Benefits of a Web Site for the Small Business
There is a wealth of benefits to having a business web site even if your business is small or provides a local service.
According to Bill Riha, Chairman of Western Connecticut SCORE, “A well designed website will allow you to keep your customers current and informed by providing: new product or service information, brochures or newsletters, handy tips, directions to your business and links to other businesses or products which may help your customers.”
Bill feels that a web site can be a value as well as valuable to the small business owner. “A properly designed website will allow you to target the consumers a business seeks at affordable and cost effective prices,” says Riha.
Indeed, advertising on your web site can be one of the best values around. A web site costs considerably less than a modest Yellow Page ad or weekly newspaper ad over the course of a year. By including your web site URL in all your literature and ads, you stretch your advertising budget by directing customers to a place where you can tell a larger story.
“A good web site developer will help you create a site that is compatible with popular search engines, easy to navigate, contains current information, allows your customers to easily give you feedback and is personalized which makes you competitive and different from other businesses,” says Mr. Riha.
It is important to have a web site that changes regularly if you want to draw repeat visitors. Some web designers will sell a support option, often costing far more than the original cost of the creation of the web site. A more cost effective alternative is to purchase pages that you can change yourself.
It is not unreasonable to request that one page of your web site contain a section that you can update yourself using a standard web browser. Examples of this are announcement pages, sales pages, calendars or even a crawling banner. The web site owner uses an administration page to enter content that immediately appears on one or more pages of the web site.
Such pages, like the rest of your web site, should be reasonably priced. This type of feature keeps your web site fresh and continues to draw repeat visitors.
So while you may be locked into your Yellow Page ad for a year, you can use it to direct your customers to a dynamic advertising medium for your business: your web site.
Small businesses and startups can receive free business counseling by contacting SCORE at (203) 794-1404 or by visiting them on the web at: westernctscore.com
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