Even 10 years ago, offline business flourished and owners sincerely believed that spending money on a website was unnecessary and meaningless. Perhaps, they were right in some measure. However, in 2020, we can bravely say that any type of business must have a website! Before creating a website, you need to ask yourself: what is the specific goal of using website? Goals can be different: realization of a product or service, advertising a brand or product, promotion of a trade mark, raise of sales level. This determines what kind of website will be useful for your business, what should be its structure and content. After answering those questions, you can begin to implement website project. Why, for what and which website is better to develop for your business, we will describe in detail in this article. Here you’ll find answers to your questions.
Main Tasks That Website Can Solve
To make it clear, that a website is not a magic wand that solves all problems with one wave. Website will not start selling for you and attract customers only by its existence and competitors will not lay down their swords in front of your feet because you launched a website. With a probability of 97% they have it too. A website does not solve all tasks and it can become the main or additional way to attract customers. But it may not. There are many reasons: the very first, of course, a product or service that you sell, prices, and quality of a website.
We will present a perfect option: a product or service is competitive, and a website is of high quality and made by professionals. So, and in this case it will solve all of the following tasks.
Attraction of new customers
A website makes it possible to find you online by request. A web search engine collects queries of users with the name of your company. For example, a person saw something about your company. The first thing he/she will do is fill in a request to Google. And if there is a website, then this user will immediately go to it, and you can give all information he/she needs. It will work for you and this user will probably become your customer. Well, if there is no a website, it is impossible to find anything about you in a web search engine, in that case your competitors will be found there quickly and this customer will go to them.
After launching a website, you will have new advertising opportunities. Firstly, website promotion: contextual advertising, SEO promotion, etc. Secondly, many additional tools have appeared to attract customers: targeted advertising, email distribution, etc. It will become much easier to notify customers about promotions and discounts. And all results are easy to analyze, because you can see:
- statistics of visits;
- online shopping;
- quantity of orders.
For studying visitors, for better understand interests and preferences of potential customers on a website, you can do polls, questionnaires or contests.
I will tell you my recent experience and show you how website is good for attracting new customers. It is truly said that laziness is the mother of progress. We certainly forgot about telephone books and yellow pages that are gathering dust on shelves. People do not spend a lot of time for search of information – the Internet will answer all questions. It also happened to me. Favorite running shoes have fallen into disrepair. It was a pity to throw them away, but their color faded long ago. I typed in a web search engine “shoe chemical cleaning west end district” and followed the first link. The prices were not the most democratic, but they came to my house, took my running shoes, and then brought back them. It was minimal waste of time. And a week later, walking in these running shoes, after a couple of houses I saw an inconspicuous sign of chemical cleaning of shoes, where prices were lower and would have done faster. But they do not have a website, they do not spend money on advertising – people simply do not know about them.
It works with any sphere of business: from a bakery to a medical center.
Retention of customers and repeat sales
If you do not communicate with a customer, it will be more difficult to retain a customer. Online chats help answer questions from a user who does not like talking on a phone. Testimonials section will help people express their emotions about a purchase. Ability to comment on product pages.
Such functions give the necessary information about the customer: name, contact information, preferences. This will allow you to collect a customer base, handle objections, create a loyalty program, etc.
Distribution of information for customers
Sales times, price changes, product updates? How will a customer find out about this if there is no information? Calling everyone is a long time, but putting information on a website is quickly and accessibly.
Increasing brand or product loyalty and awareness
Earlier, to promote a brand it was necessary to turn to mass media for help: radio, newspapers, television. Today, the greater percentage of the population goes to the Internet, so advertising become more popular there. A high-quality website will help show a product or services in a favorable light and employees can correctly release from negative, because well-developed functionality of a website will give an additional opportunity to work with customers.
Optimization of processes
An online store a user can make purchases 24/7 without being bound to work of a manager. Maximally filled characteristics of goods or services, payment and delivery processes make it possible to buy without consultation, work with objections and complaints.
How to determine that website solve its tasks?
You can find out whether a website is beneficial or you have wasted time and money by the following signs:
- sales and profits are growing;
- quantity of potential customers is increasing – they have not bought anything yet, but have left their contact details.
If after creation of a website there were no changes for the better, then it did not cope with its tasks. It is necessary to solve this problem – to integrate website analytics, ensure website promotion and revise structure and content.
What Types Of Business Websites Are There?
Thanks to a website you can develop your business more conveniently and efficiently. But in order for it to be functional and structured, it needs to decide in advance what kind of a website is right for you. There are two main characteristics:
- technical, how it is made, on which platform;
- for its intended purpose, for what purpose a website is made.
Within those characteristics websites divided into subspecies. In this article, we will focus on classification of websites for their intended purpose and consider the most common. And in order to determine a purpose, you need to answer questions that will help you choose the desired type:
- What are the goals of your website?
