Do I Need a Website?

It is incredibly difficult for a business in this day and age to succeed without having a good website. Customers expect to be able to find you online, see your hours and find ways to contact you. When your customers lack information; they are confused, frustrated and are inclined to look elsewhere.

Child playing Jenga

Why have a website?

Having an updated, easy to navigate website makes a huge difference. It doesn't need to be fancy but it does need to easily present the basic information about your business. It can be tempting to make the website yourself or perhaps ask a family member to create it for you. However, you will save yourself a lot of trouble in the long run if you hire a professional from the beginning. It is similar to building a house. If the foundation isn't done correctly, everything else will slowly fall apart and have problems. Having a bad website will frustrate your customers and will be worse than not having a site at all! [bctt tweet="Customers expect to be able to find you online, see your hours and find ways to contact you. When your customers lack information; they are confused, frustrated and are inclined to look elsewhere." username="brightdigit"]

What can you do next?

There are three things you can do to better understand your website:

Do What The Best Sites Do

Look at the sites of other businesses similar to yours and copy what they do best. Make sure not to be overwhelmed and look at the most important pieces.

Be The Customer

Pretend to be a customer of your business. What do you like? What do you not like? Is anything frustrating? Is anything easy? Once you start to get a sense of these things, I am sure you will begin to recognize how your site can be improved.

Talk To Your Market

Ask yourself, how would a customer would try to find your business? If they found your site, would they easily find what they need? Or is there room for improvement? Once you've asked these questions and have done some research, the next step is finding someone to do it. [bctt tweet="If the foundation isn't done correctly, everything else will slowly fall apart and have problems. Having a bad website will frustrate your customers and will be worse than not having a site at all!" username="brightdigit"]

Making the Deal

Finding the Right Web Designer

The easiest way to find the right designer is ask for recommendations. Here are few people who could help:

Once you have a good set of references (and their references as well), think about your expectations and start inquiring about quotes. And remember keep your site simple for the first version or a redesign because you can always add more content later.

Getting a Web Site the Right Way

Good luck with this new and exciting endeavor! If you have any questions, you can always contact us. SaveSave