Have you got a website? If so, does anyone visit it?

Many businesses seem to operate their website on the old adage “build it and they will come” – unfortunately for those business owners, they will be wondering why they spent money developing a site because “no-one seems to know it’s there”.

Unlike a shopfront, which at least potentially has passing trade, there is no “passing trade” on the internet unless you create it! You need to market your website:

• Directly: advertising your website address in various places (other websites, online directories, printed materials, etc)
• Indirectly: improving your ranking in search engines (eg Google) so that when people search for a type of business your website comes up in the results

And the only way visitors are going to return to your website, is if the content is regularly updated. Provide new information, give updates, change images, and so on. Put yourself in the shoes of your potential visitors – why should they return to your website (or visit it in the first place)?

In short, if you’re going to have a website (and if you don’t, you should!), you need to be committed to the ongoing task of making your website known (whether that’s done by you or you pay someone else to do it). There is a great deal of potential business you can gain from your website, but you have to be serious about making it work.

In the words of Natalie Sequera, “If you have a web site, it makes your small business look big.”

Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender