To Be or Not to Be (online)

Many small businesses believe they don't need to be online. They feel it is complex and/or costly. Most of those who are online, don't realize enough real benefits. The fact is, more than ever businesess of any size need online presence. For example a one-employee company (maybe a consultant) might want to have their resume, past clients, expertise, and contact information on a website that is bookmarked by clients or prospects, in addition to being searchable when others are looking for someone with their background. A small local store might want to offer coupons, specials or other information that would connect them to the community. Furthermore, online presence is not expensive, time-consuming, or too difficult for a small business, and with a little planning and foresight it can effectively increase market penetration which often results in higher revenue.

Here are a few tips to get online, successfully.

1. Start with a website

There are quick and easy ways to get online and have a presence. Depending on the nature of your business, you could need a more interaction with your partners, clients, and prospective customers through your website, in that case you might want to consider getting professional help to create an original design that sets your company and business apart from the competition.

2. Get your own email address

As a business, your email address should not be from yahoo.com or comcast.net. Your emails should be originate from your own company domain address, for example John.Smith@HisOwnCompany.com. This goes a long way in establishing credibility with everyone you deal with.

3. Host your website based on your needs

You will need to host your website somewhere. There are many hosting companies but there are tradeoffs just like anything else in business. The primary factors include storage capacity (how much data you will have on the host), access speed (how fast the pages will load in the browsers), reliability (what percentage of the time the host is operational), flexibility, and cost. If your website is frequently unavailable and it could hurt your business, especially if your revenue is generated directly from your website (for example if you have an online store.) On the other hand if the site is merely a displays your name and email address, it might not worth an extra $1000 a month to go from 99.9 uptime to 99.999 uptime.

4. Update your contents

People are more inclined to visit your website often if the content is always fresh and changing. The more they come to your website the higher the likelihood of transacting with. Also search engines (like Google) seem to rank you higher if you have a lot of visitors. This means when someone is "searching" for you (using Google, for example) your website will be among the first few that is shown and therefore more likely for new prospective customers to visit your website.

5. Consider advertising

It is not inexpensive but it could pay off if you have the right products or services. There are some simple solutions to get started. pay-You can check out Google's Adwords as a starting point. It would charge you by clicks and/or impressions so in way a the cost is tied to benefits. You can also try direct email marketing.

6. Connect with your customers

Many small business use blogs and podcasts to broadcast contents to their existing and potential customers. You can influence them and they can see you as a subject matter expert when you share your knowledge, vision, and plans. You might feel you are giving away free information but the results often outweigh any perceived loss.

7. Collect data, analyze, and adjust

You can track how many visits your website gets, who they are, which page the start with, how much time they spend, which page they departure from, and many other useful facts. Such information can help you decide why people are attracted to your page and what they want, which in turn can help your maximize what you want to get out of your website.

8. Give customers what they want

It is important that the information on your website is easily discoverable, accessible, and usable. Pictures and diagrams are often better received than words. Also the main points should near the top or even in the title instead of several pages into the article.

9. Have a clear idea and implement it

There should be an objective behind everything on your website. If you are selling products online, help them easily find the product they are looking for, describe clearly (including pictures if applicable), and make the navigation to the order processing page seamless. On the other hand if the website is simply a "business card" put all the contact information on the first page in a clearly visible area such as the top 25% of the page.

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