- What problems do you want to solve with help of a website?
- Who are your main competitors online?
- What budget are you ready to spend for development?
- How much time is necessary to make a website?
Business Card Website
This type of a website is suitable for a small business, individual entrepreneurs that selling goods or services. It has only a few sections and a dozen of pages that contain all information for getting to know this business.
Content of website:
- information about company — when was established, line of business;
- goods and services — price list and characteristics;
- contacts — telephone, address, feedback;
- photo/video — gallery of goods, office, employees and etc.
A user must find information about your company and its line of business, how to contact with your company.
Landing Page
A one-page website has only one function. For example, to sell a specific product, carry out an action or present a new service. It can be useful for any type of business. The small one can use it as a business card website if there are few products or services. In this case, all the content is placed on one web page. The main task of a landing is to persuade a user to buy, come, register and etc.
Promo-website
The main goal of a promo-website is to promote a brand, company, product or service on the market. A website for an advertising campaign is being created and the relevant information is posted: actions, business event locations, news and more. It usually serves as a supplement to the main website.
Corporate Website
This is the official online “face of the company”. It contains all detailed information about your company and sphere of activity: documentation, certificates and diplomas. A product catalog can be submitted, as well as polls, customer testimonials, distributions etc. This category of websites is developed for big companies, holdings and production facilities.
Due to a volume of information, a website can contain hundreds of pages, many sections and have a complex structure: section for customers, investors, employees and others. Particular attention for a corporate website is to develop a correct design. It should correspond to the style of the company, contain elements of identity.
Catalog-website
A website that presents all products, detailed descriptions of each product and characteristics. It is a kind of corporate website. This type of website is created to acquaint potential customers with assortment. Such website is a great idea for both wholesale and retail. According to its description it is very similar to an internet store, but its main difference is absence of online payment and shopping cart. It may include stores where it is possible to buy a product.
Online Store
It is important and necessary website for a trading business. Online store is a platform with products where it is possible to find product characteristics, see price, buy, pay, order delivery and consult. When developing a website, you should pay special attention to working out a product page and ordering process and constantly improve them. There is an important difference from a corporate website is a shopping cart. When creating an online store, there are important points to consider:
- registration in trade registers,
- making it possible to make online payments,
- delivery of goods.
Comparative characteristics of types of websites
| Type of website | Goals | Tasks | Terms of development | Budget |
Business card website | Getting acquainted with a potential customer of your company | To tell about your company, show products/services | 14-21 | 1200-2300 |
Landing page | To sell product, service, get contacts of a customer, propose to sign up for a newsletter | To persuade a customer to buy product/service | 7-14 | 600-2400 |
Promo-website | To promote a brand, product/service | To retain a customer on a website, attract attention to product/service, persuade to make a purchase | 14-21 | 700 – 2500 |
Corporate website | To give information about your company, create your image, show product/services | Attracting customers, promotion of product/service, marketing, recruitment of employees and etc. | 60-90 | 3 000 – 8 000 |
Catalog-website | To acquaint a customer with product/service | Reduction of time for consultations, product display, increase in number of customers | 60-90 | 4 000 – 8 000 |
Internet store | To sell product, increase sales, retain a customer | To make convenient tool for selection and order of product/service | 90-120 | 5 000 – 10 000 |
What Business Doesn’t Need A Website?
So are there those who should not spend time and money on development, but just create a page in social networks?
- You don’t want to waste resources on a website. Development is just a beginning. It is necessary to fill in it and support the technical components, promote, analyze and improve. It is like a car – useful, but it does not drive or repair itself. It means that there will be no sense from it.
- Your product or service is not popular on the Internet (there are less and less of them). There are several business options when the Internet does not play a role. If you are a monopolist on the market, then you already have customers. When a company wants to stay in background and not become public.
Let me tell you one situation during a pandemic. One young entrepreneur had offline optics stores and one online store. Next to his store, there was a sales point selling children’s toys from the 90s: Tetris, Dandy and so on. Now it has become very popular again, but the owner refused outright to invest in his own online store, since he was a man of the old stock and he thought that there were sales anyway. But self-isolation began. People stopped going to stores and the owner of the toys store was ruined. Although, how much he could earn on the Internet when parents tied themselves up in knots thinking about how to entertain their children during quarantine. There is only one conclusion: A cheapskate pays twice. It’s up to you to decide, do you need a website or not and what resources should be spent on it.
Do you know the principle of project management triangle? It is directly related with development of a website, so let me remind you about it. The tops of the triangle – time, money, scope. They combine into a common goal – quality. When one element changes then other elements also change. Any changes you make in the project management triangle will always affect quality.