Websites are no longer just for giant corporations with a huge budget. Any business can have a website, and they all should. Think about your customer base as the potential for scaling your business. As a brick and mortar, or a business that serves customers walking in and out of their door, you are limited to foot traffic or your local community’s population. Do you remember what happened to local businesses when Covid hit? People stopped walking in and out of doors. There was a huge shift in how the world operated.

Now think about what would happen if you added an online audience, if you opened up the opportunity to not only serve your local community but everyone who uses your product or service on the internet. Now that is scale.

The Potential for Brick and Mortar Product-based Businesses

Local brick and mortar businesses that sell products depend solely on foot traffic. And to get good foot traffic they need to be in a great location, and lease rates of sought-after spaces are worth a pretty penny. And even at that, there is still a limited number of potential customers. Add seasonal ups and downs, sometimes people don’t want to get out in the cold, or their just too busy to stop in.

But, what if you had a nice, clean online shop where you sold your products all across the country. You can still have your brick and mortar shop, but your potential for income just skyrocketed because your customer base just exploded.

Picture this, a website that matches your shop’s brand, with inventory that syncs with the very products that sit on your shelves. It’s much easier than you might think. If you have something great, share it with the world. They’re looking for your products. I’m a huge small business advocate. That is why I do what I do. I fully understand the positive impacts local shops can have on the community. The better the local shops do, the better the community does.

Local Service-based Business Opportunities

There are still so many local service-based businesses operating solely on word-of-mouth for new customers. What if you were a local service-based business that didn’t have a website and someone new to town Google searches your service in the area and you didn’t pop up, because you don’t have a website. You just lost that potential customer. But what if you had a clean and simple website that displays the services you offer, photos of your office and staff, your contact information and location on Google Maps, and you were the top few that showed up? Your chances to snag that customer just went way up.

Businesses Running Solely on Social Media are at Risk

When you run your business solely on social media you’re operating on rented space. What happens when someone evicts you? It happens. I’ve heard so many stories of it happening over the years and thought, man that would suck, and it just happened to us. Yup. An 18-year-old account pulled right out from underneath us, and not a thing we could do about it. Thankfully we have a fully functioning website for that business that operates as our hub.

Now lets talk about algorithms. Social media isn’t what it was pre 2010 when everything you posted ran across your followers’ feeds. Ads came into play. Algorithms got stingy. The number of social media accounts went through the roof. Your competition to bee seen organically got tough.

Google and Facebook don’t have a great relationship. They’re competitors. When someone Google searches the product or service you offer websites are the first thing to show up, not social media profiles. If you don’t have a website, you don’t show up in search results, at least not high on the list.

Owning a Website is Easy

I’ll admit it, starting a website 20 years ago used to be tough. They used to be very difficult to build, and not just anyone could maintain them. I’ve been building websites since 2006, if you didn’t know how to custom code, you didn’t stand a chance. And it wasn’t fun.

Thanks to technology (as I’m writing this in the middle of nowhere) owning real estate on the world wide web is no big deal. If you want to learn more about web products and services I offer, head over here.

If you have any questions about running an online business give me a shout!