You can’t have missed the fact that people are using the internet on an ever-increasing basis. Where people once waited for the Six O’clock News to get their daily information of what is happening across the world, we get instant news as soon as an event happens. Where people once pulled out the Yellow Pages to find a local business for their needs, they head straight to Google. The way that we do things has changed dramatically in the last two decades and there is no going back now that we have everything we need instantly, with a simple click of a button.
The Internet has revolutionised the world and of course this has meant that they way the businesses operate and market themselves has had to change too. Those businesses that have been quick to adapt to the changes have seen huge benefits and those who have failed to, have faced consequences. You simply cannot afford to neglect the need for businesses to have an online presence and particularly a website.
With more and more people beginning to use the internet to search for businesses, if your competition has a better digital marketing strategy than you have, then they will be taking a large section of your potential customers.
There are all kinds of reasons that people are reluctant to get a website set up. For a start, it can cost money and if the marketing budget is tight, spending money on a website is not an option. But any savvy businessperson will tell you that sometimes you have to spend some money to see returns. Also, websites don’t actually cost as much as people think they might. Of course, having an all-singing, all-dancing fancy website is likely to cost a fair bit of money but that is not the only option.
Did you know that you can actually set up a website for free? There are companies such as Wix and Weebly that offer a free service for setting up and hosting a website. Whilst this option is not ideal for all businesses, it is certainly a better option than having no website at all. They even have easy to use website builders to make the process that bit easier.
Other options that do not break the bank include using companies such as SiteGround who offer some great hosting plans that have decent up time and server response times. You can even install WordPress for free and gain access to the many free tools and plugins that are provided by the WordPress community of developers. If you have some technical ability and you are willing to learn, then you could set up your very own WordPress site to showcase your work and promote your company.
Another element to give consideration to is SEO and driving traffic to your website. A new website struggles to get to the top of the search engine rankings but with good understanding and application of SEO principles, you can ensure that your website is appearing above your competitors (unless they are even better at SEO).
Getting people onto your website is the only way to convert them into customers, so you must develop a strong marketing plan to enable this. You may want to use email campaigns to drive your target audience onto your website but of course you will need their email addresses to do this. You can use social media forums and pages to help to build an email list so that you can send campaigns to those people who belong to groups that are related to your services or products.
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