Many small business owners debate the importance of a professionally designed website. I’ve come up with some of the main reasons that a professional website is vital for your business. After all, if your website isn’t working for you, isn’t it working against you?
Cost Effective
A website is a great tool for your customers to access all the information they need to be convinced to do business with you. Whether you sell products or offer professional services, your website can present your value proposition to your potential future customers as well as keep your existing customers invested in your brand and/or products. With an ill-designed website, you are missing the opportunity to make a meaningful connection between your brand and your customer.
Credibility
Many customers make a decision about a store/brand/service based on the provider’s website so you may be losing customers before they even make a call or enter your store front. A website can add significant credibility to your small business by not only providing meaningful content that relates to your business/products/service, but also an opportunity for you to showcase your work, reviews, and anything else that will encourage viewers to do business with you. Beware of stagnant website content which can work against your credibility as a quality service/product provider.
Accessibility
If you don’t have a quality website, do you even have a business? Well, depending what industry your business operates in, the answer to this question could go either way. But let’s face it, if I need a plumber, the first thing I am going to do is type ‘Kelowna plumber’ into Google. If you don’t have a high quality website, chances are, you won’t show up and therefore, I won’t be calling you. Just having a website isn’t enough these days, the competition is fierce and as a business owner you need to be as accessible as possible through Google. That’s where a professional, well designed website will not only communicate your message effectively to your potential/existing customers, it will also boost your presence on Google and translate into more traffic to your website (which is good!).
First Impressions
Since your website is likely one of the first places people will look to gather information on your products or service, you want you make a great first impression. For instance, if I’m shopping for new flooring and I click on a store’s website and can’t find what products they offer, that store has immediately put a sour taste in my mouth and I move on. After all, I don’t even know if they have what I’m looking for so why get in my car and drive there? You want your website to leave it’s viewers feeling well informed and ready to take the next step. This will lead to more more traffic and evidently, sales.