To Site or Not To Site That Is The Question

If you don't have a website, then you might not realize all the great things they can do for you. Maybe you think there wouldn't be any point, because your business is too small - or maybe you don't even have a business! Perhaps you think it'd be a lot of work for little reward. Or maybe you paid big bucks for a site back during the dot-com 'boom' days, only to get nothing but trouble out of it and shut it down a year later. Whatever your situation is, though, you need (or maybe even want) a website, and I'm here to tell you why.

The Virtual Customer Just Walked On By

Sooner or later, someone's going to type your name into a search engine. What do you want them to find? A little space your competitor will be only be to happy to fill? That's your customer who wanted to find you, and if you don't have a website then you're letting them down - they expect you to be online. For many people, you might as well not exist if you can't be found with a search engine. Not having a website is like not bothering to get listed in the phone book. Whether it's customers or old school friends you're hoping for, very few people are going to find you if you aren't online. If you can I recommend you register your name as a domain name, this will make it easier for people to find you and it will come in handy if you want a personal website or even a business one. For a business one it gives the impression that if you are willing to put your name on it then it must be good.

A Little Speculation for Lot of Accumulation.

Once, it cost a lot to run a website - but those days are long gone. There are 'pay as you go' services out there now charging as little as $1 per gigabyte of bandwidth. If you're sensible about the size of your pages, and don't add to many slow loading graphics, that dollar could last you a whole month, or even longer! If you don't want to pay for design, it's never been simpler to do it yourself, or find free software to do it for you. Really, it's never been cheaper to have a website than it is today. You can also register a .com domain name for as little as $5 a year, not bad deal.

Be Seen and Sell.

Whatever you're advertising - your services, your products, or just yourself - a website is a great way to do it. Every other kind of advertising going costs a premium, especially if you want to target a specific kind of person, and there's no guarantee that they're paying attention. Websites are like brochures that are free to reproduce, interactive, and quickly distributed to people who are already looking for them. No advertising medium even comes close to the ease-of-use and effectiveness of a website. All for a dollar a month.

Corner Shop Goes Global

On the web, it doesn't matter whether someone is next door to you or on the other side of the world - they can see your website just the same as anyone else can, at no extra cost to you or to them. Phone and post both cost enormous amounts long-distance, but a website lets you send information anywhere without any extra effort or expense. You can make friends and contacts in places you've never been to and will never (and may not even want to) go to- suddenly, working globally is as effortless as working locally.

Selling Makes Money, More Selling Makes More Money

There's a lot of money on the web, and it's not hard to get some, the longer you're online, the bigger your share can get. If you have something to sell, you can sell it worldwide, thanks to credit cards and online credit card processors. Doing business online eliminates almost every overhead there is all you need to do is have the goods. If you've written something useful, you can put it out there with a few ads. You won't get rich overnight, but you can set up a steady trickle of income, and there's no limit to the number of trickles you can set up.

Licking Stamps is Out

Giving out information takes time, whether it's on the phone, or in brochures, or even if it's just emailing your family. Websites are designed to save you time. All your family and friends can read your online diary (known as a web log), and you only had to write it once and you can update it as often as you want. Customers can see your whole product catalogue without ever needing to talk to you or visit you. This is the power of the web, things on it are written only once, but can be downloaded endlessly, a good website runs itself, and keeps being useful to people for much longer than you'd expect.