Is your company providing what people want? We wanted to answer that question for ourselves, and we thought other business owners would benefit from knowing the answer too, so we conducted a little survey. We discovered that there are three things that stand out far more than anything else. When looking for a business to meet their needs, consumers look for customer reviews, pricing information, and local businesses.
If you're a business owner, you already have number three on the list covered; no matter your location, you have a local market that's looking for you. How do you provide the top two things customers are looking for, customer reviews and pricing information? The most effecient and economical way, is of course, via a website. (You may have guessed, after local businesses, consumers look for professional looking websites when looking for businesses to meet their needs)
Be honest with yourself. Do you really have the time to be your own webmaster? Don't be penny wise and pound foolish. You probably already know you need a website to gain more customers and to provide better service to your current customers. In fact, there's a good chance you already own a website for your business. If you don't have one already, you probably know you have a few choices. You can use a "template" service that provides you a quick way to get a site up and running. You can hire someone to do it for you. You can search the Internet and buy a bunch of books and try to do it yourself.
If you already have a website for your business, you have a few choices as well regarding how it's maintained. Do you create some basic content and update it only when necessary? Do you attempt to maintain several ways of interacting with your customers, such as having a blog and a Facebook business page? Do you hire a webmaster to make content updates, create a marketing campaign, redesign your website, and ensure top search engine rankings? Do you try to learn enough to be your own webmaster?
If you haven't done it already, if you don't do anything else to improve your current website, be sure to add customer reviews and pricing information to it!
Think webmasters cost too much? Everyone wants to mow their own lawn, clean their own house, fix their own car, create their own party decorations, cook our own food. There comes a time however that we all realize that we don't have enough hours in the day to learn how to do everything ourselves. If you think you need a professional to get the most out of the Internet, but are afraid of the cost of hiring a professional web developer, be sure to read our info page. At prices starting at just $5 a month, we challenge you to find a better deal ;)
