The main reason why it is important for businesses to have a website is because how do people find you? These days most people go to Google and do a search on companies and products before making a purchase of what they are looking for, if you don’t have a website, you are practically losing sales for your business. Even if people don’t buy your product, the people who did the search are already starting to know and learn about your business.
A website is also important because it helps establish the credibility of your business. If you don’t have one that can be referred or shared to people or potential customers, they may assume you are a company that doesn’t take your business seriously. Once that reputation is established, you are going to have a harder time making sales in your business.
A website will not only give you credibility, but it will also help give the impression that your company is larger and more successful than it actually is. One of the best things about the Internet is that the size of your company doesn’t really matter. There is no reason why your site should not get a better Google ranking ahead of a large multinational company and why not direct some of that large company’s customers to your business. This is, in large part, one of the reasons why this tool is even more important for a small business than it is for a large one, it tends to level the playing field.
While there is a group of people who are unaware of the importance of being on the Internet, there is also another group who believe that it works by magic. A web site should be promoted not only as one more product of our business, but as the most important product that any company has, its Letter of Introduction.
Here are some best practices to publicize and promote your website:
- Publish relevant content: Quality content is the number one driver of search engine rankings. Quality content created specifically for your business’ market sector increases site traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance.
- Update your content regularly: Search engines focus a lot on this item. Regularly updated content is seen as one of the best indicators of a site’s relevance, so be sure to keep it fresh and up to date.
- Use descriptive links: Focus on creating consistent and descriptive links within the text. Instead of writing “Click here”, try writing the name of the destination. “Click here” has no value to search engines beyond what the link destination already provides. Whereas “Product Enhancement Technology System” is keyword rich and will improve your search engine ranking as well as the ranking of the page you are linking to.
- Use alt tags: Alt stands for alternate text and is what search engines use to know what an image display. It is also the text the browser uses when the image cannot be loaded along with the rest of the page content. Describe your visual media and videos using alternative tags, or alternative text descriptions. They allow search engines to locate your page more easily, which is crucial, especially for those using text-only browsers.
These are just a few of many things that can be done to improve the SEO of your business. Getting back to the main topic, it is evident that there are still a lot of small businesses that do not have websites for different reasons, but mostly because it is believed that they require a high investment. In truth it can be built for very little money and if you are on a tight budget, you can even get them for free. Remember that you don’t need a gigantic website with thousands of pages, all you need is a simple site that informs people about your company and your products.
