No Doubt About It
I’ll take the suspense out of this article early. The answer to the question of whether you need a website for your small business is definitely YES! I’ll even go further and suggest you need internet marketing beyond just a website. Just having a website isn’t nearly enough anymore, and your competition is doing much more.
Now I can imagine you might be reading this and thinking of course the answer is yes. The author of the article runs an agency that does web development, internet marketing and social media. I can understand your skepticism and I’d be similarly skeptical in your shoes. That’s why I’m not going to ask me to believe me. I’m going to ask you to believe your peers, and competition, instead. The National Small Business Association (NSBA) recently published the results of their 2010 NSBA Small Business Technology Survey. While you might expect that small businesses are growing more active with internet marketing, you may still be surprised by how strong the numbers are in certain areas. Following are a few of the key highlights.
- 98 percent consider it important to keep up with new technology
- 86 percent have a website for their business
- 84 percent do their purchasing on-line
- 73 percent bank on-line
- 62 percent pay their bills on-line
- 47 percent market using social media
In short, small businesses are absolutely taking advantage of the marketing opportunities that the internet offers. What’s more, they’re doing it in overwhelming numbers.
Getting In The Game
If you’re not marketing your business on-line you’re already behind but it’s not too late to do something about it. So what’s stopping you? If you’re letting cost stop you it shouldn’t. A modest website and a full year of hosting can be had for $1,000 or less. More importantly, that money will come back to you many times over. That’s not even factoring in the many effective methods of internet marketing that are completely FREE! All they cost you is time and, generally, not an excessive amount.
We’re guessing you have other reasons. If you’re like many of the small and medium-sized businesses we talk to it isn’t usually about the money. It’s more about uncertainty and inertia. They’re not sure what to do and don’t know where to start. We can simplify things for you. Contact a professional and get in the game. It’s much more economical than you think and the amount of advice you get will probably outweigh even the actual services they will provide. For the sake of your business, you can’t afford not to.