10 reasons why you need a web presence
Thinking about Web Design in Loughton but not yet convinced that a website is for you? Read on to discover why having a web presence is essential for your business.
- The web saves you money. At Bzee Web Design a standard website costs 5,000 baht, roughly the same as a large advertisement in a local newspaper. The difference is that today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s chip wrapper whereas a website has an unlimited life span, providing a huge opportunity to cut your advertising costs in the long run.
- The web is cheap and easy to maintain. Unlike printed marketing material you can update your website content as often as you like at little or no additional cost ensuring that it remains fresh and contemporary.
- The web provides measurable results. Unlike traditional forms of advertising, with the web it’s easy to measure impact and return on investment. All our websites at Bzee Web Design include a full web statistics package enabling you to track visitors to your website, what pages they look at and how many subsequently make a sales enquiry.
- The web is interactive. Link your website to social media such as facebook and twitter and you talk directly to your customers to get invaluable feedback on how to improve your products and build long term brand loyalty. Plus all communication is instant, providing you with an opportunity to act fast when necessary.
- Everyone uses the web these days. More and more businesses and consumers are using the web to find suppliers or products. In 2009 more than 50% of adults shopped online spending an average of more than £1,500. Can you really afford to miss out on a slice of such a huge market?
- The web saves you time. Just think about how much of your time is taken up dealing with routine questions. Putting a frequently asked questions section on your website will save you time and be more convenient for your customers. Include interactive content such as online bookings and you can save even more time. And as we all know, in business time is money.
- The web has a long reach. You may currently be selling to your local area but why stop there? With the web the world really is your oyster.
- The web never sleeps. The web is open for business 24 hours, 7 days a week and if you don’t have a presence you could be missing out on valuable sales outside of normal operating hours.
- The web allows you to target your marketing campaigns. With a web presence you can build up a wealth of customer information enabling you to target your marketing with tailored email campaigns, far more cost effective than the traditional scatter-gun approach offered by traditional media.
- The web makes you money. Research by the Federation of Small Businesses shows that web is a proven means of generating new business with nearly a half of small businesses who use the web for marketing increasing their turnover by 20% or more.
Still not convinced? Well consider this: If you don’t have a website you are at risk of losing out to your more internet savvy competitors. And in the current challenging economic conditions the edge that a website gives you could mean the difference between surviving and going out of business.
How to make your website appeal to its target market
All of the best websites have something in common. They suit their purpose. It is easy to start adding fantastic images, backgrounds, and theme colours to a website, but it is hard to balance them so that the websites over all look has the desired effect.
It is important to make sure that the websites layout and look is all planned out thoroughly before you start building. When planned properly a website can be a virtual representation of the nature of the business, however if it is not done right, the website can actually give the consumer the wrong idea about your business before they have even visited the premises.
Make your website do the hard work!!
When developing your website, you have to take into account that you have the opportunity to submit your business to world wide exposure. You have to be careful to present your business in a way that will target the customers you want to attract, presenting the products and services that you want to sell.
By ensuring that this simple formula is adhered too, your website should do what it is designed to do, MAKE YOU MONEY. Use this as the starting point, the strong base from which the final design will come, be under no illusions; the first thoughts of how you imagined your website will look can sometimes bear no relation to how the final design will look when your site goes live on the internet for the first time, how colours, images, layout and text interact are vitally important in presenting the message that you wish to convey.
Your use of text is important for the site to be visible to the search engines, (google, yahoo, etc) as the software they use to look and asses your site can only read text, they don’t see pictures or animation, so for a site that has lots of images and animation (visually stunning) can be invisible to the search engines as there is no text on the site which they can match up to a potential customers search criteria, so don’t waste time and money asking for lots of images and flashing text animation, it won’t make you any money.
When developing your site, remember your target audience, if you are a multi-national company you will want a global message, if your business is local, tailor your message to your knowledge of your market and your knowledge of what will make you money.
The Power of the World Wide Web
The internet has introduced a new, exciting, fast moving environment in which the overwhelming majority of people, young and old, now participate in.
Commercial businesses now have to react to this new phenomenon, traditional methods of promotion and marketing are increasingly becoming obsolete. Advertising revenues in both TV and printed media are falling so fast that these once bastions of British business are being shaken to their core with their very existence now being threatened.
Is your business ahead or behind in being able to deal effectively with this new medium? Is your business maximising the opportunities to increase turnover, to increase profit that only a properly presented website can produce?
In the internet age, a business without a website is undoubtedly behind it’s competitors, no matter how your business is doing, how profitable it has been, and how you are so busy at the moment that you couldn’t cope with any new customers, your rivals will be looking at your customers, your business, your livelihood and looking at ways to take that from you.
- Reduce communication costs by providing online information for upcoming fixtures/social events, pick-up/drop-off details, match on/off confirmation, match location maps, social events, etc. Most people can now access such website information directly from their mobile phone so no more printing leaflets.
- Promote team spirit by including a newsletter with information on recent match results/performances, player ratings, top scorers, social events, etc.
- Increase fan base by utilising features for e-mail sign-up for newsletters and latest info.
- Provide contact and location information for visiting teams.
With almost 80% of households and businesses across the UK now having access to broadband, a website is no longer an optional extra for most businesses rather it is an essential sales, marketing and information tool if you want to connect with the widest possible range of potential customers and effectively reach your target market.
A website can project your company image and provide comprehensive information to your potential customers in a cost effective way which is simply impossible with any other sales and marketing media. It is an online salesman working 24/7 to promote your company at a local, regional or even global level.