Benefits of a Website for a Small Business –
In this day and age where digital technology and the Internet have influenced how we live and work, it is shocking to know that very few small business owners have a website.
Benefits of having a website for their small business.
1. Improve Business Credibility
Having a professional business website is a simple way of creating online awareness for potential clients.
The business website identifies your brand proposition, tells visitors all about your business, and informs everyone how to get in touch with you. Call us for website design services in Kenya
The website gives your business identity and improves your credibility more than having just a social media page.
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2. Build Your Business
A website functioned more like a brochure; you put one up to stay ahead of the competition. But there wasn’t much thought and purpose behind the content.
With the growth of the Internet, the influence of social media, and the popularity of mobile devices, the website has become a crucial tool to build your business.
- Share Your Story – A website is a great way to share your story; tell your audience why you started this business, your goals, and what you hope to accomplish with it.
- Get Clients – Potential customers prefer to deal with businesses that have websites. A website gives you the platform to highlight your experience and expertise.
- Find Your Team – Are you looking for people to help you run your business?
Set up a Career page on your website where prospective candidates can fill out an application form and attach their resume.
Post your job requirement on social media and link it back to your website. You should have a good number of candidates in no time!
3. Enhance Your Online Presence
Ensure the website is an online shop every day where customers can place orders all time. They are searching for information, sharing on social media, or shopping on e-commerce websites.
Develop a mobile responsive website that will help you capitalize on the opportunities available on the Internet through the following ways:
- Improve Google Search engine Rankings – By optimizing your web pages, it will be easier for people to find your content. contact us for Search engine optimization Kenya
- Distribute Content – Create relevant, unique and usable content and distribute them through different channels such as social media and blog sites. People who love your content would want to know more about you and visit your website.
- Open 24/7 – Unlike a brick- and- mortar business that operates 9- to- 5, a website never closes shop. It is open 24/7, even on holidays.
- Introduce Business Flexibility – If you don’t want to miss out on opportunities, outsource customer service and have your agents manage all concerns and inquiries via chat or e-mail support at your website.
4. Build a Strong Relationship with Your Market
A business by definition is a living, breathing entity. Loyalty is achieved when customers know they are dealing with a company that understands their needs and not just a company that wants to profit.
- Let the Market Know “Who You Are”. Outside the Home and About Us pages, you can set up a blog page where you can share your thoughts and ideas with your audience.
- Address the Needs of Your Market. Invite your audience to engage you by encouraging them to post comments on your blogs. Embed survey forms and ask your audience to participate and convey their needs.
- Educate the Market of Your Business. Utilize the 80-20 Rule; 80% of your content should be usable or relevant to the needs of your audience while 20% should educate them about your business.
- Improve Customer Service. In addition to e-mail, social media, mobile, and landline, install chat support as the 5th avenue for customer service. This will give your end-users more options to relay concerns and inquiries.
5. Efficient Way to Promote Your Business
If you are still using traditional forms of marketing, you are wasting valuable resources, time, and money. Traditional forms include press releases, print ads, flyers, and distribution Point– Purchase materials.
While still popular, traditional methods cost more money and cover less ground. It is also unsustainable; flyers, posters, print ads, and press releases usually end up in the trash can.
Online marketing is faster, more efficient, and inexpensive. There are many tools and techniques that you can use for online marketing but without a website, these strategies will fall short.
Think of the website as the sun with these online marketing tools as the planets revolving around it. Your online marketing efforts will create inbound avenues to a specified destination place which is your website.
Among the most popular online marketing tools that you can use to create inbound traffic to your website:
- Social Media – More than half online people every day are on social media.
- Blogging – Companies that blog receives more clients by end of the month than those who don’t.
- E-mail Marketing – E-mail marketing is more effective in acquiring customers than Facebook.
- Use Videos – Embed a video on your Home page. A video can deliver your messaging content faster and more efficiently than text.
Finally, online marketing is a sustainable process. Your content will not go to waste. You can easily update it and reuse it after a few months.
6. Boost Your Reputation as an Authority
If your business is in a competitive industry, a website will give you the forum to boost your reputation as an authority figure.
