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Do I Need A Website For My Business?

Deciding when it's time for a website and what to expect from a provider

By DevelopynPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
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The age old question that has plagued countless generations for millennia. Jokes aside, this is a very real query that business owners have to resolve and decide on an outcome for. Obviously, you already know what a website is, that’s why you’re here. But I will briefly outline it in case any of you are aliens from outer space (and your first point of contact with human civilisation is this blog). A website is a collection of web pages located and indexed under a single domain. Your website can be used as a sort of home or online virtual hub for your business. Sort of like an office, but online, with less maintenance (hopefully).

Your website can be used for various different functions, including for informational purposes, whether you’re talking about products or services, or if you’re displaying your company’s history and portfolio. You can also sell your products online, or create a sort of showroom to display your services. Whatever you intend to use your website for, it is a handy and useful tool for organising relevant information as to what you do and can make your customer’s experience that extra bit smoother.

Why a website is useful

As stated in the previous section, a website is a handy and powerful tool that can be utilised to do a wide variety of different things with high-functionality and flexibility. One example of a benefit of owning your own site would be the ability to market and retail your own products online with reduced payment handling fees, no monthly charge for membership, and no commission taken from the sale of your products. If you’re a serious online seller, this one investment could save you a lot of money in the long run, something that people easily forget and are reluctant to accept given the initial investment of purchasing a website outright. Long story short, selling your products online can be more profitable if you do it through your own medium.

Along with the fact that you keep more of your own money, having a website is your chance to offer a fully personalised home for your business in which you can decide exactly how things work and how you want the overall site to appear to visitors, instead of just ‘renting’ a page on an already designed and configured website. Something you may not get with other commercial providers (not at a reasonable price, anyway) is the opportunity to integrate features such as booking systems, review systems, and other custom features. These offer you greater functionality, better organisation and obviously a finer and more memorable user experience. Having an awesome feature like these can really help to set you apart from other businesses within your niche.

Tying in with the point of standing out from the competition is the fact that a bespoke website can give your business a much needed boost in image, showing that you’re serious about what you do and are a true professional in your field. A great website can portray you in a positive light and really give a memorable experience to visitors who come to check you out. For many people who stumble across your brand, your website will be one of the first points of contact, so you will definitely want to impress them (and hopefully convert them into a client). Having a website also increases your potential to be visible to more people online than say if you just had a Facebook business page, and this can subsequently generate more business from the greater reach you will be experiencing.

One final point I will make about the benefits of having a website ties into the mention of outshining the competition. In business, it is always good to be doing more than your competition, right? If your competitors have a fairly basic online presence with little-to-no means of actively pushing their services, they will appear less credible and ‘official’ than a business in the same niche who is actively engaging in activities which help their brand’s image. For example, if you have an awesome website with all these features you’re going to appear much more professional than a business that just uses a Facebook page to do their business. This should ultimately give you the edge in acquiring sales, simply due to the customer experience and seeming trustworthiness you are offering.

Knowing when you need a website

There are various indicators of when it might be time to take your service to the next level by offering a website for your audience to visit and engage with. One key indicator may be that you are experiencing an increase in business traffic, sales, and general enquiries about your service. You may need a more scalable solution, and it may be that you need to offer a booking system or a contact form (or both) for your audience. This can save you the time and hassle of arranging appointments, handling queries etc. and will offer you a more organised and structured way of dealing with things and being able to get back to everyone. Imagine if you only used your phone to handle business enquiries. You may miss a call from a prospective client and then may never be able to get through to them again as they’ve already moved onto calling one of your competitors. Having a booking system on your website would allow for them to arrange a call or appointment with you without actually having to speak to you at all.

Again, if your competitors have a website that is helping them thrive and generate a ton of business, what are you going to do to try and compete with them? To stand a chance of seeing the same results, you need to offer either a similar or improved service. This means that if all indications point to their awesome website being the difference maker in converting leads into sales, it may be time for you to match, or improve upon, their platform and the parts of their campaign which are stealing the show.

What to look for in a website provider?

As a rule of thumb, there are several things you should look for in a website provider to ensure you are receiving the best service. One would be ownership rights. If you are paying monthly for a website as you cannot afford to buy one outright, it is understandable on the part of the provider to not want to give up the rights to the website they have built for you. However, if you purchase your website in full, you should expect 100% ownership rights and the freedom to take your hosting wherever you should wish to, should a better deal pop up elsewhere. If you are looking into getting a website and the provider is not offering 100% ownership rights for the website (if paid in full), run. This is their way of tying you into having to stay with them as a provider, and they can shut down your website if you ever want to leave them. This is not what you’d expect from a service you have already paid for. Imagine buying a laptop only for your broadband provider to say you can only use that laptop on our network and if you ever switch your laptop won’t work. This is how I visualise this.

More obvious things to look for would be reputability and quality. Check out the provider’s portfolio and testimonials, as well as some of their previous work. Are people happy with the service? Were they easy to work with? These are all things worth researching to avoid any nasty surprises which may be shrouded by the initial pleasantries. Make sure to request and examine examples of previous websites they have built for clients, and play around with different components on the sites to make sure they work. After all, this could be your site someone is playing around with in the future, so you’d want to be sure that everything is adequately developed without hiccups or poor designs that may be unappealing to visitors. Quality is key, especially if you are serious about your business. If paying a premium rate, expectations should be high and should be delivered upon sufficiently.

How Developyn can help

Developyn is a transparent and celebrated web design and software company that, in its short years running, has made quite the name for itself. Closely working with high-profile clients such as IKEA and Unilever, we are a trusted and reputable brand with customer satisfaction and mutual assurance at our core. We offer transparent, competitive pricing on all of our products and will never abuse our position to try and gain more than we think we are worth from our clients. We always offer 100% ownership rights to our websites upon purchase, meaning you are not bound to us in any regard and can take your business elsewhere as you see fit. We also offer aftercare and technical support (ongoing), as well as free bug fixes for a few months afterwards, meaning that if you’re not happy with your product or in the unlikely event that something may not be working properly, we will happily rectify this issue for you with no hassle or charge. This is a gesture of goodwill on our part as we like to honour our side of every agreement. For further assurance of our integrity as a business, you can check out testimonials of happy clients on our website at https://developyn.com/portfolio or you can visit our Trustpilot page here https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/developyn.com.

If you do decide that it’s time for a bespoke website to take your business to the next level, it is advised that you do research into exactly what you’re getting for your money and compare different providers. It is important to not be fooled by the cheapest price, as you may not actually be receiving the best deal (funnily enough). It’s largely about what you can expect from the service in terms of the product that will be given to you and the freedom to do as you wish with that product. Having a website can really make a difference in terms of your brand’s image and being able to maximise your efficiency in the generation of sales, as well as being more visible and accessible to a larger number of people. In today’s competitive business climate we find ourselves within, making sure you are doing the most to keep up with the competition is very important, and setting a great impression for your brand is an invaluable asset for accomplishing this that simply cannot be overlooked by those determined to succeed.

For more insightful articles on a range of topics, visit blog.developyn.com

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