10 Reasons for a Website
1. To Share Information
2. To Sell
3. To Collect Customer Feedback
4. To Manage Data
5. To Make Changing Information Available Quickly
6. To Create An Intranet
7. To Expand Your Business
8. To Serve Your Local Market
9. To Reach A Specialized Market
10. To Expand Your Business' Profile
1. To Share Information
Most businesses that choose to create a website do so in order to share information. Often that information can be straightforward, such as contact information, directions to the business, and a company description. A website is valuable for so much more, too. Consider the costs of handing out brochures and other company literature to your customers. The printing and mailing costs add up quickly, forcing you to be selective in the distribution of your materials. The cost of making that same information available for browsing or downloading through your website is insignificant. Instead of being charged per page as with your print material, file size and bandwidth matter on the Web. These figures are normally so small that they are normally covered in your monthly hosting fees. It is simply one of the best ways to make any kind of information available.
You can also share information through collaboration. Offer a message board or chat room on your website as a means for your audience to communicate with each other. Interactive features such as these are very popular. They allow knowledgeable people to converse on topics that relate to your business or industry. What could be better than people coming to your site to discuss hot topics?
Perhaps you have information to share but only want to share it with certain people. Areas of your website (or even the whole website) can be password-protected so that only visitors with special permission can access the information you want to share with them. There are numerous ways to take advantage of these member areas. Use them to collect, display, and offer information for download from co-workers, salespeople, suppliers, lenders, customers, and more. Let them enter important data or download an Excel spreadsheet from you. Let them access reports on data from your database in real-time. Sound exciting? This is an ComputerWorks specialty!
Have any questions about how you can use the Web to share your information? Just contact us!
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2. To Sell
Whether you already sell products through a store or just want to take a new product idea straight online, now is still a great time to make that Internet-riches dream come true. With more and more shoppers buying online every day, you can bet there are people out there who want to buy what you are selling. E-commerce systems allow you to put an unlimited number of products on your website’s shelves. People can quickly shop and purchase from you without ever having to leave their home.
Selling online is by far one of the most cost-effective ways to sell anything. It comes without the customary overhead of a physical store, like building leases, employees who need to get paid whether or not the register is ringing, and the myriad of costs associated with keeping the store running (utilities, supplies, maintenance, etc.). While there are certainly costs for hosting your site, keeping it secure, sales transactions, hiring a Web developer, and more, the costs of running an online store are predictably lower than having a physical store. This often results in a higher profit margin for you. With the right products, the right marketing, and the right attitude, start-up Internet businesses are still making a killing in the virtual marketplace. You just need to find your product and let ComputerWorks help you with the rest.
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3. To Collect Customer Feedback
Which sounds better to you? Paying employees to tend to customer support and feedback all day long or letting your website collect feedback 24 hours a day? Customer feedback forms are becoming an Internet standard simply because they give customers a great way to communicate without requiring you to answer a phone. Through a customer feedback system, you can provide an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section to head-off unnecessary phone calls and provide web forms for them to submit questions or comments that could not be addressed. The information that is submitted can be saved in a database for future reference. It can also then be emailed immediately to anyone in your company, such as yourself or a customer support representative, for easy follow-up. This system allows your company to be more productive because you can respond quickly as well as at your convenience. Additionally, if your business is so equipped, you may even want to add a live chat feature to allow visitors to interact with a support representative instantly. We have a lot of experience implementing a variety of such systems for clients, so contact ComputerWorks now to learn how we can help.
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4. To Manage Data
The Web is a great way to manage your company’s data. Whether you want to manage data for an existing website or have a way to easily manage other data from any Internet connection in the world, the convenience of managing information through a web browser is hard to beat. If you are interested in having a website with dynamic features (such as products or events) but are concerned about the sometimes tedious task of updating this information frequently, let ComputerWorks build the tools you need to make this a breeze. There is no need to download and upload data when you can do it securely straight through your web browser. Interactive, database-driven features are our forte. Let us help you streamline your data management tasks into an easy-to-use application.
