Whether you've had a website for a while or you're thinking of contacting us to get one built, it's important to have the reasons for having a website and the return on investment clearly in your mind. This helps you take advantage of the benefits a website can bring your business, it reminds you just why you're paying for your domain name, hosting and website management, it keeps you realistic about what your website can and can't do, and helps you monitor the actual return in dollars from your investment.

You have a website because:

1. A website enables your business to be found by people who already know of your business

If I'm wanting to go to The Indian Palace Restaurant in Balmain my first thought is to bring up Google, Bing or Yahoo on my computer or mobile, type in 'Indian Palace Balmain' click on their website, look for their telephone number or Contact page and call them. It's fast, it's free and it's convenient, and none of the alternatives are as fast as free or as convenient.

Large numbers of people do this already and as each year ticks by the numbers grow exponentially. What's this reason worth to you? How does the cost and effectiveness compare to other methods of making your business visible?

2. A website enables your business to be found by people who don't know of your business but are looking for the products or services you provide

The role of a Search Engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo is to provide relevant search results. As a Search Engine - as opposed to the other things they do - they live or die on the quality and relevance of the information they return to you. If they're good at this their business can spin off profitably in many directions, but as a Search Engine they are working for the searcher. People are realising this and this builds trust. If the search results lose their relevance or start developing a bias that you don't like you have the quick and easy option of changing your preferred Search Engine.

People looking for a product or service are increasingly typing that product or service into a Search Engine and following the path that the results put in front of them. Search Engines display two types of results: organic results (unpaid), and sponsored results (paid). Sponsored results are targeted advertisements, and while often looked at and clicked, all searchers favour organic links. The search terms people use are called keywords. Your web designer will discuss your site's keywords in depth and optimise your site for them. A well designed, well built and well optimised website is an excellent marketing and sales tool for most businesses. It will rank well for searches performed by people looking for your products and services, bring them to your door, make them call you, email you, or buy from your online store. What's this reason worth to you? How does the cost and effectiveness compare to other methods of making your business visible to such a targeted audience?

3. A website fascilitates the collection of data about your customers

Your website can tell you a great deal about your customers and site visitors and you can use this information to more effectively market your business.

• Part of your general customer information-gathering should be the recording of your customer's email address for future marketing use, but your website can fascilitate this. A Contact Form on your website asks people to complete a brief form then press the Send button, which sends you an email with the details they complete. Your form can ask for their telephone number, suburb, email address or other information, and can ask them if they want to go on your mailing list. This is valuable customer data which you can tailor to gather the information you need and use it in future marketing campaigns.
  
• Your website statistics can tell you which country your site visitors come from, which page they land on and which page the exit from. It provides a graph of what days and times people visit your site and how many visitors bookmarked your site on their browser. It can tell you the link that brought a site visitor to you. It can tell you how often the Search Engines index your site, how many unique viewers visit your site, how long they stay and which pages they visit. This information is particularly important for your web designer to help them manage and optimise your site but it's available to you as well. Just ask. What's this reason worth to you? How does the cost and effectiveness compare to other methods of gathering customer information?

4. A website enables you to communicate your message the way you want it communicated in a form that's easily updated and is viewable every miniute of every day at minimal cost

Your web designer can portray your business exactly how you want it to be portrayed, and this public advertisment and information source is available every minute of the day, every day of the year. Your site's always there, always fresh; your ads not wrapping up fish and chips the next day or in the bin, and it didn't display for 30 seconds and that's that. Your website is a constant, waiting for Search Engines to deliver people to it who are specifically looking for you or your product or service. Your website informs potential customers:

• What your business does
• Where you're located, with a map or directions if needed
• Your hours of operation
• How to contact you
• What your Unique Selling Position is
• Your 'Elevator Pitch'
• What's new in your business ... and more.

What's this reason worth to you? How does the cost and effectiveness compare to other methods of communicating your message?

5. A website enables you to deliver documents, files, and other information to your customers easily, quickly and at no cost

Do you have Terms and Conditions your customers need to read? Do you have a questionnaire or order form that needs to be filled in? Do you have instructions on product use, product care, definitions, or frequently asked questions your customers need? All these can be on your website for your customers to view or download quickly and easily. This could save you postage costs, faxing costs, time spent on the telephone, time spent at with a customer at your counter. It could save you having to answer the same question twenty times a day. This information could be available on your website and it could be in the form of an instructional video, an audio file, website text, or a pdf file to print.

What's this reason worth to you? How does the cost and effectiveness compare to other methods of delivering information to your customers, such as brochures and instruction manuals?

6. A website domain enables you to have a more professional email address

If your name's Yvonne and your business is Lets Meetup it looks much better for the email address on your business card to be yvonne@letsmeetup.com.au than yvonne256@hotmail.com. 'Nuff said. What's this reason worth to you? How does the cost and effectiveness compare to other methods of making your business appear professional?

7. A website enables you to market to the world. It's a world-wide-web after all!

Some businesses require direct customer contact, such as the person who makes your coffee, but the internet enables many businesses to extend their reach beyond a town or a radius of suburbs - to a whole city, an entire country or the entire world. The reach of the internet means that whatever your niche is, your customer base can extend to anyone in any country who has internet access and can read the language of your site. What's this reason worth to you? How does the cost and effectiveness compare to other methods of making your business visible to a worldwide audience?

8. A website can sell your product or service directly and indirectly

Depending on the nature of your business, your website may be able to: sell your product or service, deliver your product or service, take the payment for your product or service, generate a sales order, transfer your sale to a retailer who stocks your product, take sales orders from retailers of your product, generate an invoice and more. This aspect of a website is called e-commerce and e-commerce options range from no-cost solutions to relatively high fixed monthly cost solutions depending on the type of e-commerce facilities your business requires. The type of e-commerce you employ can grow and evolve with your business. What's this reason worth to you? How does the cost and effectiveness compare to other methods of making sales transactions?

 

A website can provide these benefits. Would your business benefit from a distinctive, well built and optimised website?

 

The downside? ...Mmmm, now you've got me thinking. Not every business will require a website, but most will, even if it's just a beautiful one page site (sometimes called a micro-site) so people can find their telephone number. The downsides all involve people who are unprofessional, give poor service, take advantage of people's unfamiliarity with this new media, don't understand small business, build shoddy sites, fail to properly optimise their sites, register customer's domains in their own name, and the list goes on. So it's important to choose a web designer who ... oh, enough false modesty already ... just call us on (02) 98105206.