- Blogging – Websites with a blog have a higher chance of having many indexed pages. Blogs influence most clients’ decisions to buy.
- Podcast – Set up a podcast on your website, distribute the schedule via Twitter, Facebook, and invite experts to discuss topics that interest your audience.
- Seminars – Conduct seminars on your website. This is a great way to share your knowledge with your market. Encourage your audience to actively engage during the seminar.
7. Create a Tool for Sales Generation
A website can also be an active and passive tool for generating income because it is the termination or exit point in the sales funnel.
It is very difficult to convert sales into social media. There are no available mechanisms to complete the transaction on- the- spot. An e-commerce website, for example, has a checkout counter where goods and services can be paid for right away.
It can also be a good source for passive income via PPC or Pay- Per- Click advertising. Advertisers will pay you every time a user clicks through their ad in your website.
8. Personalize your brand
A good business branding is a straight way for customers to identify your business. It is how your customers recognize and experience your business. A strong brand is more than just a logo, it’s reflected in everything from your customer service style, staff uniforms, business cards, and premises to your marketing materials and advertising.
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9. Showcase Your Work USING PORTFOLIO AND GALLERY PAGES
Keep Track of Your Business in Real-Time
One of the most significant benefits of having a website for a small business is that you can keep track of its performance in real-time through the use of analytics.
Analytics will provide you valuable data on how your business has been moving within a period of time. Key indicators of business performance include the following metrics:
- A number of visitors going to your website.
- A number of “unique visitors” or those who visit your website only once.
- Pageviews or impressions tell how many times a page has been read or visited. This will give you an idea on which type of content visitors find interesting.
- The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your website without exploring past the page they landed on.
- Average time on site will show how long visitors view your content. The longer the average time on site, the better for your website.
10. Professionalize Your Brand
Many small business owners make the mistake of not working on their brand until they gain traction.
You have to start working on your brand before launching your business. The brand gives your business its identity and makes it easier for customers and clients to understand what it is all about.
The website is the most effective and efficient way to build and professionalize your brand:
- It places your branded value proposition front and Centre in the Home page.
- Website optimization techniques can help Internet users find your brand.
- It can be distributed seamlessly through various online channels.
- A professionally made website shows you are serious about your business.
11. KEEP THE WEBSITE UPDATED / WEBSITE MAINTENANCE KENYA
A good website requires regular updates & maintenance in order to bear fruitful results. A business could be losing out on sales if their website isn’t properly maintained. Get in touch today for a professional website design and website maintenance in Kenya.
12. Provide Contingencies for Your Brick-and-Mortar Business
If there’s anything that can be learned from the Covid-19 global pandemic is the importance of having a website for your brick and mortar business.
The massive spread of Covid-19 necessitated governments worldwide to impose community lockdowns in their respective countries. Businesses came to a standstill – except those that have websites.
Businesses with a website were able to run a telecommuting program whereby employees work from home. An employee can log into a built-in portal where they can sign-in, retrieve the day’s assignments, and upload completed work.
Customers can also use the website to contact you via email or chat support. In case they have issues with your products, customers will have a platform to air their concerns.
Definitely, this will do wonders for your brand reputation!
With a coronavirus vaccine still under the early stages of development, there are fears intermittent lockdowns will be imposed.
Protect yourself from Covid-19 by staying home but protect your business by having a website.
With a website, it will always be “Business as Usual”.
13. All-In-One PRODUCT CATALOG
The website in today’s technology act as an online marketing brochure. An eCommerce website will enable clients to list all their products and customers place an order using the Ecommerce WhatsApp link.
An eCommerce website design in Kenya will enable the business to:-
- Showcase products in different categories.
- Receive customer reviews and testimonials from clients
- Educate the audience with blogs, e-books, modules, and training manuals
- Share customer support via online chat, email, and built-in forms.
14. Have a Professional Email Address
What is more impressive?
george@gmail.com or george@yourdomainname.co.ke?
