Think about it.  When you decide there is something you need to purchase, or want to buy, what is the first thing you do? You jump online and Google it. Whether you are looking for a new car, a treadmill, or a special supplement your friend told you all about, you don’t rush out to the store to find it.  You jump on the web and start surfing, looking around for the best deals, comparing pricing and features, and educating yourself so that you can make a smart buying decision.

It isn’t just you who does this. The bulk of the population now does this, and there are literally computers to be found in almost every place of business these days.  And the smart business owners have already realized this, and begun to sow the seeds of their own Internet presence.
Maybe they are starting off small, with a fan page on Facebook, or a profile on Ning.com.  Or maybe they’ve gone whole hog, and spent 10 grand on a spanking new website with all the bells and whistles. (Which you DON’T need by the way.)

The point is, that if you HAVEN’T started to sow those seeds yourself, you are losing out on potential customers and clients who WANT to do business with you, if only they could find you on the web.  They WANT your products or services, if only they could Google you, and have your website tell them exactly why you are the best choice for them to buy from.

That being said, don’t you think it’s time to graduate to the big leagues, put the Internet to work for you, and ask Google to dance?

To your success!

Ron Davies

A valid point definitely, but in this day and age, supremely out-dated. Think of your website as your technologically advanced business card. People today, local or otherwise want to do things on their own time, at their own pace. That includes learning about you and your company.

So what do they do when they first run across your company? Look up your website to see what you are all about. From there they decide if they are interested in pursuing things further and learning more about your products and services.

The decision to go online with an offline brick and mortar has really become a question of when, not if. It doesn’t matter whether you are targeting only local prospects or if you want to branch out and sell your products or services to the world, a properly set up, SEO’d website can only help you achieve even greater success.

BUT, amateur looking blogs on blogger.com do not cut it. You need a real website, self-hosted with your own domain name, that works as a lead funneling system to convert your visitors into paying customers and capture their information via a lead capture system, so that you can continue to market your products and services to them on an ongoing basis.

As we all know, it’s much easier to sell to a current customer than to constantly track down and convert new ones. So a website that is set up properly does the job of both… converting new prospects, and keeping old ones a satisfied customer who comes back often.

By the same turn, it is absolutely unnecessary to spend thousands of dollars on a fancy website, full of flash and graphics that ‘looks cool’. In fact, you’d be wasting your money because a flash website won’t do you any favors when it comes to Google, and SEO.

That is where so many offline business owners muck up and get burned. But I’ll save that for another day!

To your success!

Ron Davies