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5. To Make Changing Information Available Quickly
Your website is a great place to post changing information. The moment you post new information, it is instantly live on the Web. Have you ever sent out printed marketing materials only to have a date or location change on you? You can’t take it back it to make corrections. With your website, however, it is easy to let customers, friends, salespeople, or the general public know when and where that event is taking place. Do you routinely want to showcase new products or examples of your work? Why not put it on your website? Where else can you make changes so quickly and easily that are immediately accessible to anyone online?
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6. To Create An Intranet
The possibilities of an intranet seem nearly limitless. An intranet is essentially a way to share documents and interact with others over the Web but in a private manner. Most intranets are password-protected so that only authorized individuals may access its contents. Common applications found on an intranet include employee timesheets and productivity reports, sales data entry forms and reports, invoice/billing tools, inventory management tools, message boards, intercompany bulletins, and virtually anything else you can imagine needing to share with your employees, vendors, lenders, salespeople, and more.
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7. To Expand Your Business
Expanding your business through a website is geared toward companies that have something of value to offer, whether it be to promote or sell products or information. The Internet holds distinct advantages over running a physical store. The obvious advantage is that the geographic boundaries of a traditional business are not present. Online you will find that once you begin to market your business, people will show up from all over the country and often from all around the world. Somebody always wants what you have. Promoting through the Internet to find them and having a website to draw them in will help you expand.
Perhaps your organization is not-for-profit and only wishes to raise awareness and attract more donors. A website presents a whole new approach to marketing by supplementing or replacing the need to distribute costly print materials and cold-call for support. When you gear your efforts toward advertising on the Web and promoting your website instead, you can attract a willing audience to your website and captivate them with your message once they arrive.
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8. To Serve Your Local Market
The concept of using the Internet to serve a local market is easily overlooked. When most people think about websites, they think of the global audience it could attract. Sometimes this isn't desirable. A business that is completely comfortable existing and thriving in its local market may not be interested in serving a larger market. For these people, a website is just as useful as it is for those who use it to expand globally. To serve your local market, a website is still a great means of serving, educating, and entertaining your audience. You can only stuff so much information on your business card and print materials. When you publish your website address on your cards and literature, though, you give them an easy way to quickly hop online and learn everything about you. More and more people continue to go online to search for local businesses, so it only makes sense to be where your customers are.
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9. To Serve A Specialized Market
If you have a specialty product or service, you probably know very well just how much work goes into finding that special customer. When you work within the boundaries of a geographic market, your marketing is geared toward reaching the elusive one-in-a-million. The Internet changes all this. For example, let's say you are selling parts for classic Mustangs. Not everyone in your area owns a Mustang, let alone a classic that needs parts. If you are trying to attract customers in your area, you may be wasting a lot of money promoting your business to an audience that is largely uninterested. Now let's say you have a website. Your marketing efforts shift from print and other traditional media and move to online advertising and promotions. On the Internet there are special interest groups for virtually any subject. Since there are most definitely Mustang enthusiasts online, it's exciting to know that you can find websites where these enthusiasts meet to read, learn, chat, and seek information. By advertising exactly where your audience is, every penny you spend immediately becomes more valuable. So when they see your advertisement or read about you on a message board, they go straight to your website. Never before has attracting a specialized audience been so direct and efficient.
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10. To Improve Your Business’ Profile
There is a fair amount of prestige to having a website. It gives people the impression that you are savvy enough and smart enough to take your business to another level. Since a website is such a major convenience, it also tells people that you are interested in sharing more information with them. Even so, websites are still not much of a concern for many businesses, whether it be deciding to have one or deciding to improve their existing website. Business without websites should consider the opportunities and improved profile that a website offers.
One note to make, however, is that having a website alone is not enough to improve your profile. It needs to meet several criteria including aesthetic appeal, usability, relevancy, and more. Many websites that are slapped together have a cheap look to them. This can have an adverse effect on visitors' perceptions of your business. If they feel that your website looks cheap or amateurish, they may be inclined to think that your business is also cheap or that it is somehow less capable of meeting their needs. So while a website is a nice addition, it only makes sense to do so if the end product does your business more good than harm.
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