture is very different today. While teenagers, 20 and 30-somethings are still among the largest demographic of users, modern Internet users today include the over-40 crowd, senior citizens and the elderly, and children of all ages from three and up. Businesses can no longer use the excuse that “the people who patronize my business are not Internet users.”
5) More people are accessing the Internet via a mobile device than ever before. And this is another number that is poised to continue growing. Users of all ages are accessing the Internet using cell phones, pads and tablets. This means that there are even more opportunities to reach potential customers via the Web than were available even a decade ago.
6) If you don’t have a business Website but your nearest competitor does, you can be almost 100 percent certain that a person searching for the services or products you offer will go to your competitor instead of you.