10 Reasons To Build A Web Site

Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose that you resolved to effect. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), 'The Tempest'

Yesterday, the idea of having a purpose for your site was introduced. Today we want to expand on that a bit because it’s absolutely essential that you identify a purpose before you actually build a site or even talk to a web designer. So what is the purpose of building your site?

With an offline business the answer is easy, it’s to promote the business and ultimately generate more revenue. But like we said that is the general purpose of most websites.

Let’s get more specific with your purpose. Here are the 10 biggest reasons to build a web site, see how your purpose fits into this.

1.A web site that educates your existing and potential customers of your products and services or any special program you may introduce. This purpose assumes that you have a data base of existing customers and your site is set up to increase your customer base. This type of site is most useful if your product is technical or unusual and customers need to be educated before they purchase.

2.A web site that enhances your company’s professional image. This is essentially an online brochure where you tell about the company and it accomplishments, location and staff. This is your most indirect approach to a sale. It is not the best purpose for a site to generate revenue.

3.A web site that provides improved customer service. The entire focus is on assisting your customers after the sale. Reducing buyer’s remorse or providing direct assistance in the form of information or customer service personnel to resolve post purchase issues. This is a very good strategy for building a data base of loyal customers.

4.A web site that can be used as an extension of your newspaper, TV ads or direct contact with potential prospects. There is no easier way to distribute unlimited information to hot prospects. Your site can be the first stop before the actual sale.

5.A web site that strengthens your position in the market place. That is if you are already firmly positioned in a competitive market. A web site used for this purpose must differentiate you from all of your competition by what you do, have or provide with your product or service.

6.A web site that develops a list of qualified prospects as a lead generator for your business. An automated process that sifts through suspects from prospects. The ultimate goal of this type of site is to increase your present sales or position in the market place.

7.A web site that makes product or service information available to current customers. This must be designed to serve the needs of your current and future customers in a way that no one else does. You can make service information available to customers and/or distributors.

8.A web site that takes your business global YOur intention here is to attract global customers and simultaneously expand the reach of your product or service into other parallel markets.

9.A web site that establishes your web presence. Image is extremely important to some businesses and a website enhances that image. But a web presence is not a web site although as a business it is challenging to establish a presence without a professional site.

10.A web site that provides links to other relevant sites. This would assist your customers in accessing information that is not readily available. This strategy can be leveraged with a forum where customers can interact with each other.

As you can see, there are many reasons to establish your web site and even though you could combine or integrate, there must be one purpose that guides you and is considered primary to everything you put on your site.

Hopefully, you noticed that not one of the above purpose is to sell your service or product. Your selling happens offline unless you have a instant downloadable product, stop trying to sell on your site. Pre sell, entice and seek to funnel your visitors.

Your purpose is, and should always be, unique to you. This purpose will guide everything, e.g. your tone, structure, navigation and even the copy on your site.

For example, if you decided that your primary purpose is to generate interest and leads for your product or service. All you may really need is 1 capture page that collects your potential customer’s name and email address. In this case there is no need for a five or six page site that provides the prospect with all the details of your product/service.

OK, so now I think that should be abundantly clear but we need to be sure. If you are still unclear about the purpose of you site please ask a question.
We received many private emails about yesterday’s post but not many online comments.

It appears that most of you would prefer not to discuss your site in public. That’s ok, just keep the emails coming. Comment, suggest or express your opinion even if you don’t agree with anything said here. The channel is on and open here.

Thank you and be well.

P.S. Tomorrow I want to jump ahead a little because I have just come across this awesome tool for your website that I just must share with you. It a web based video creation tool for your site. Don't think I have to tell you how important video is to marketing. So look out tomorrow for the post.

Are You Always Open For Business?

Why Every Offline Business Must Have An Internet Presence

Find purpose, the means will follow. -Gandhi


Traditional business entrepreneurs globally and especially in developing countries like Trinidad and Tobago, still justify and rationalize not having a website.

Many of these businesses were started by successful entrepreneurs who never used the Internet and cannot see any reason to change. To be sure, many are not computer literate. they would readily admit the importance of a computer to their business but the internet, that’s different basket of flowers. The reality is that without a website many of these businesses will not survive, every business need to have a web presence. Fact is that if they are successful without a site, they have the potential of exponentially increasing their success with a well managed website.

With the downturn in the economy many traditional businesses models are being challenged, they are no longer working. Yet these traditional entrepreneurs still resist establishing a web presence. The real problem is that they do not understand the internet and how it could be used to reinvent their business. It’s the old adage about not being able to think outside of the box. Their business models worked for them before and maybe are still working; so why fix it? The simple answer is that the world was changed by an innovative information reservoir, it's so unlike what existed 20 to 30 years ago. The Internet cannot be ignored.

