The Problem With Small Business Website Development

If you've got a small business, you'll probably want a website. Many consumers now have a broadband Internet connection and leave their computers on all the time. It's a lot easier for them to do a simple search on the Internet than to locate their Yellow Pages, flip through them to find the heading where your business is listed. And, even if they did remember where their Yellow Pages book is, and found the heading where your business is listed, would your ad stand out? Would it have a description of your services or products, a map of your location, along with your current hours, and your phone number and email address? You can add all this information, and more, to a simple small business website. So, having a website can lead to more business---and more profit. After all, a basic purpose of a small business website is to allow a potential customer to find you fast and call you first. === Building a Small Business Website === So, let's suppose that you want to work with someone to build your small business website. How do you choose a good website development provider? If you use one of the major search engines to find a provider who can do "small business website development" you'll probably come up with hundreds of sites. Some sites will provide instructions for you to develop your own website. Other sites will offer to develop your site for you. Most business owners are pretty well occupied with the day-to-day process of managing their business. They don't want to learn a totally new skill. If you are in this category, you'll want someone else to develop your website. But, there are still lots of choices. After using a search engine to find a "small business website development" provider, you'll see sites that promise inexpensive or economical development. Some sites offer development for under $200 while others offer development for under $100 plus $10 a month for hosting. Sure, some of these rock bottom prices don't include much more than a single page site. And there are add on services like an online merchant account (for selling products on the web), extra web space (for more pages), increased bandwidth (for more accesses and downloading), domain name registration, email addresses, and so on. So, the actual price for your small business website development effort will depend on the purpose for your site. And, once you decide on a purpose, you will negotiate with the website development provider for all the features that support your purpose. === Your Website Must Be Found in the Search Engines === Now, here is the real catch. You can get a very pretty website from a number of providers. But, the question is: "Can your small business website be found when a potential customer is searching for services?" I live near Royal Oak, Michigan in Oakland County. If I needed to find a furnace repair company I might use a search engine and look for a "royal oak furnace repair" company, or even an "oakland county furnace repair" company. If my back was hurting, I might look for a "royal oak chiropractor" for help. If I don't know the name of a particular business, I'll search using a generic term that describes the type of business or service I'm seeking. Now you should see that a goal of your small business website is to be found when someone does a generic search for a local business that offers the goods or services you provide. One purpose of your website is, after all, to allow potential customers to find you fast and call you first. If your website doesn't work hard to attract new customers and add to your bottom line, your money for website development was not well spent. === Good Search Engine Placement is an Ongoing Cost === Good placement in the search engines requires attention nearly every month. If someone is not updating and fine-tuning your website monthly, it's likely it will not be at the top of the search engines. While your website may look nice and give you a good feeling, it will not be working hard for your business like it should. I spoke with a local chiropractor about his existing website. He indicated he thought it was at the top of Google for his name and his business' name. Yet, when I actually did the searches on Google, I found his site was not in the top 100 sites for either search phrase he mentioned. Yes, he had a fine website. But nothing was being done to promote his website. His website needed fine-tuning to emphasize certain keyword phrases and it needed incoming links from other websites. Both of these activities require an ongoing effort. So, do not think that just because you have a small business website that it is working hard for you. Just like any other employee, you have to keep paying month after month for it to be productive. So, along with simple website development, you should ensure that ongoing efforts will be made to enhance the placement of your site in the search engines. And you should keep track every month of where your site is found in the major search engines. This way, potential customers searching the Internet actually will find your site fast and call you first.