Don’t Be Blind Sited: Why you need a website
Posted March 21, 2011
"You should have a website even if your business is smaller than Amazon.com and sells products or services you don’t believe can be sold on the internet or could benefit from an online presence?"
It always amazes me when I stuble upon the occasional business professional who is still blind to the benefits of a web presence. You know the one. They’ll inevitably say something like, “We’ve looked into it and our business is doing okay with out a website” or perhaps, “I don’t see the sense in it. Our customers don’t find us that way.” Huh? If you don’t have a website how could they? To honor these guys I’ve coined a little phrase. They are Blind Sited.
Recently I addressed a group of small business owners at a networking function on the influence of an effective internet presence. I decided to remind them of a time not too long ago, late 90’s, when no one was really sure about the future of ecommerce or how the internet could be used to out pace traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Even then the opponents agreed that in all likelihood a substantial part of future sales would be delivered by internet transactions.
While we were all scratching our collective heads for the answer, along came Jeff Beazos who founded Amazon.com from his garage in 1994. Nick Hanauer believed in Bezos’ business model and invested $40,000 breathing some life into the new venture. A few years and a few investors later Amazon.com realized over a billion dollars in sales. In 2001 the company barely weathered the .com failures and now remains one of the most popular and profitable online ventures to date. Today many of the traditional brick-and-mortar booksellers who either ignored or started a little too late have been truly Blind Sited by Amazon.com.
So, should your business have a website, even if your business is smaller than Amazon.com and sells products or services you don’t believe can be sold on the internet or could benefit from an online presence? YES. No question about it!
That said, it’s not enough just to have a website, you need one that is professionally prepared and branded to fit the image of your business. If you want to be taken seriously your business needs to be online. There’s only one thing worse than not having a website and that’s having a website that looks like something that was created in a high school technology class. Unless you understand HTML, PHP, XML, JavaScript, SEO, FTP, IP, domain registration, server side scripting and a variety of other complicated acronym descriptions it’s a good idea to hire a professional.
So, what if you were one of those head scratchers from the 90’s and your still scratching your head today? Other than some pretty severe hair loss the news is pretty good. It’s never too late.
One of the best aspects of the internet is that you can be what ever you want to be. You don’t have to walk and talk like a small business. You can run with the big dogs. It’s all about the initial impression. With a well-designed site, your small business can project the image and professionalism of a much larger company. The inverse is also true. I've seen many big company websites that were so badly designed and hard to navigate that they completely lacked professionalism and credibility. Good for you, too bad for them.
Here are a few additional facts to consider:
Size: According to internetworldstats.com, as of June 2010 1.9 Billion people worldwide have access to the internet. And according to Google as of 2006 78% of US residences have access. No matter what your business is, you can’t ignore 1.9 Billion potential customers. No where else can you gain access to this size market for such a small investment.
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