How Will A Website Benefit My Small Business?

The world becomes your oyster when you get your business online.

Every week, UK shoppers spend more than £6.6 billion online. And this, according to the Office of National Statistics, is on the up.

Despite this, polls and studies repeatedly show that small businesses are still reluctant to get online.In fact, depending on whose study you read, between 40 and 50 percent of the country’s small businesses still don’t have a website.

Research by Barlow Researchers indicates that almost half of website-free businesses believe they don’t need an online presence. While a further 30 percent are worried about the cost or time involved in getting online.

Funnily enough, all of the above people are mistaken. Every business can benefit from a website, no matter what they sell or who they sell to. And when they’re ready to make the move into the world of virtual real estate, it can cost less than a couple of hundred pounds to get set up.

How a Website Can Benefit Your Business

More Customers

More than 2.4 billion people use the internet around the world. Could you fit them all in your bricks and mortar shop? Get your website nailed down and all of these people become potential customers.

Get your social media sites established, meanwhile, and you can tap into the power of social recommendation. Research by Yahoo discovered that 15 percent of shoppers have made a purchase based on a recommendation they received through a social media network.

Your website can also help you tap into more local trade than usual. A recent study by LocalVox revealed that 60 percent of consumers search for local businesses on their smartphones.

Improved Reputation

A recent study by Merrill Research discovered that two thirds of small businesses with an online presence felt that it increased their credibility as a business. This finding is backed up by other polls that have found that 56 percent of consumers didn’t trust a business without a website.

Customer Loyalty

It costs five times as much money to attract new customers than it does to keep existing ones, and an online presence can help you nurture the ones you have. In particular, social media is the key to customer loyalty, and it’s easy to build ‘tweet’ and facebook ‘like’ buttons into a website. Interaction through social media can make your customers feel like part of your community.

Information

When you set up your business online, a whole new world of communication possibilities opens up. You can now officially email your clients, for example, to tell them about the latest offers, products and services, instead of waiting for them to walk past your store to find out.

Longer Opening Hours

The internet never hangs a ‘closed’ sign on its door. It’s open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which means your customers can interact with you when they say so rather than when you do.

To get your business online for as little as a few hundred pounds, visit the UK2 homepage.