Unless you only plan to do business with friends and family, having a professional website for your business is extremely important. Not sure? Just think about your own life. When someone talks about something you know very little about but sounds interesting, where do you go? To look it up on the internet, right? You use a search engine to find a website that will tell you more. Remember that feeling of disappointment if you can’t find a website that specifically talks about what you’re looking for?
You have prospects. Maybe you’ve even been able to have a conversation with a key individual in a company you’d really like to do business with. If you’ve gotten their interest at all, where are they going to go next? That’s right, your company website. They are going to use your website to help determine your company’s credibility, learn more about your offerings, and figure out if they want to invest any more time with you. That’s why having a professional looking and sounding website it so important!
There are basically two types of websites:
1) An e-commerce site – a website set up to showcase a company’s product offering and actually conduct the sales exchange. With sales being conducted through it, an e-commerce website usually gets a lot of attention to make it work and drive sales.
2) A “business card” site – a website designed to support other sales motions. These are the kinds of sites that are so often neglected, or sometimes, not even built; but neglecting this important part of your company puts you at a disadvantage in today’s world. Your company website needs to be your very best salesperson. Potential customers can come in and out of your website without your even knowing. Yes, you can track how many users were there but not WHO they were. There is no way to follow-up with them after their visit – the only way you’ll ever know who was there is if the information on your website impresses them enough that THEY CALL YOU. To turn those website visits into phone calls or e-mails that you can then give to your actual salespeople, your website has to “sell” them first. It’s got to be your best salesperson!
If you don’t have a website, if your website is just your old brochure put online, or you haven’t updated it in a long time*, you may be losing business that you’re not even aware of. It’s time to invest some time into making it work for you!
Next Blog: what matters most when building a “business card” website
*If your website is one of those that has a “last updated” line on it (usually in the footnotes) – I highly recommend taking it off unless you update your site every 2 weeks or so. It’s bad enough if your web visitors think your information may be old but confirming it with a line that says something like “last updated May 2008″ can really turn them off!
