One of the common questions that we get asked by business owners is why should they take their business online? While the obvious answer is that we are living in the 21st century and almost everyone is online, some still take a little bit more convincing.
In the present day, it is crazy to think that there are still some businesses operating without even a morsel of an online presence. No website, no social media and barely even a directory listing. In a world where the days of actively window shopping has made way for scouring the latest deals online, operating solely on print advertising and word of mouth is a dangerous game to be playing. Quite simply, unless you act soon, your business’ days are numbered if you lack any online presence.
No Website, No Trust
A study in 2017 found that 30% of consumers will not consider buying from a business that lacks a dedicated website. Straight away, that’s almost a third of your potential customers gone. It's this group who are ready to buy and looking for an online retailer offering the product or service they need, often with next-day delivery in the case of a physical product.
In the eyes of the modern consumer, if your business does not have a website then that is cause for immediate alarm bells. Questions about the legitimacy of your business are raised – is there is an issue with the product you are selling? How can they be sure that your business won’t have suddenly left town? Having a dedicated website gives your customers peace of mind, as well as providing them with a means in which to contact you with any queries either before or after purchase.
Effectively, without a website, your business is no more trusted than a seller at a car boot sale, regardless of the quality of your products and/or service.
But What About the Costs?
Yes, building and hosting a website does cost money but when compared to the sales that your business is losing by not having a dedicated website, it barely charts. With Content Management Systems (CMSs) such as WordPress, designed to offer a quick and easy platform, it doesn’t have to cost much time or money to take your business online.
For businesses looking to sell online, you might be concerned that you don’t have the manpower or the technical capability to manage an online store. Once again, WordPress is your friend, with the open platform offering a range of plugins that can be easily integrated into your website. One such plugin is WooCommerce, which installs everything you need to create an online shop on your website with easy to manage admin area and product creation.
Hopefully, once you take your business online, you will see such a surge in sales that you might need some help taking care of things from a website perspective. This is something that we are happy to offer as part of our digital marketing packages, leaving you with ample time to fulfil those orders.
Do I Need Social Media?
Yes! Even with a dedicated website, having a presence on social media is still a must. When you consider that 78% of consumers in America discovered new retail products on Facebook, having a strong social presence is arguably even more important than the website itself (they are both important).
Consumers find businesses via social media, directly and indirectly, whether they are actively searching for them or someone on their feed shares a post relating to a business or product in some way. The opportunities presented by social media are a business’ dream when it comes to selling not only its products and/or services but also its image and vision.
Social media users want to engage with brands that they can connect with, that share the same values as they do. The more they engage with your business on social media, the more likely they are to convert from a sales perspective, which is the ultimate goal of any social media marketing campaign.
If you are not overly familiar with social media, there are three main platforms that you should at least be aware of. The platforms are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which boast an impressive 44.84 million, 24.46 million and 17.75 million users respectively in the United Kingdom. If your business cannot be found on any of these three social media platforms, you can guarantee that your competitors can and that they are engaging with your potential customers.
Getting Found Online
While you may have heard the famous saying ‘if you build it, they will come’, that isn’t strictly true when online. Actually, that isn’t true at all. Not even slightly.
You can have the greatest website in the world, but if no one can find it then what is the point? Think of it as having a shop with fantastic décor, well-organised shelves and all the latest products for your customers ready to buy, only that the shop is hidden away in a dark side alley which no one goes down. That is pretty much the equivalent of building a website but doing no work in the way of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to it.
Rather than being down a dark alley with no traffic apart from the odd person who has taken a wrong turn along the way, SEO puts your business right on the busy high street for hundreds and thousands of consumers to find. Ranking on page one of Google is the equivalent of having your shop right in the busiest part of town, only that all those people outside of the store are looking for exactly what you have to offer.
How does that happen? When your website is optimised to target keywords that are relevant to your business, products and, most importantly, your customers, your website’s search rankings will begin to improve. If and when your website appears on page one, this will often spark an upturn in traffic as more and more people can find you – an audience that, without a website at all, you may never have reached.
For more information on how Siteminders can help take your business online, opening a new door of opportunity to appeal to new potential customers, please get in contact with our team today.
