Running your own business is no easy task, and your to-do-list is guaranteed to never end. This said, you shouldn't use this as an excuse to take shortcuts when it comes to having online visibility.
Beginning with your website, it's vital to position yourself online with a strong, professional destination that gives customers the impression you mean business and the motivation to want to engage more with your business. With this in mind, consider these reasons why having a strong website is important.
serves as an Online brochure
Companies spend millions creating brochures and distributing them. By having a website you can skip that entirely. Your potential customers can find out about you and any of your products online. If you get most of your business through networking and personal connections, then they will want to check out your website.
gives you Instant credibility
Have you ever had difficulty making that sale? Or convincing someone that you are the real deal. By having a well structured website you can foster instant credibility with anyone.
Attracts New Customers and More customers
More than 2.4 billion people use the internet every day, and some 90% of those have purchased something, or contacted a company, online in the last 12 months. As consumers surf the internet, they will have access to your businesses services and information, where otherwise they may not have even known your business existed. You may find prospects in multiple stages of the sales process, meaning you may find researchers, comparers or purchasers. Make sure to have an offer for all of them.
allows your business to Be Searchable
According to a study done by Nielsen, 85 percent of consumers use the internet to find a local business. Without a business web design, these customers may not even be able to contact or locate the business. Search engines such as Google are heavily focusing on local results, so a website is even more important if you are a local business.
Increases Business value
Have you tried getting a business loan recently? It’s not easy, but if you try and the bank manager asks to see your website, you better have a pretty good one. It doesn’t just stop with the bank, the perceived value of your business will be lower in everyone’s eyes – especially your customers.
runs 24 hours per day, 7 days a week
Your website runs 24/7 without any supervision or need to lock it up. You can always be there for your customers. Our Diverge websites allow your customers to research and contact you at any hour of the day. In an example such as ours, we usually receive 1 to 2 leads overnight while we are all sleeping. That would not be possible without a website.
Your keystone Marketing tool
The internet has opened up a whole new world of marketing that didn’t exist before. Your website can attract new business by using a whole host of digital marketing techniques. In order to do this, you need a website for people to land on. We offer a suite of services to help you with marketing after your website is complete.
serves as Customer support
You can greatly reduce the cost of customer support by having an FAQ on your website. You can also integrate larger support system right into your site so you can streamline your customer service straight from your website.
allows you to have your own Email@mywebsite.com
By having a website, you can have your own business email address with your new website URL. It is more professional, easier to remember, and resonates with customers. All Diverge websites come with set up for a custom URL and business email.
allows for Instant Communication
Once you have your business website, you have the ability to communicate with your customers instantly. We build sites with Squarespace, which allows you the ability to easily edit your content yourself (and we teach you how to do this)! Upcoming sales and new products can be instantly advertised on your new website. This can eliminate the need to send out costly mailings and flyers.
Low Maintenance
Once a business website is initially set up, it requires very little maintenance to maintain on a day-to-day basis. This makes it an easy way to advertise without taking too much time away from the daily operations of the business. This doesn’t mean you can neglect your website, a content strategy should be in place so that you are providing regular and consistent updates to your website so it doesn’t become stale. We offer content marketing packages if you need help after your website has been launched.
Provides Cost Savings
A business website can cost very little maintain. When compared to other advertising techniques, it is fairly inexpensive. Considering the power of a business website, the return-on-investment is higher than other advertising channels in almost all cases. A website is your most powerful sales tool, explaining products and services and generating leads from that information. We work with you to ensure your website is highly optimized for this.
Do you already have a website? Make sure it shows you in your best light.
By now it's clear that if you don't have a website, you're missing out on opportunities for customers to identify who you are and if they want to spend money with you. This said, if you have a bad website it is better to have no website. While no website equals missed opportunities, a bad website can actually be worse since it literally makes your business look bad. With fast and affordable services like Diverge websites, there's truly no excuse for your business website to be unprofessional and sloppy. If you can't proudly promote the website you have currently live and available for the world to see online, take it down and contact us asap. A bad website is far worse than no website - but let's be clear... both are bad for business.
Having a professional, polished website that functions easily and offers customers easy navigation, strong photo images, professional quality content and an overall experience that engages them enough for them to want to do business with you is key.