If you’re using the downturn in the economy as an excuse to put off building a website, think again. No matter what type of business you run, you need a website. If you don’t have one, make no mistake, you are losing business. There are people out there who are trying to find you so that they can purchase your coffee, dresses, or t-shirts or take advantage of your accounting, legal, or acupuncture services, but they can’t. You just don’t know about them, because they don’t know how to contact you.
Maybe you don’t think you need one because you get most of your clients by referral. I would argue that you need a website because you get most of your clients by referral. Whether people hear about your business from a friend, an ad in the Willamette Week, or a flyer at your local coffee klatch, your prospective customers are going to want to check out your website before they call or visit you.
If you have a website, you should consider whether it’s working hard enough for your business. Are you showing up in Google when people type in keywords to look for businesses like yours? Does it include an “About Us” or “About Me” page? It’s possible – likely, actually – that your website isn’t doing you justice, and we can help you more effectively convert your visitors in clients.
The urge right to put off having a website to save money, but not having a website is akin to throwing fistfuls of cash out the window. What’s more, building an attractive, effective low-cost website has never been easier. There are some impressive Content Management Systems (CMS) out there for creating websites with varying levels of difficulty of use, including WordPress and locally-owned Ugal. Mixed Media also can also program sites for you from scratch if a CMS site doesn’t interest you.