Why every small business needs a website

Is website a must-have?

A recently concluded study on consumer behaviour towards online shopping in Kenya indicated that 97.2% of the respondents had shopped online in the past, while 2.8% had never shopped online.

This means that it is time to put away your Luddite mannerism and consider having a high-class website for your business. If you already have one, you might consider revamping it.

Chester Loke, an internet analyst, insists that constant updates and your website’s monitoring will prevent issues of insecurity and outdated plug-ins.

Attract your real customers.

A website helps you find your customers and also gain more customers. Whenever I want to know something, google comes first to my mind, and after a tap of a button, I am redirected to the answers to my questions.

This is how fast and easy your customers can get to you with technology simplifying life. I am just saying that this bridges the gap between small businesses, solopreneurs, and their intended audience.

What a way to maximize those sales!

Legitimize your company.

Not in these times is it appropriate for a conventional business holding to exist without an online presence. If I searched for a company online and discovered its website did not exist, then I would have my doubts triggered. This is like the number one checkpoint for counterfeit.

What I am saying is that a website gives you, and your business, authenticity provided a customer’s trust ought to be gained by the retailer.

All you want is an inseparable bond between you and your audience, who even go further to expanding your market through referrals. Trust, I tell you!

Data collection has been simplified.

Traditionally, writing up data from each customer that comes by is hectic, disturbing, monotonous and time-consuming. But alas!

Your website is here to simplify things. It will only take a maximum of two minutes to get a customers’ profile from the forms attached to your site. What’s even more impressive is technology has made it easier by doing the sorting or customers according to their interests.

Through your website, you can give your customers a chance to provide you with feedback without having to disclose their identity by attaching a quick survey they can fill out regarding your products and services. You don’t have a website, think again!

Gain a competitive advantage.

Once you have a clean web presence that is user-friendly, easy to read and attractive to the eye, you are bound to beat your competitors in the game. Make sure your website is up to date with rich content and current trends.

This is likely to attract traffic to your website and all of a sudden you will be ranking very high up in search engines. To be fierce in the competition game, you will need to apply SEO (search engine optimization) techniques to your website for higher search results ranking.

An alternative marketing channel.

Be found on google by new customers. Traditional marketing is slower and expensive for small entrepreneurs. You do not need to hire a couple of sales agents to do the work for you. Your website will market you automatically for all the hours of the day without stopping unless your site is down. You can go ahead and measure and account for the functionality of your website through google analytics. Such an approach will help you tell the number of visitors you receive daily. Online purchases are another evidential incident to whether your online marketing strategies through your website work.

To showcase and sell your products online.

A website acts as a virtual catalogue for your products and services. However, the format and quality of your display are essential. Make sure every picture of what you are promoting is a real replica of what you have in store. In case it is out of stock, always indicate that useful piece of information to avoid embarrassments. Be sure to have a good photographer take real quality pictures of your products other than swindling and Xeroxing from other sources. Your main goal is to gain your audience’s trust.

A vast way to increase e-commerce.

In my first year of high school, we defined commerce as “the buying and selling of goods and services”. Your market is no longer limited to your small society. Thanks to the internet, you are global and can reach out to every Tom, Dick, and Harry interested in your products and services. E-marketer, a researcher and analyst on digital business, indicates that there is a gradual annual growth in e-commerce in the previous five years to date, and this is not about to stop.

There is no time limit.

Operating online means your business is never closed provided you have full-time internet access. You can work comfortably with time as you choose. A website also gives your customers an advantage against regular running business hours. Thus your customers are privileged to interact with your products at any time they feel like.

Gain a direct connection to your customers.

Consumers of your products can get in touch with you through chatting, video and audio calls. You can connect with anyone in any part of the world at any given time. Almost every, if not all, social media sites allow for parties to make calls even through video conferencing. This way, you are bound to improve your customer support. Is there any better way for you to listen to the woes and cries of your customers? Have a FAQ section to answer all your customers’ doubts and uncertainties.

Stay connected.

If your website is top-notch and your products are booming, all related businesses will want to attach themselves to you. You’ll automatically receive referrals through hyperlinks in blogs and other websites. This, however, doesn’t stop you from backlinking yourself. Self-love is vital to everyone.

At this point on this read, you have probably considered owning an appropriate website for your business, and if you have one already, you should be in a plan to refurbish it with current content;)

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