Information Sites Online Crucial to Your Business

In days past, when looking for professional services, you’d open the phone book, turn to the yellow pages and start dialing places to get quotes, store hours, addresses, etc.  And, you may have been attracted to the ad that was bigger, better designed, or even added color.  It’s just how we did things, how we compared companies.

Fast forward to today.  We head to search engines to look for companies we want to do business with.  There are lots of online directories out there, but that’s not enough.  Companies need their own web precense.  I am not talking e-commerce sites here– just pure information sites that build credibilty.  I blogged  a month or so ago about an experiece I had with looking for a washer and dryer.  I did not buy from my local mom and pop appliance shop because they did not have a website– you can read about that experience here.

There are some statistics from an article in an Entrepreneur Magazine that talk about how a website can help a small business:

A websites’ role in small business: 53% of small businesses with websites say their sites are primarily to provide company credibility; 49% use it to generate sales; 38% brand awareness; 33% generate leads; 29% it provides a critical building block for developing the products and services they sell.
–Interland, September 2005

Let’s look at these reasons little more:

COMPANY CREDIBILITY

So, as you can see- building company credibility is HUGE, making up more than half of the above stat.  If I am looking for a painter and see ten ads in the phone book, and a few have website addresses- I would probably go with one that has a website because, if done properly of course, the website can show the employees, company history, portfolios, testimonials and perhaps have a quote form right on the site.  The website becomes a selling tool and source of lead generation.

GENERATE SALES
An informational site is not an e-commerce site, however it can still generate sales.  An informational site can provide pages highlighting in-store sales, products lines, etc.  All things that can get people prepared to take a trip and buy in-store.

BRAND AWARENESS

We all know that we live in a world of search engines.  Having an online precense can help build brand awareness.  Online can work hand-in-hand with other marketing efforts, as you can tag radio and TV ads with your website address, and list it in print advertising and direct mail pieces.  But, when people search online for products and services you offer, your website will now begin to show up, building online awareness.  Furthermore, and this could be a whole other blog, but you can even geo-target pay-per-click campaigns, so anyone in a 50 miles radius of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. who searches for “general contractor” could be shown your site if you are bidding on that keyword.

GENERATE LEADS

So someone is on your wedding planning website, and now they want more information.  Of course they can pick up the phone and call you, but you can also have e-mail forms on your informational site to collect leads.  It’s just a simple contact us form- and will allow you to generate leads, and this generate sales!  This applies to so, so many types of businesses- catering, construction, lawyer, DJ, plumber, etc.

So, those are some key reasons why ANY AND EVERY business needs a website.  It can help advertise.  It can help sell.  It can help generate leads.  It can help, help, help. And, that’s Solid Cactus’ latest offering:  http://www.solidcactus.com/wedenonec.html.