Why Your Small Business Needs a Website
Because the online world and having an online presence will give you so many opportunities, having a website for your business its vital. Here are the main reasons why your small business will need a website. Read below a number of reasons why your business will need a website and increased online presence:
You Can Make Sales at any time and place
Because your website will be all the time online, you will be able to sell your products at any time or place. Because the in-person sales need to be supplemented by online sales, having a website is a great opportunity for any business. But not only just a site, but an e-commerce website. So that is essential these days to have.
So small business owners are mandated to think on expanding their sales, but getting online sales and succeeding. So for that they need a web site built, preferably e-commerce, and of course digital marketing, content built, copywrite and other things like that.
You Have Space to Show off Your Products and Services
Finally with an online website, any business big or small, has a place to show off their products. And that gives you the opportunity to meet your potential customers. So seeing all the products in an online site, might influence to take a buying decision quite fast, or just come back for more insights. But the important thing is that you will have the site up for them all the time.
Or you can collect newsletter applications or mailing lists, into a CRM. And email them later for discounts or promotion offers. So your website landing page will be one of the most important marketing tools you can have at your disposal. That is why your landing page should be stunning.
You get the Opportunity to Be Found by New Customers
Building the website itself, and having it online is not the only thing you need. And in order for your potential buyers to find you, then your site must show in search engines. That is why you need to have SEO done to your website. Thats where a digital marketing agency will come into place. They will give you all the correct content and create copy for your website, and research keywords and everything needed for the site.
SEO freelancers or consultants usually charge you 50$-100$ per hour but that cost can vary a lot if you are using a good agency. And they vary also based on how many keywords you optimize for, and content quality. Plus for SEO you need to wait a few weeks or even months to see the results actually working.
You Have a Home for Your Best Testimonials and Reviews
Having online reviews for your services and business is getting very important these days. And although word of mouth recommendations remains a good driver for any business, you still need to think on online reviews. And where better place to display it other than the website of your business. You could use also Yelp and Facebook or even trustpilot to gather online reviews. But also you can show it on your site.
How Much It Costs to Build a Website
Wether you are building a custom website or a bespoke website, or getting a prebuilt template, you still need someone to do it. That is either a freelancer website designer or a web design agency. But how much is that going to cost ? well that will depend on the features and the type of website that your business needs.
If you are just showcasing just some services you offer, like a service based website, then the website will have no more than 10 pages. But depending on your plans, either build it yourself, or hire an agency to do it, the costs are around $500 to $5000. And for an e-commerce website, the average cost is somewhere around $2000 and $100,000. And yes, that is a huge interval of minimum and maximum amounts, but all comes down to features and customer support. Your business model will determine the features that you need.
Before diving into build your website, you need to evaluate the kind of site you need. And of course a list of features you want to have in your site. A small business website will not have too many features, but you still have to make a plan. Because this will be different than a 5 page website price.
If you go with the do it yourself route, you have to have in mind that web development can take a lot of time. And to be honest if you are not an expert, the result will not be good for a serious business. Thats why you should always think on hiring a web design agency for web development and web design. They have specialised professional developers that can design your website professionally.