Do you really need a website? Consider a few ideas before you provide the knee-jerk, “Yes!” First, there are only three reasons to have a business website: To sell something, to provide a source of reference for current and future customers, and to satisfy your ego. Only the first two have the potential to generate income. There are five factors we need to examine before building a website.

SELLING ON THE WEB
Here are the basic factors:

1. If you intend to sell something, you need to show a pictorial representation of the product or service. This means a slow response or multiple pages.
2. You will have to price your offering as low as others on the web selling the same or nearly the same product or service, and at the same time, differentiate your offering from all the rest.
3. You will be required to provide almost instant shipping or delivery, which may mean handing this task off to a fulfillment house.
4. You will need the personal credit to handle credit card purchases with immediate verification.
5. You will have to have a method of answering potential customer questions without delay.
6. If you want the person to return to your site, you need to offer a wide range of products or provide a reference source that is valuable to the buyer.
   AN IMPORTANT NOTE!
   A note: If you intend to provide a source of information only, why would anyone want to visit your site more than once unless you update the information on a regular basis, and why would you want to perform this costly service unless you also sell something? The answer? Present this material only if your offer provides both present and future regular customers with information they can use in their business.

MONEY
The second major decision factor is money. Let’s talk about a beginning website for your small business. You can own a domain of your very own for $35 a year, house it on an Internet Service Provider (ISP) for somewhere between $50 and $100 a month (depending on the size and complexity of the website you end up with), pay anywhere from $100 to $1000 for the actual generation of the initial site, pay someone between $100 and $2000 a month to keep it up to date, and then pay and pay and pay to advertise the site. Of course you can maintain your own website, but that’s like being your own surgeon . . . not advisable.

ADVERTISING YOUR WEBSITE NAME
The third factor is exposure. I can’t visit your website if I don’t know it exists, so you will need to advertise both on and off the web. A website name such as ‘joesimonornamentaliron.com will never make it. A website name should be simple and easy to spell and remember. You can use your name (tulenko.com for example), your trade (ironwork.com) or something catchy (groovy.com for a music firm).

Make sure your website builder provides the internal structure for search engines to use in locating your site (a relatively easy task). A more complicated and more expensive task is the absolutely necessary quarterly re-submission of your website to the top 20 search engines. If you don’t do this, your site will drop off the web except for the occasional time when someone types in your actual domain name.

LOCAL ADVERTISING
A fourth factor is local advertising. Consider this approach if most of your business is done locally. Most services and some product sales fall into this area. To make the most of your website locally, you need to be on the various local websearch firm’s sites. For example: look into advertising on websites for your Chamber of Commerce, tv, radio, newspaper, and local periodical sites. Check out and advertise on any site that provides information such as movies, restaurants, and other entertainment activities.

NON-WEB ADVERTISING
The fifth factor is non-web advertising. You absolutely must advertise the fact that you have a meaningful website through the regular advertising channels: newspapers and magazines, tv, radio, billboards, catalogs, and word-of-mouth. Don’t forget your business cards, stationery, brochures, and other materials. List all the ways a person can find you. If you’re in business, you already know how to use these to promote your business, you just have to change your attack to promote your website as well. A disturbing note: If you offer your services on the web at less than what you offer through standard advertising channels, your regular customers will expect the web price, so be ready!

DECISION TIME
Does all this mean you shouldn’t have a website? No, but it does mean you should thoroughly study the above factors (and others) before you jump into the web. A working website is expensive to own and maintain, and unless there are very positive and quantifiable reasons to go ahead, you may wish to take a ‘pass’ for the present. At the same time, don’t get complacent. Too much inaction and you could find yourself closing your doors long before you’re ready to retire!