Many small to medium business owners shy away from investing in a professional web site thinking they lead to a money pit of ongoing hosting and search engine fees, and update charges. However, current technology means costs are much lower, and returns much higher than most businesses imagine.

Here are 6 reasons why a web site is imperative to any business.

1. Keep up with competition

Do your competitors have sites? How do they look? This is simple business.  If they have attractive sites that are easily found, you are losing out on potential sales by not keeping up. 

 2. Increase Customer Support

You can provide your customers convenient access to necessary information, day or night.  You can provide visitors with useful tips, support documents and links to resources.  You can even offer conveniences such as automated bill payment or online service scheduling.

3. Reach new horizons

The Internet is a global marketplace, and is no longer for only large corporations.  All around the world, people are searching for your type of products or services 24 hours a day. While you sleep, your web site is there, waiting to impress potential purchasers, give them information, and direct their orders or enquiries to you when you wake.

4. Meet New Friends

The Internet is a great place to team up with businesses in similar fields, and increase your potential visitor base. If your site looks good, people will want to swap links with you.  For example, an event planner site might link to a catering site, a photographer's site, and a banquet facility site.  A visitor can then research all these complementary businesses at once, with each site effectively sending referrals to each other.

5. Reduce costs

A web site can make costs such as printing, postage, and time spent answering phone questions almost things of the past. As in item one, by making forms, brochures and F.A.Q.s available online you can save a great deal of your precious time and money. You can also send out your newsletter or anounce current specials by email, rather than printing and mailing.

6. Perform Market Research

The Internet is a great test bed to gauge potential response to new products or services. You can place new ideas online, and with visitor tracking and comment areas instantly see if they are popular. All necessary tweaking can be done before paying for production, advertising or distribution.

If you are ready to take your business to the next level, now is the time to research web technologies such as our own WebUpdate Site Management systems.  These include many advanced features designed to give your business the best competitive edge online.

Terry Young is the founder and CEO of Internet Marketing and Design. Since 1997,
his computer programming and graphic design knowledge have kept his company
at the forefront of the latest technology in web development.