Hav­ing a web­site has become one of the neces­si­ties when start­ing any busi­ness. Accord­ing to the World Inter­net Users and 2016 Pop­u­la­tion Stats, half of the world’s pop­u­la­tion uses the inter­net. This num­ber is rapid­ly increas­ing every year! Hav­ing a web­site is no longer option­al, as peo­ple expect it from every seri­ous business.

For the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple, the first step in gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion will be via Google or a sim­i­lar search engine. 88% of con­sumers start their buy­ing deci­sion with an online search. When it comes to B2B, 94% of peo­ple will first do their research online before tak­ing any action.

 pur­plenote: If your busi­ness is not on the Inter­net, then your busi­ness will be out of business.
– Bill Gates

If you still ask your­self “Why do I need to invest in a good web­site?” below are 9 strong rea­sons why an online pres­ence is vital for your business.

Visibility

Having a website increases visibility.

Whether your poten­tial cus­tomers want to research more about your com­pa­ny before mak­ing a busi­ness deci­sion, or they want to check direc­tions to your office or mar­ket­place before vis­it­ing you, they will look for your com­pa­ny’s website.

If you opti­mize your web­site well for the key­words rel­e­vant to your tar­get audi­ence, you can increase brand aware­ness and acquire new cus­tomers sim­ply with your online presence.

Accessibility

Your website is accessible at all times, in any part of the world.

Your web­site will work for you 24/7, dur­ing the night, week­ends and hol­i­days, when your office is closed. More impor­tant­ly, it will be the first result for all com­pa­ny-relat­ed queries, which means you are in charge of your vis­i­tors’ expe­ri­ence! You can decide which infor­ma­tion you’d like them to find about your com­pa­ny, and what kind of impres­sion you wish to make.

If you don’t have a web­site, poten­tial cus­tomers will still look for infor­ma­tion, but you may not like what they might find from sec­ondary sources.

Cost-Effective

Having a website is a highly cost-effective way of promotion.

Although the cost of design­ing and launch­ing a web­site varies, once it’s up and run­ning, main­tain­ing a web­site requires a neg­li­gi­ble month­ly amount to keep every­thing in its place.

Com­pared to the cost of adver­tise­ments in news­pa­pers, on bill­boards or tele­vi­sion, and tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the poten­tial mar­ket you can reach, a web­site is the most inex­pen­sive pro­mo­tion tool.

Credibility

Having a professional looking website helps your business establish credibility.

With over 3 bil­lion peo­ple using the inter­net, it is safe to say that the major­i­ty of poten­tial cus­tomers will search online for infor­ma­tion about your company/the busi­ness that you do. With­out a web­site, you are miss­ing out on poten­tial cus­tomers and clients who may turn instead to your competitors.

A well-designed and easy to nav­i­gate web­site, with clear infor­ma­tion, will pro­vide your busi­ness with a pro­fes­sion­al image, and inspire trust in your visitors.

Marketing

Once you have a website, a whole new world of marketing opportunities opens up.

The best part is that online mar­ket­ing strate­gies are mea­sur­able, and proven to be effec­tive. Choose to invest in SEO, email mar­ket­ing, social media, AdWords or mul­ti-chan­nels. You can eas­i­ly track all activ­i­ties and mea­sure ROI.

Sales

A website can easily become one of your marketplaces.

You can sell prod­ucts and ser­vices online, direct­ly to your cus­tomers at any time with­out the restric­tion of busi­ness hours or loca­tion. You can engage with them to build a two-way rela­tion­ship, and use this rela­tion­ship not only to improve your prod­ucts and ser­vices, but to con­vert prospects to cus­tomers, and recur­ring cus­tomers to brand advocates.

Lasting Value

Once you invest in building a quality website, it will only bring you more value with time.

Hav­ing a web­site brings new and excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, and poten­tial growth over time. There is no oth­er, not even sim­i­lar, pro­mo­tion method. When you invest in any adver­tise­ments, ben­e­fits decrease with time, and if you want to hold it, you have to pay over and over again.

Customer Support

Your website can improve customer service.

More and more cus­tomers pre­fer self-ser­vice help, phone-based assis­tance or email sup­port. Hav­ing a web­site allows you to offer bet­ter cus­tomer ser­vice for the major­i­ty of customers.

You can have a sim­ple page with answers to fre­quent ques­tions (FAQ), cre­ate a knowl­edge base, estab­lish a trou­bleshoot­ing forum or even extend online cus­tomer sup­port via spe­cial­ized helpdesk soft­ware, like Mind­Touch or Freshdesk.

Statistics

Add a few lines of code and say goodbye to guessing.

You can gath­er valu­able insights from your web­site’s vis­i­tors, and use them to improve your busi­ness. By plac­ing a sim­ple track­ing code, you can find out exact­ly how many peo­ple vis­it­ed your web­site, which search terms they used, where they came from, which pages they vis­it­ed, and much more.

You can even use a heatmap tool like CrazyEgg to visu­al­ize where your vis­i­tors click, or an advanced record­ing tool like Luck­y­Or­ange to study their behav­iour in detail.

Up to around a decade or so ago, hav­ing a web­site was still a bit of nov­el­ty, and the advan­tages of online busi­ness were hard­ly under­stood. Today, you will find even flower shops with incred­i­ble web­sites, order forms and online sched­uled deliv­er­ies. Hav­ing a web­site is an essen­tial tool in your over­all busi­ness prac­tices that you can­not pos­si­bly ignore any­more if you wish to stay on top of the game!