Q. Does my business need a web site?
A. Does your business need exposure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year? Of course it does!! The power of the World Wide Web gives you that! What other medium gives your small business that kind of exposure?
Q. But I’m a small business owner that works locally in my town. I don’t want to sell anything online. Why would I really need a web presence?
A. It’s just as important for you to be online as it is for the business owner that is selling products. These are the days when people go to Google instead of the phonebook to find a phone number or an address. They search for key words instead of flipping through the Yellow Pages. There may be people who are curious about your business, but have never walked through your door because they simply haven’t made the time. By providing access to your business online, these potential customers can learn about your product line, business hours, customer service policies, etc., all in the privacy of their home or office – they might just take a few moments to call, email or visit your shop the next time they have a need for the products or service you provide. Americans love to “window shop” from their homes these days and if you’re not available for them to see, they’ll be visiting someone else’s store instead.
Search engines themselves have added “local search” features to their systems, including Google and Yahoo, the biggest players in the market.
Nielsen NetRatings, April 2008
In the United States alone, there are 218 million people on the Web, at home during off hours, and they average 36 hours a month on the Internet. There are also 70 million active web users at the office, spending 19 hours a week online.
Even a small business has the potential to save in customer service costs by providing elementary information such as hours of operation, location and contact information. You can also display a list of frequently asked questions and answers, a calendar of upcoming events, job openings, and more.
Q: Do I need to use a website design company that is local to me?
No you don’t! Everything can be done through email, over the Internet, or with the telephone. Contact us to request a free consultation today.
Q: How often should I update my website?
(Don’t confuse updating content on a web site with redesigning a web site).
The rule of thumb: At a minimum for an informational web site, review content every 2-3 months, and first look to find old and outdated information, then look to add new content if needed. For e-commerce web sites, review content monthly at the most.
In addition to these rules we strongly encourage our clients to use the blogging platform to add frequent current, relevant content to their site to help with SEO rankings. This is easily accomplished with all of the website we install and we’ll make sure that each business owner is familiar with how to do so. If adding content isn’t up your alley, let us know, we’ll handle it for you!
Q: Besides having the actual web site what else do have have to have?
You will need a web hosting provider so that your site can appear on the world wide web, and a domain name (that’s a fancy word for the www.name).
Q: Am I going to run into hidden charges for your website design services?
Not at all! Once we have all the information about your requirements, you will be given a proposal with our recommendations with specifications and pricing, broken out into the individual components. The only time your investment would change is if you want additional pages or any other material added before completion of the website. In that case, we’d create a change order for your review and approval, before those changes are performed.
Q: Who actually owns my website design?
Very simply put: you are the owner of your website. All copyrights will become yours upon final completion of your web site.