Granted, it can be challenging for some offline businesses to conceive of a model that will work for them online but there is one thing that every business needs and wants; that is 24/7 advertising. The internet affords businesses the ability to present their products and services to anyone at any time of the day or night. For this reason alone every business should have a web presence, even if it’s a brochure site identifying what the business does or sells. It does not have to be an information product that customers can purchase directly on line and download. It can be any product or service.

For example, in the mid eighties I worked for a large automobile dealership in Boston Massachusetts that did not have a web presence. I suggested building a web site and ended up managing one of the largest automobile dealership’s Internet departments in the Boston metropolitan area. This dealership did not need to sell more cars, they were selling over 200 new and used units every month. The biggest question for the dealers was; How can we sell a car online?

The way the automobile business operated at the time, it really took some thinking outside the box but the business developed. Soon the dealership was selling over $250,000 more in gross revenue in a month. Today, every large car dealer in Metropolitan Boston has a website. A dealership websites provided exposure, information about the dealership, the makes, models and the potential deals available. The result was that the dealership developed its own leads and avoided the usually high cost of third party lead providers like Autobytel.

Although we never changed our business model offline we had to develop another, complete with pricing and operational change to accommodate the internet customers. For example, it was not unusual to accept a $100 profit on a vehicle for an internet customer. If that same customer found an ad in the newspaper normal offline prices and operating procedures applied. The rationale was that the internet customer had all the information on the vehicle at their finger tips. They knew the invoice price the dealer paid and they also had a long list of dealers they could purchase the vehicle from. Price in this case was not the selling factor, location i.e. proximity to their home and the importance of after purchase service were the selling points for internet customers.

The challenge for offline business, therefore, is to develop an online business model that works for the business.

What is important to note here is that the website provided leads that purchased vehicles offline, a web site can only provide information like makes, models, people, process and even a map to the dealership. Truly, there is no other advertising medium that matches the ability of the internet to share detailed information to potential customers. As was said before, access to your business information is the primary reason for your business should be online but there is more:

1.New users come to the net every month by the millions some of them are definitely your customers, if you not online, your chances of getting their business is nil.

2.The investment for a business to get online has been gradually been reduced. In some cases its free, web sites or free blog like blogger or wordpress, Even without site build building abilities user can use drag and drop technology to build their own free site like yola.

3.Because the internet is now one big reservoir of information, whatever you put online stay there. For example take a look at one of the first sites I ever published on the net in March 2000, I am not proud of it and don’t use it anymore but the point is that it still exist on the net on today WayBackMachine see here.

A mentor once said to me, “Boy”, (I didn’t mind, because at the time, I was a boy). He said: “Boy, if you want to be good at anything, it takes time.” He went on to say; “for example, it takes about 1000 hours to know anything really well. That is, you would have to put in at least that amount of time to really know the in and out of a skill, topic, idea or discipline". He went on to say that if I really wanted to become an expert I would need to put at least 10,000 hours into it.

I responded with a loud, “OUCH”, but he was right.

Not everyone can jump in and do it, there is a learning curve. If your business is still not on the internet, any marketer would recommend that you give it serious consideration. This is one case of, not if but when. The longer you take to get there, the longer it will take for your content, your business information to establish a real presence on the net. Remember as an independently owned business, you set the rules, you decide what you will like to present to the public and how you will present it to maximize the potential profits to your offline business. You may even have to tweak your offline business model but the bottom line is to generate more business.

Unfortunately, there are web designers and web developer who quote ridiculous prices for building a simple 3-5 page web site. As a rule most expensive web designers are not internet marketers, they know how to build websites not market them. Consequently, many small businesses become disillusioned when their huge investment in a web site quickly finds itself in the internet cemetery. A lack of internet marketing ability is the main reason why most small businesses shy away from establishing a web presence. To be completely honest, I agree with their rationale. Why spend money to build a site when it generates no significant ROI?

If that’s how it works out, like them, I would just stay offline.

The internet has always been a free medium, the spoils though, go to the entrepreneurs who understand how it works. It is an incomprehensible reservoir of information that astounds the imagination. There is so much information that if your business is not online, someone, somewhere with a business just like yours’; is online. Dominating the online market locally or globally, but put this in your pipe and smoke it, if you have a small business and you are not on the internet you are losing money.

Tony Puckerin is an Internet Marketing Consultant that can help you put your offline business on line, He uses time tested offline Guerilla Marketing strategies and tactics to improve your business performance. Find out more about Tony Puckerin

View the Caribbean Blogger Videos


Contest Burner, Click to get $5000 in prizes.