Classic / build website, business, create website, Mohamed Ogbi, opportunity, SEO, website development / April 12, 2019
Does Your Business Need A Website?
Business owners feel pressured to create a website of their own, but their resources aren’t limitless and building one for shallow reasons usually backfires. This article will help any business owner decide if running a website is the right decision for their employees, customers, and investors.
Who is your audience?
Creating a website for your business is trendy, but just because your competitors are doing it doesn’t mean you should copy them. Your customers might not care about finding you online, and if they do, they have their own reasons.
Creating an online store, for example, means designing an interface, creating product descriptions, and paying for hosting fees, among other costs. If your new customers only want to know about sales, pairing a simple blog with an email newsletter is the only online presence you need.
Think carefully about how your website will help your current customers or bring in new ones. When in doubt, ask them. Creating an online questionnaire is helpful, but you can also ask in person. Shoppers like sharing their opinions; it also shows that you care about them personally and want to serve them with a better business.
What is the cost of going digital?
Even if your business would grow with a website, this doesn’t mean that creating one is a sound investment. Plan the features your website needs, then check costs. If you are hiring a professional to design your site, collecting quotes means you won’t overspend. Also, don’t forget long-term costs, like paying for security software or hiring a web designer to tweak your website and fix glitches.
Once you know how big your investment is, you can check profitability. It is hard to predict future growth accurately, but an estimate will help you decide if going digital is worth the investment.
Setting benchmarks early on makes it easy to check your progress. Starting with a modest website mitigates risk; you can always upgrade later, and any tweak will go smoothly if you plan for them in your original design.
What is the opportunity cost?
Business owners know about opportunity costs. If they commit to one project, they don’t have enough time to work on something else. But calculating it accurately is challenging. You don’t know what the future will look like. While business owners can predict based on experience, they won’t get everything right; the world is too complicated.
Before committing to a website, estimate what you are giving up. This includes money, but more importantly, time. Even if you know that creating a website will boost profits, it is still a bad idea if another strategy would boost them more.
Taking the time to go over all of your options means you will make an informed choice. While it might not go as well as you expect, it is a helpful habit that will give your business the best chance at long-term success. This doesn’t mean you can’t jump into a perfect opportunity; business owners do spend too much time planning.
Creating a website is an investment business owners should consider, as long as they know how it could help or hurt their profits.
