Who needs a website?

If you were building your business in the offline world you would choose a physical storefront, such as a restaurant, boutique store, executive office, etc. to sell your products and services.  Businesses that are selling their products and services primarily offline still need to have an online presence and I will talk more later in a upcoming posts.

In the online world your storefront is your website.   This is the place where potential customer’s window shop to see what you are all about and have to offer them.  How does your product and services solve their problems?  The importance of having a website is extremely important if you are running an online business.  Better than a physical store front, an online store front (your website) is open 24/7, 365, and does not shut down for holidays.  Potential customers can visit your business anytime that is convenient for them.  Over the past couple of years I have heard it said many times that a website in today’s marketplace is the business owner’s business card.

What is your websites purpose?

What is the purpose of your website?  What do you want your potential customers to do when they visit your site? If you are an online business wanting to sell your products and services to your target market you will want build relationship with your target market.  You will want to offer them the ability to subscribe to your list to receive more information, you will want them to be able to contact you, you will want them to have the ability to make a referral, and most important you will want them to press the buy button.

What does your website look like?  Is it a marketing machine or just pretty?  Does it have a professional look that inspires trust in your audience? Can your audience tell immediately what it is that you are offering and how it can fix their problems? Is the next step, your call to action, immediately apparent? Just recently I heard that most internet surfers do not stay on a website more than 5 seconds.  How are you making the best of those 5 seconds?  The purpose of your website is to get business.