Everyone gets the value of having a website to promote a business, right? Sure, but do they understand the full potential value and the importance of having a website that reflects the same high standard their business represents?
Surprisingly, not everyone does. There are still plenty of what we in the business call “first generation” websites out there, the kind that embarrass the sales staff when a prospective client wants to pull it up during a presentation. Many of these “you-gotta-be-kidding-this-is-yours?” websites belong to million dollar businesses or 100+ year-old companies who rely on their good name, or word of mouth. Or the owner of the company just isn’t “computer literate” and still uses a typewriter and the yellow page directory. Others let these pedestrian websites represent their company because they’ve been too busy to think about a new website. They haven’t made their website the priority it needs to be.
But slowly, over time, sales begin to drop, cultivating new business becomes more difficult, yellow page inquires dry up, old contacts retire, and new competitors move in. Doing business the old way doesn’t work any more. And featuring an old, tired website can lose credibility, and business, rather than win it.
That’s where a new website that communicates the benefits and values of a company comes in. Done right, it plays a powerful role for an organization 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An investment in a quality website with positioning and branding is a bargain deal for the return on investment you get compared to the costs of search engine pay-per-click search marketing, radio, television, newspaper, magazine or any kind of advertising.
If you’ve ever launched a new website and seen the immediate difference in response, you understand the value of a good website. For us, we redesign our own website to current standards every 3 or 4 years and are still amazed at the increase in leads as soon as the new site goes live.
One of our clients commented the other day on her new website:
“We didn’t know how often our customers were going to our website before because no one said anything. I guess the adage ‘don’t say anything if you don’t have something good to say’ applies. Now we hear all the time how great our website is. We just had no idea – now I’m embarrassed to think how long we went with that awful old website!”
So why wait?
