Websites and their marketing value in a modern world

As a web developer, I work on websites almost every day of my life. I’m also constantly looking at websites and wondering how certain details are implemented and how I might go about implementing solutions for certain problems I see on some of those websites.

One thing that has amazed since I started working professionally as a web developer (coming up 7 years!) is the number of businesses that have a great product, or service, but their website simply does not reflect that at all. All too often I see websites that look like they’ve been done by some who has some how got their hands on MS Frontpage or Adobe Dreamweaver and just hammered out the auto-generated code. The design is almost non-existent and the navigation is a mess. This gets even more frustrating when I know these people, either personally or indirectly, because I know I could help provide a service for them that could potentially help boost their hit rate, which could convert to increased sales. And therein lies the dilemma.

I could offer to build a website, which would earn me some money and possibly raise their revenue as well. However, if they are a tight budgeted outfit, like so many small businesses tend to be, its hard to justify spending a couple thousand dollars on a website that might not even increase their revenue. The risk for me, is that I may appear to be grubbing for money, which couldn’t be further from the truth. This perception is increased if the website doesn’t perform as well has was hoped.

Here’s the rub. Most businesses will likely spend thousands of dollars a year on print marketing and possibly even radio and television spots. If they build a well thought out, well designed and well deployed website, with good SEO to help them target their market giving them a greater chance to be found by the major search engines, the few thousand dollars they might put into their website will put their website in front of a much greater audience than any print, radio or television advertising campaign could possibly reach and at a fraction of the cost.

With todays world being so dependent on the web and electronic communications, it seems to make sense that your businesses web presence is just as important, if not more so, than all the other advertising mediums available to you. Now, if only we could educate business owners of this…


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