Top Five Reasons Why Website is Important 

 

Last week I was thinking about the importance of a website and how many businesses don’t have one. Depending on what report you look at anywhere from 44% to 51% of small businesses do not have a website. When I saw this statistic for the first time I could not believe it. As I called a list of local dental offices I quickly found out that most of them don’t have a website.

Now I understand these statistics may actually be true. I was shocked. It made me think I should write an article on why having a website is important for your business if you want to get new customers, or even just keep your existing ones. This article summarizes all of the reasons that came to me as I wrote. I am sure there are more reasons why having a website is necessary for business, but these are the main ones that stick out to us. You can also listen to our podcast “What Is the Importance of a Website?” to learn more.

In my opinion, everyone should have a website because they are so inexpensive and yet so effective. Hopefully, my article will help you see the importance of a website for your business. Profitworks provides marketing services specializing in search engine optimization and website conversion optimization services. We Work. You Profit. 

Have a website that will be search engine optimized and designed to drive sales.

Here are 5 great reasons why having a website is important.

1. 93% Of Business Purchase Decisions Start With A Search Engine Search of Websites
2. It Shows Your Professionalism
3. It Gives You Ease Of Access
4. It’s a Low Cost Per Impression Marketing Vehicle
5. It Gives You Opportunities Abroad

93% Of Business Purchase Decisions Start With A Search Engine Search of Websites

In order to gain new customers, you need to understand where your prospects go when they are looking to find suppliers, research suppliers, and make a purchase. In today’s world, the place where most people in most markets go is to the internet, specifically a search engine like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. These search engines are the big three (in that order) and account for over 90% of all searches. Google is by far the biggest with about 6 of every 10 searches. To learn more about the market share each search engine has go to ComScore.

Importance of Website: With 93% of business decisions starting with a search engine search that means if you don’t have a website, you are only selling to 7% of your market. That is right, you are reducing the potential size of your business by 93%. I would suggest that the same statistic for consumer purchases is lower but still very high, especially for larger ticket items. The larger the item, the more research and shopping people will do. My guess is probably 40-50% of consumer purchases start with an online search. Have a website that will be search engine optimized and designed to drive sales.

It Shows Your Professionalism

Another reason why a website is important for your business is that there is a large portion of the market that won’t even consider you as an option when they are looking to buy, if you don’t have one.  I know personally if I am dealing with a supplier I am looking to purchase from and they don’t even have a website I pretty much write them off as an option and my view of that company is diminished. It gives me the impression that it is a company that is very poorly managed.

With this viewpoint why would I want to purchase from a company like this? Based on my experience most people think similar to myself. There are some people that do not hold this same thought but I would guess that probably 80% of people have bad opinions of companies that don’t have websites.

Here’s a look at the Digital Tabula website to give you an idea about how you could promote your business with a professional website.

It Gives You Ease Of Access

Having a website makes it very easy for people to find you, read up about your company, discover what you do, and answer a bunch of questions they have on your business. By having a website people will be able to find your company when they search for your company on a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing. It is true that if you don’t have a website for your business, you may be found in a search engine if you have a listing in a directory, the yellow pages or your business could just automatically show up in a Google places result. Do you really want to leave this to chance though? Plus why not have a website so that you can influence what is displayed about your company and know your website will be listed in addition to having all those other search results. Which of the below results would you rather have for your company. Results like the first image or the last image?

Search Results With a Website

I would prefer the results shown in the first image as the results for Harold Stecho Electric Ltd. don’t give me any enticement to contact them, very little information on what they do, no information on what value they provide and what makes them different. The search results for digitaltabula are not perfect but they do describe what digitaltabula does right below the first link. The links also provide links to two free resources, enticing people to click on the links and an “about us” link where they can learn more about Digitaltabula. I don’t use this example to criticize Harold Stecho Electric Ltd. I just used the first company that came to mind that I knew did not have a website. I know they don’t have a website as I tried to find their website the other day when doing some work for one of my clients.

A website also makes other forms of marketing so much easier. For example, as social media marketing continues to take off, being able to link back to a professional, user-friendly website with all the information the consumer needs is priceless! If you plan to set up ads, such as Facebook ads, you can direct users to your website’s digital store, an information landing page, or whatever you think will be best to get a conversion. Have a website that will be search engine optimized and designed to drive sales.

Importance of Website: It give you a place to direct your social media ads to

It’s a Low Cost Per Impression Marketing Vehicle

Having a website is important as it is an extremely low cost per impression marketing vehicle. Depending on the quality of the website designer you choose and the complexity of your site it will usually cost between $2,000 and $15,000. The more professional and customized, the higher the cost. For example using a professional company that does custom websites like REM Web Solutions website packages start at $3,600. The only other additional costs in addition to the website design is the website hosting, which is very inexpensive.

Lets assume that you spend $10,000 on the design of a website, to be conservative, and see how it compares to other marketing methods on a cost per 1,000 impression. If you are not familiar with what an impression is you can find a definition on our small business marketing dictionary. For this example I am also going to assume that the website gets 1,000 visits a month and that the average viewer views 3.5 pages each visit. This equates to 42,000 pages views a year and should be easily attainable for almost any website. Based on this assumption if you include the upfront cost of designing the website and look to amortize it over 5 years the cost per impression is high.

Taking this approach the total cost for the five years is $10,000.00 plus $83.40 a year for five years for a total of $10,417.00. During this time frame your impressions from your website would be 42,000 times five or 210,000.  This would work out to $48.01 per 1,000 impressions. This is not cheap but here is where it gets good. After this initial investment the ongoing costs are extremely low for those 42,000 impressions every year. In this example they work out to $1.98 because the cost is only $83.40 for those 42.000 impressions.

Importance of Website: Low Cost Per Impression

It Gives You Opportunities Abroad

By getting a website it makes it possible for anyone in the world to find your business. If you have a product that can be easily sold online you can dramatically increase your customer base by selling online. To learn more about how to do this, read my article Expand Customer Base By Selling Online. Or maybe you can’t sell your services online but by having a website you can gain customers that are outside the geographic reach of your marketing efforts.

Here’s a great story that illustrates this. About 6 months ago I got a call from a man in Calgary interested in my services. I could have never generated a lead from someone in Calgary with any of my current marketing methods, except for my website. This example illustrates how having a website opens the doors for your business to a much larger geographic area……the entire world.

Importance of Website: Customers all over the world can find you