Any person who’s named “George” can have a george@gmail.com email. But only George; the owner of your-domain-name can have a personalized email address as george@yourdomainname.co.ke
Having a professional email address has the following benefits for your business:
- Creates better brand awareness
- Representing your company with a free email account may be seen as a red flag for some prospects
- Control the number of emails for your business. If an employee leaves, you can terminate the email.
- Allows you to create specific email accounts to organize business operations. For example info@yourdomainname.com, sales@yourdomainname.com, and admin@yourdomainname.com.
15. Keep Your Business Open 24/7
Unlike a commercial establishment, the Internet doesn’t have operating hours. Your customers can find you 24/7. There are no holidays and you can “work overtime” without incurring extra costs.
Thus, a website can be an effective way to improve your customer service.
If you have chat support available, all you need is to hire customer service agents who can manage incoming inquiries and concerns, and have them addressed immediately to the right person or department of your company.
You may want to outsource customer service to another region where time zone differentials exist.
For example, a North American company can hire customer service agents from the Philippines. With the 12-hour difference, the agents can provide customer service to your clients while you are sleeping.
16. Gain Valuable Insights On Your Customers
For those who ran businesses before broadband technology became widely available, you probably depended on traditional marketing strategies to promote your products and services.
Traditional marketing strategies include the use of press releases, broadsheet advertising, the use of Point-of-Purchase materials such as flyers and counter-top ads, posters, and streamers.
Not only were these marketing strategies expensive, inefficient, and unsustainable but they delivered poor ROI. It’s hard to track the performance of your marketing campaign with the traditional approach.
In contrast, a website will collect data on your visitors:
- Where do they come from?
- What are the demographics?
- Are they using mobile or desktop?
- Which types of content are they interested in?
- What is the frequency of cart abandonment?
A website has built-in analytics that you can use to assess the performance of your business as well as evaluate the effectiveness of your digital marketing program.
17. AROUND THE CLOCK CUSTOMER SERVICE
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More than branding concerns, not having a website gives you one less stream of revenue to help your business stay profitable.
Go back to #15, “Keep Your Business Open 24/7”.
With a website, your business can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection. Prospective customers can view your products, testimonials, and read your content before they make a decision to buy.
18. Find Clients
More accurately, your clients will find you!
Some well-intentioned people may advise you that you can run a business with only social media – no website needed.
That’s not true.
Other than the 16 other reasons discussed above, social media marketing is not that effective for converting sales.
Thus, email marketing is a better strategy than social media marketing for converting interest into sales.
And this “leads” us into #19…
19. Generate Leads
Lead generation is an important component of email marketing and your website is the best tool for capturing email addresses.
When someone gives you his email address, he is giving you permission to send content to his inbox. If you ask your friends, family, and network of contacts, they will gladly give you their email addresses.
What about a complete stranger? A person who just visited your website?
He will not surrender his email address to anyone without getting something of value in exchange.
With a website, you can offer a free monthly subscription to a newsletter, an e-book, or limited access to premium content.
By doing so, you add value to your business, enhance your reputation, and most importantly, gain the trust of a potential customer.
20. Open New Streams Of Revenue
How else can you earn money from your website? Aside from having a virtual store to sell your products and an Internet-based address where prospective customers can find you, here are other ways to make money from your website:
- Paid Ads – If your website generates an impressive amount of traffic and ranks high in the search results page, the advertisers will come knocking on your inbox!
- Affiliate Marketing – Promote the products and services of other businesses and earn a commission from every sale that’s generated from your website.
- Get Hired By Other Businesses – If your blog page has a good following, reputable websites might ask you to write for them for a generous fee.
21. Manage Your Business Reputation
The website is your platform on the Internet. This is the place where you will be heard and have 100% full control over your content.
Let’s say you’re in the meat refining business and there are concerns about tainted meat being sold in markets and popular restaurants.
You can put a disclaimer on the home page of your website and inform site visitors that your raw materials are sourced from a region that has been declared safe for consumption.
You can embed an explainer video on the home page or add images of certifications from recognized organizations attesting to the safety of your meat. From there, link the home page to your social media accounts.
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