How do I know if I need a website for my business?

That seems to be a very popular question when it comes to asking your self should I have a website? And how can it benefit me?

Normally I ask the individual few simple questions which makes it clear for them if a website is suitable for his or her business. When deciding to get a business website setup small business owners have the perception of that it will cost them an arm and a leg. This is not having evaluated what they need and why.

What I will try and assist you is to see what you really need to start with and why? So first here is a few questions to help us both understand your business and if its a good idea to have a website.

1.Do you sell products and services that is needed by a wider community?

2.Do you have a unique set of products and services?

3.Can your products and services be purchased currently online?

4.Do you advertise in local peppers, local media, flyers and pamphlet?

5.Why do I use such forms of advertising?

6.How much is print media is costing your business?

The above question will show you your understanding of the products and services you have on offer. For example normally for a corner store who sell milk fresh bread and few other simple house hold goods does not need a website. However, if the same corner store was importing specific type of product from overseas that is not widely available in Australia, then you have what is called a niche market. You should certainly consider a website to promote that product.

A particular group of businesses that I always recommend to have a website are servicing business such as

1. Electricians
2. Plumbers
3. Cleaners
4. Builders
5. Carpenters
6. Tiling specialists
7. Pest control specialist

The question is why? Well in most cases these people work as a sole traders or a small company that has a limited or no budget towards advertising. However they rely on local newspapers, flyers and yellow pages.

Lets says a home cleaning company decides to run 10000 copies of a flyer and distribute it in their local area to every house hold. Now how many would actually respond to that campaign? And how many was actually wasted, and never even made in to that house and was disposed as junk mail?

Same goes for local news paper you place an advertisement in the local news papers and gets printed in 2 or 3 suburbs and the total cost in a month could easily be in excess of $300 - $400 for that month. You should ask your self how many people did actually call you for your services?

This form of advertising is known as mass media advertising, what you need to focus on is targeted advertising. For instance if I need a local cleaning company to  come and do some work around the house for me I will go and look for them.

However what do I do to find them? Do I check my mail box in the hope that there will be a flayer from a cleaning company in my mail box? Or I pick up the local news paper dropped off in front of my house last night and hope there might be an add in there for cleaning? Or do I go to the garage and fins that copy of good old yellow pages collecting dust and used as a brick to hold the door open and look for a cleaning company? Well may be...

I can guarantee in most cases when you need a servicing company you will not have any of the above available to you, so what do you do? Well the simplest way is you Google it.

Google-It is becoming a common everyday term to tell some one look them up on the Internet. We all use it and have used it and are very comfortable with it. So can your business be Googled?

Then you need to talk to some one about what you can do about it having your business available to your market 24/7 in a much wider community than 2 or 3 suburbs.

So this is how you know if a website is right for your business, if you feel that people cant find you with your current methods of advertising.

Read our next article about the costs associated with having a website.