If you are a Small Business in 2017, you need a website NOW!!!
If you’re a small business, a startup, a social business, or a non-profit, an artist selling a unique craft, or an organization getting into 2017 WITHOUT a website, then congratulations. But here’s the thing, you probably won’t survive 2017.
Just like how the printing press, the radio, and the television disrupted it’s predecessors, the Internet has already disrupted the print and television media. With the rise of social giants like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Medium and Snapchat, if you’re business isn’t on these platforms it will be ever-increasingly harder for you to rise out from the mediocre, especially if you know that you’re business is good enough to be successful.
You have start thinking of these social media platforms as distribution channels, just like CNN or BBC during the television era and the first and foremost distribution channel to be on is Google. The way to do that is for your business to have a website.
“Why should your business come up on Google search?” you ask.
To give some perspective, as of 2015, the worldwide population is something close to 7.3 billion. The internet has 3.17 billion users and 80% of internet users use a smartphone. The average number of search query on Google every second is 2.3 million and the number of monthly unique searchers on Google is 1.17 billion. With that many consumers searching through one single place, you have a whole group of customers your business will COMPLETELY be oblivious to if you don’t have a website while your competitor with an existing, easy to use website is there ready to welcome their customers just by being online.
Say for example, you are a business that sells a unique product. There are people who are looking for that product and the first thing they are going to do is run a search on Google to see if anyone is selling that product in their vicinity.
The same thing applies for restaurants and lodgings. More than 70% of travelers across U.S. and Europe use the Internet to set itineraries — and that includes restaurants, accommodations and shopping. Will your business be among the choices found when they search the Internet? If you’re offering something that people are looking for, a large portion of people (perhaps a market unknown to you thus far) will search the Internet, because it’s super fast, super easy and super global. Having a basic website will put you out there.
You might think that since you’re already spending so much on print and TV media for branding and marketing purposes, right? Why should you spend more money on digital?
According a 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center one-in-seven Americans have shunned cable and satellite subscriptions in exchange for social media. 62% of all Americans have said social media to be there first and foremost news source, and with publishers now experimenting with digital video that is forecast to grow from 58% share of mobile ad spend to 62% in 2020. In fact, digital advertising is projected to overtake print advertising as the leading source of consumer magazine advertising revenues in 2020 ($9.2 billion and $7.7 billion, respectively) and newspaper industry to fall from $18.8 billion to $14.9 billion.
In this day and age, a simple website that is tailored to your particular business, that is clean, modern and user-friendly, and designed to come up on Google searches, will prove to be a source of huge profit with only a small investment.
Having a website in this technological era will allow you to reach out to a whole group of customers that don’t even know you exist. The Internet gives everyone access, targeting no one in particular. The average Internet user chooses where to look, just as you would choose what newspaper to buy or what television program to watch. If your business is not there, it won’t be found.
The top three commercial markets on the web are Technology, Real Estate and Travel. Technology businesses know they need a website. If you’re in real estate (even if you’re an individual agent) YOU NEED A WEBSITE. If your business markets to travelers accommodations, restaurant, specialty shopping, tickets, travel wear, recreational products, travel gear, animal care, children’s activities) YOU NEED A WEBSITE. Statistics show that 7 out of 10 people will go to the internet for information before they purchase real estate or set a travel itinerary.
A website usually is rather impersonal — and that’s a good thing. When people use the internet they want information not a personal relationship. The information will bring them to you. You create the relationship.
A website gives you a higher number of potential customers to create a relationship with and with a rising number of 50 to 75 year old internet users this number will only increase. If internet users don’t find you on the web, they’ll seek out your competitors who have websites and you’ll lose customers.
This post is more like a shout out to small business world wide to jump on the online train right now without delay. My next post will be about what a basic website should contain and what areas you should be focusing on.
