25 Benefits of Having a Website for Your Business

Any business, large or small, is not exempted to innovation. If you’re a business owner, you should always make sure that you’re in a competitive advantage to avoid being eaten alive by the competition. One of the most important things you should consider to stand out from the crowd is having a website for your business. Although a website can be an affordable investment for everyone, even for non-business persons, there are still a number of business owners who don’t take this cost-effective opportunity to bring their company to the next level. To give some form of orientation to every business owner or entrepreneur, who is still in doubt of the advantages they can get from a company website, here is a list of 25 benefits of having a website for your small or big business.

1. Build your reputation online. Without a company website, you will almost become invisible from the sight of Internet users. Launching a business website is like giving birth to your company in the online world. It can be a great opportunity to build your reputation among the billions of people who are using the Internet everyday.

2. Showcase your products and services on the Internet. Unlike a billboard, a website can showcase all of your products and services categorically through various website pages.

3. Cost-effective advertising. A website can only cost as low as 500 USD (one time payment) and can be maintained as low as 200 USD a year for domain name registration and monthly web hosting fees. This is even cheaper than the cost of most offline advertising, such as billboard, newspaper, and TV advertising. And since most of websites today are built with CMS (Content Management System), it can be operated even by a person who doesn’t have substantial education in web programming.

4. Show your business innovation. A company, who maintains a website for his business, gives a message to the world that it adheres innovation and doesn’t let his business be behind amidst the technological revolution.

5. Show that you care for customers. A website gives convenience to your customers when it comes to access of information. Thus, it makes them feel that you care for their comfort.

6. Attract targeted customers. Through on-page SEO (search engine optimization) and targeted social media marketing techniques, a website can help a business attract potential customers on the desired geological and demographical market.

7. Increase profitability. With the money savings in advertising expense that you can achieve and with the extended business exposure that attracts more customers and sales, having a website for your small business will give you a greater chance to attain higher profitability.

8. Connect with suppliers. Your search engine optimized company website can be easily found by your prospective suppliers on the Internet.

9. Attract investors. You can make an investor relations web page on your website for interested investors to your business. There, you can attach your company profile, financial highlights, and other important business information that can attract potential investors.

10. Connect to social media. You can integrate your website to your different social media profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google+ and other top social networking sites on the Internet. Website plus social media can become your most powerful marketing tool online.

11. Make your business accessible anytime and anywhere. Unlike a physical store, warehouse or office, your website doesn’t close and it is available to be accessed anytime and anywhere through the Internet.

12. Boost your business and marketing competitiveness. Most of today’s companies, including small businesses, already have websites for their business. Your competitors might now also leveraging the power of a website to win your competition. By starting a website now, you can assure the competitiveness of your business in today’s tough business and marketing competition.

13. Additional income opportunities. A high trafficked website can open opportunities for income from advertising and affiliate marketing.

14. Collect important market data. A website can be your medium to collect important information from your clients, such as customers’ feedback, email and contact details. Through website analytics and visitors statistics, you can also gather market information, such as the location and demographics of your visitors, which you can use to analyze and formulate effective marketing strategies.

15. Encourage word-of-link marketing. With a website and engaging content, you can create viral marketing campaigns online and encourage word-of-link marketing – the version of word-of-mouth marketing in the offline world. Unique and interesting contents from your website can create buzz from people in the blog network and social media.

16. Secure your brand. In creating a website, you will choose your own domain name, which can be a .com or other domain extensions. By registering the domain name of your business, you can secure that your brand name will not be used by other entities or by your competitors.

17. Manage your popularity and ranking. With a website, you can have a control on what will appear on the SERP (search engine result page) through SEO techniques and what will appear on social media through social media marketing strategies.

18. Facilitate hiring process. You may include a web page dedicated to career and personnel hiring on your company website. You can also highlight your HR management strengths to attract the right people for your business.

19. Build trust and confidence from customers. An official homepage for your business and an “about page” with all your company information (business profile, company history, key people, address and contact information) can increase your business reliability and trustworthiness.

20. Facilitate your business operation. A website can automate your business processes, such as taking orders from customers, getting clients’ inquiries, and advertising.

21. Almost a risk-free investment. A well-maintained website appreciates market value overtime. As time passes by, its popularity and back links increases. Hence, spending money for your business website will almost not go wasted. This is also probably the reason why even individual people invest on websites or blogs for their personal use.

22. It introduces your team. As a form of media and publicity, you can use your website to recognize and honor the people behind your business. You may introduce them on your “about us” page.

23. Educate people. Your website can be your tool for educating the world about your quality products and how they can improve the lives of people. You can also set up a blog to regularly publish blog posts about the information you want to bring to the world.

24. Promote your cause. Aside from the things that are related to your business, you can use a website to successfully promote your cause. This is a great way to execute your social responsibility, such as your obligation to protect the environment and promote welfare in your community.

25. Inspire the world. If you become successful in establishing your online reputation as a business identity and as a socially responsible entity, you can send this message through your website and inspire the world.

So, do you already have a website for your business? Have you already given your business an online presence? Leverage the power of a website for your business success now.