Once upon a time, businesses might have been caught in two minds on whether or not to take their business online. Now, such conundrums never occur.
In short, the internet has transformed the fortunes of many small businesses. While they may have once had to rely on the Yellow Pages, and other similar methods of “traditional” marketing, now this isn’t the case.
However, before you do take the plunge and put together your first company website, there are some considerations to bear in mind. Through this post, we will take a look at these in-detail.
How will you build your website?
Fortunately, this is a much easier question to answer than it might have been several years ago. Back then, unless you happened to know coding skills or wanted to take the plunge with a WYSIWYG editor, you had to shell out to pay third party development agencies to do the job for you. Back then, professionals like these were highly sought after and as such, you paid a premium.
Now, the question on how to build your own website is much simpler. The WYSIWYG editors have come into their own and their features are far beyond what anyone ever expected. You can put together a website in hours, rather than months, and if you are just starting out your online journey this should be sufficient.
How will you market your website?
Again, this is an area which has changed drastically over the last few years. While traditional marketing isn’t quite out of the window, there can be easier ways for young companies to get their name out there.
If we tap into Google Ads, for example, this allows you to target users to a hugely granular level. Not only that, but due to the sheer volume of people that use Google, it means that you will still be putting your brand in front of a lot of eyes.
There are of course other platforms that offer a similar level of targeting. Facebook Ads are also regarded as some of the best around, and again give very good levels of volume.
Do you have the time to maintain your website?
With this next question, you might be under the belief that some websites don’t need updating. After all, if the opening hours and the service you offer remains the same, why would you bother changing it?
While it’s true that some industries will require less updating than others, if you are to truly make the most of your website you need to constantly add and update. This might be adding your latest projects, or even news from your industry.
This is important for two reasons. Firstly, if a user visits your website and sees that it is regularly updated, they are more likely to stay on there. Secondly, Google has made no secret of the fact that it has a preference for fresh content. In other words, you are going to rank much higher in the search engines if you can regularly update the content on your site.