1. 14 reasons why you needThe point here is to have something on the web so you can be found by potential customers oreven partners etc; even if your website simply contains your contact detail with a brief descriptionyou can still generate leads and business.Below are a few more reasons why you need a website1. Build Customer RelationshipsA website is a great place to build customer relationships this can be done extremely effectivelyusing email. Once you have a consumers name and e-mail address they could be a customer forlife if they are treated well.2. Lead GenerationLets face it we all want to make money online, and the sole intention of many online organisationsis to make money, and turn visitors into customers into loyal customer who use their products orservices again and again.Creating a website, attracting visitors and funneling this traffic are a great lead generationtechnique. A local organisation I worked with on a website visitor conversion campaign found theyincreased lead generation by 800% by effectively utilizing the powers of creating an effectiveonline presence and marketing their website through a variety of channels.3. To compete against your competitorsWithout having an online presence could mean you are missing out on a lot of potential businessmeaning your competitors have a distinct advantage just by having an websit. Effectively leveragethe power of the internet and get ahead of competitors by learning by their mistakes and doingwhat they do better.4. To provide business informationA huge proportion of internet users use the internet to find local businesses or a product orservice in general. Using a website to do this, is a lot cheaper than directory inquiries and a hell ofa lot quicker than using a telephone book or directory.A website containing your business information is available 24 hours a day, this can be printedand can be bookmarked to return to later. Furthermore potential customers can contact you usingthe desired communication channel you display.5. Global Reach

2. Ok, a lot of people use the advantage of having a global reach to say things like you can sell yourproducts to people overseas and people like to buy the latest and best products, yes of courseyou can but you already know that. Having a global reach means that people from all over theworld can buy your products, however again it does not have to be a tangible product it could bean e-book or a series of videos.6. Open 24/7 365 days/yearYour shop is always open so to speak. Visitors can enter your shop any time of the day before9am and after 5pm because out of these hours are when people tend to surf the internet, aperfect reason why you should have an online presence such as a website.7. Cost Effective AdvertisingOffline advertising generally has an extremely low conversion rate. Leaflets and brochures can bequote costly and once these have been printed and distributed and more often that not thrownaway this communication channel is dead.However using a website as a communication will always be online; this cannot be thrown awayor discarded. Offline Marketing could be looked upon as a push marketing mechanism, howeverhaving a website uses a pull mechanism, and customers search for your services and find yourwebsite.Think of a website as a full colour interactive brochure which you can add to whenever you like.Reduce advertising costs by using just one effective call to action / message and promoting yourwebsite address e.g. learn more about this product on our website, for more information visitdomain-name.co.uk.And finally on this one alteration to your Official Website can be done quickly and free, this is acompletely different story with marketing literature such as posters or flyers.8. To Project a professional image not @gmail.comLots of very small business nowadays has some kind of website. Nothing looks moreunprofessional than when a company refers to one of their points of contact being your-name@hotmail.com or your-name@yahoo.com. This says too many consumers that the businesseither could not afford or was not bothered about investing in their company brand image, would itto be nicer to use a more user friendly and professional email such as support@your-domain.comor contact@your-domain.com, this gives the consumers the feeling they are dealing with asuccessful organisation and that their query or contact is being deal with a customer support /care team.9. Your website can make you money - sell your products and services 3. Firstly before I go into this one I would like to tell you two things, I recently attended a SearchEngine Optimization seminar in London and In one of the exhibition hall I engaged in aconversation with a middle aged woman from Scotland, after discussing the topic of the seminarwe were about to watch she revealed to me that she found her online success selling, get readyfor it, selling books on how to make straw hats, she uncovered that she was able to quite her fulltime job 3 years ago to peruse her online career selling books full time, but without the full time 95 or later house, she found she could happily sit back and work 1 2 hours per day checking emailand performing general maintenance on her website.I think this goes to show that you need to be a retail outlet selling top brand labels in clothing tobecome and entrepreneur online.A website can be a great tool in not only promoting your products but selling them to, your shopcannot be available 24 hours a day but your website can, and its probably worth mentioning againthat people do tend to surf the internet most when they return from work, so why not reinforceyour brand online as well as offline.Having a website is a great way of automating your business, whilst you are having an evening offor even sleeping you website can be generating brand awareness, generating leads but moreimportantly generating sales and revenue for your company.10. Word of mouth advertisingWith the growing online community and social networking going on nowadays it has never beeneasier to like minded people to communicated, but more importantly communicate your websiteaddress or even drop it into an email. Its very common nowadays that a website address could beposted up onto a website discussion forum by a happy customer and you could expect to receivehundreds even thousand of visitors to your website from that one forum post or conversationabout your company and the products and services you offer.11. Effectively reach new marketsAn overwhelming amount of people now have access to the internet whether it is through theirmobile phone, pc, laptop or game console. You really cannot afford to miss out on all thesepotential customers. It may be that someone didnt mean or intend to land on your website butpeople surf the internet in many different ways, more often than not people often refine theirsearches on search engine again and again until they get to the website they want, they maybegin searching for car wax and throughout their journey they may find that they done actuallywant car wax anymore what they want now is a car valeting service, this is common with websiteusers in that they do end up on a website looking at products or services they didnt intend to lookat in the first place.12. Test the market 4. Many organisations at some point would like to know how their target marketing are going to reactto their new product or service but are afraid of investing large amount of money into creating theproduct and then be disappointed by the lack of interest or enthusiasm for it. A great way to testthe market is to expose this new product or service on your website. A typical idea of this wouldbe if a training consultancy wished to offer a new training program, by adding a small paragraphon the homepage of your website detailing a brief introduction into the course followed by a clickhere for more information or contact us to register your interest, by tracking the number of clickthrough or page views or even email inquiries can tell you how your market has reacted to yournew offering, this can then determine whether the launch of this new product is feasible. You caneven go a step further and test your new found marketing on piloting product prices etc.13. Customer SupportProvide a support area or knowledge based for your customers. This can become a hub for allyour customers queries and questions, assistance on products, provide a variety of ways to becontacted, alternatively use a frequently asked questions to answer the most popular questions orqueries all of this can be done without using staff time, employing new resources or without evenanswering a phone.14. Advertising Seasonal Offers / Special OffersA website and having the right data capture in place is a great way to tunnel traffic into an emaillist. Effectively collecting customers email addresses gives you the power to contact them whenyou want to tell them something. You may have a seasonal offer that you wish to communicate,effective email marketing is a great way to build relationships, generate leads (by offering a freereport or discount voucher in exchange for their email address, and more importantly convertleads into customers through the use tailored email that meet the demands of your customers.Building up an intelligent database can have a massive impact on consumer retention and loyalty,knowing that Mrs Smith loves to buy books by a certain author gives you an opportunity to up selland cross sell other books by that author / similar authors and also attempt to sell items that otherpeople have purchased hence giving the consumer exactly what they want, when they want it astep on from this is to build an incentivised loyalty program e.g. buy this book and get anotherbook for half price, all of this is possible.Every one of your customers can be alerted about this special offer at the click of a button, andcompared to the cost of offline marketing this is extremely low cost with a higher conversion rateand an even higher return on investment.If your business is selling ice cream to kids at the local fair your customers are those booking youfor these events, not the kids buying the ice cream. A well designed website is one that caters toyour market and makes you easily accessible to them.No matter how small or traditional your business is, spending a bit of time setting up your website 5. will enhance your business.Let us at The Super Nerds help Create a Website that is right for you and your business.reasons to make a website