Why You Cannot Not Afford a Small Business Website

Small businesses are up against some pretty large competitors and if you are amongst those who feel there is no budget for a website, it’s time to rethink your budget. It doesn’t need to cost a small fortune to get online and the benefits you can derive by doing so will more than pay for itself – if done right!

One thing you may want to consider in the very beginning is consulting with a pay monthly web development company such as http://thewebsitegroup.co.uk/ based in London. If you are looking for a true ‘one-stop-shop’ for all your web development and hosting needs, you might start there. At any rate, here’s why you can’t afford not to have a website for your small business.

You Only Have a Local Establishment – So What?

Did you know that most people now find new businesses to deal with online? Yes, local businesses are found more often online than through any other means and what is even more astounding is that they are most often found on mobile devices. That’s why Google put mobile friendly algorithms to work last year and wow, are they paying off! Since Google mandated that websites be made accessible on any device, no matter how small the screen, people can find you if you have a mobile-friendly (called responsive in the business) website developed for you.

Why Should You Care if Mobile Searchers Find You?

Here’s another titbit you might want to know. Most people searching for a local business are already mobile! Yes, that’s right. Telephone books are a thing of the past because no one stays at home long enough to browse through those dreaded yellow pages. Now you will find someone looking for a Christmas gift, for example, already on the train headed in your direction. They search on their mobile phone for something you sell, plug in the location and voila! Their search yielded your shop in the first position on the first page of the Google SERPs. That’s Search Engine Results Pages, in case you hadn’t heard. They get off the train a stop early, pick up the gift, and continue on their way with gift in hand. That’s just a far-fetched example, but you get the picture.

Time Is Money So Why Waste It?

Then there is the small business owner who says they have no time to build a website. That’s what web development companies are for and why you should seriously consider investing in one. Whilst there are those out there that charge thousands of pounds in setup fees, you can find monthly ‘pay-as-you-go’ web development companies that do everything from helping you choose a name for your site to designing your site to keeping it mobile and SEO friendly. The right web development team also hosts your site for the same price and over time, as you become more successful, you can add features to your baseline product you’ve started with.

A Parting Few Words of Wisdom

The long and the short of it is that you cannot NOT afford a professionally designed and developed website for your small business. If you want, you can even convert to an ecommerce site where customers can conveniently buy online instead of journeying to your shop in the cold of winter, the dead of night (when of course you aren’t open anyway!) or in the midst of those heat waves that have been cursing the country these past few years. Pay-as-you-go, pay-monthly websites are affordable and the revenue you begin generating almost immediately will more than pay for going online.