In the past, when entrepreneurs discussed their businesses relative to the internet, they discussed websites with the same vocabulary used for conventional marketing campaigns. Sites were thought of in terms of their graphics, in terms of their cost, in terms of immediate – short-term – returns; they were viewed as a disposable, one-time cost. Sites were considered to be something that was built, sat online for a while like a brochure, then aged and were thrown away, replaced by the following “website” – these days are no more, let me explain why.
Today’s websites are complex vehicles of business unto themselves; customers not only use sites to read information like a brochure, but they also depend on websites to find businesses, make product decisions, engage with support, purchase products, and return products, basically websites today are responsible for an entire ecosystem of business all by themselves – or at least they should be.
Now, as you read the above, you may have thought, “But my business is a <X, Y, Z> type of business; this doesn’t apply to me! – wrong. No matter what kind of business you have today or at what level you analyze its potential utilization, the online realm has crept out and devoured the offline world in every conceivable way. Today’s customers count on websites to make the decisions of where they will dine, what plumber they will hire, where they will stay, where they will obtain medical care – and any number of other critical “offline” decisions. So you may be able to ignore the internet, but it’s not ignoring you.
Do you sell stuff?
If your business sells products and you ignore the internet, you might be performing a miracle by even surviving, given the fact more products are bought online than just about anywhere else. What about services? Those too are bought online at higher rates than offline, and it isn’t just big business doing the selling. According to all known good data, internet-driven sales of services have long ago eclipsed the world of telesales, let alone in-person offline sales. I could go on and on for hours about the domains and dimensions in which a website has become a critical tool of business, but it actually goes deeper than merely the “sales” side of the equation; competing today isn’t just a turf war for market share, it’s a mindshare competition and those who stay offline, stay invisible – and perish in the dark.
Having a good, solidly built website gives you the ability to control your own space of internet real estate, and it gives you a place to blog and display your authority within the professional context of your business, even if you are already doing this on social media, how on earth can you capitalize without having a place to send those prospects you generate through videos, posts, articles, and essays? You have to own the store, as the old saying goes.
Most important to this is that you select a strong platform that will give your site the longevity it needs to compete in the now and sustain in the long term – WordPress. WordPress is a content management system, a living, breathing, code-based mechanism that allows your website to have all of the robust features one wants (and needs) in a professional online presence. With WordPress, your site isn’t just beautiful; it isn’t just mobile-friendly, it isn’t just fast; it’s built in a way that it can be upgraded and maintained for years, so it never falls into obsolescence, and therefore it’s built for the long haul.
No matter if you’re someone who needs a site built completely from scratch or someone who needs their site rescued, or someone who needs an ongoing engagement with a partner online, I can help. Over the past 14 years, I have helped hundreds of people just like you invest in themselves by building strong web presences and win online.
Contact me today to get your project started!.