Does your business need a website?

In our last blog, we discussed the process of how starting a website at Clear Imaging works – but we didn’t really get into if you SHOULD have a website or not. With the economy these days, many people are hesitant to get involved with something that will have a financial outlay – no matter the amount. This is a valid concern, the exception with a website is that it is a fantastic marketing tool that will help expand your business and help you obtain new clients. In contrast to the past, people are not going to the yellow pages anymore for recommendations on contractors, photographers, plumbers etc. They are going to the internet. Let’s say that perhaps they go to Google, and type in the search box, plumber West Hills, CA. Well, if you don’t have a website, you just missed out on that potential lead. In the past most businesses were able to survive based on word of mouth referral – that is just not the case these days, perhaps it is because there is too much competition – who knows…  Now it is time to up the ante, here we will talk about some of the basic reasons every business should have a website.
It will help you get found…
It won’t happen overnight, but if you are willing to put the time into it, your website can be the most powerful tool in your tool box. We have businesses that rely solely on the leads that their website generates for their business. So you might be asking yourself, so how does this all work? Do I simply throw up a website and the phone starts ringing off the hook? Well, it’s not quite that simple. If it was, then there would be no point in having a website – it would be an even playing field for everyone. We will touch on it briefly here, but if you want to educate yourself, check out our past blogs on website tips and SEO.

Essentially, the way that it works is that there are search engine crawls that happen every few weeks. During these crawls, the search engine “spiders” scan every single website and look for new content, key words and an array of other things. Essentially, this is how the website that lands on the first page of search terms get determined. The goal of having a website is to ultimately rank on the first page for search terms – that is how a potential client who searches for a plumber in West Hills, CA will come across your webpage. Now we will be honest, if you are not willing to put some effort into your website, then you will probably not see a whole lot of financial return. But those that do put in the effort see the benefits and reap the rewards.
If you have a business that is visually oriented, such as landscaping, photography etc. or if you are in a industry related service such as social media marketing or computer programming, then your clients will expect to see a website. People want to be able to do most of their research about the people they will work with from the comfort of their own home. In contrast to the past, people do not spend their days interviewing contractors, they simply want to see a great first impression and see a killer website with beautiful images. If you want to take your business to the next level, and up the ante so to speak, then having a professional designed website will give you the edge over your competitors that you have been looking for.