Why Have A Web Site

Over the past 12 months I've seen 3 or 4 news articles saying that, shock horror, many UK small businesses don't have a web site. One such article put the number at something like 44%, but I suspect that figure might be on the low side.

These days it seems that it's taken for granted that a company should have a web site and that if your company doesn't, then it is somehow missing out. I'm not sure that is entirely true, after all there are a minority of businesses for whom having a web site is an unnecessary expense. But for the vast majority there are good reasons to have one:

A simple 'brochure' type site provides useful information about your company, who you are, what you do, where you are
Marketing your service/product 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Global as well as local reach
Allows those customers who use the internet to find you when they need your service/product
E-shops can provide another income stream
Low cost compared to a high street shop front

While a web site is an expense, there's no getting away from that, site owners don't need that much technical knowledge to get them up and running and so the cost can be much less than you think. But the return on investment could be large indeed, although it may not be something easily quantifiable.

How many times have you searched for a company online, perhaps doing a little research on them before getting in touch? Perhaps you were put off when you found that they didn't have a web site because you couldn't find out what you needed to know, so you searched for another company that did have a web site and found what you wanted. Now just think for a minute, that could easily be a customer looking for information about your company!