The short answer I hear to the above question is normally “because my competition does”. Oftentimes business owners have no clue why they need a web site or even further, what the purpose of that web site is once it’s live. The small business owner then becomes easy prey for the $199 web site designers: they don’t have to worry about seo, they don’t have to worry about marketing, or professionalism, or first impressions, simply because they client doesn’t get it from the beginning. Spending that $199 could be the most costly mistake your company ever makes in the marketing department and can actually drive sales AWAY and to your competition.
Your web site should be doing the following:
:: Educating. Educate your prospects and pull them near to you. Offer tidbits of information, show them how to use your product, offer an subscription based newsletter to keep them up to date.
:: Prospecting. By pulling prospects to your web site, you can potentially unveil a whole new market or demographic that you hadn’t considered previously. A web site can be a great tool to reach out to un-known or undiscovered markets.
:: Instilling Confidence. We have a prospect right now who is paying thousands a month in pay per click and his web site looks like it was created by a third grader in 1992 with Front Page. It is terrible. Why throw money out the window in pay per click when your web site looks like you are a unprofessional organization? A professionally created web site instills confidence in prospects that your company has it’s stuff together.
:: Lead Them : A web site is all about pulling people to you: once you’ve attracted them to your site, tell them (the prospects) what you’d like them to do: a strong call to action is paramount to a successful web site. Call today, fill out our form, subscribe to our news feed, etc.
Once you have the foundation built, you can always expand. When a web site is built properly, it can be an amazing sales tool. When built by Cousin Bob twice removed who was the IT guy back in 1982 and loves to tinker with the old Amiga computers for $65.00, a six pack of MGD and some old SCSII adaptors, it can end up costing your company a fortune.
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Tags: marketing, web design
