I recently read an article that said 62% of small businesses do not have a website, which astounded me. But there’s a big upside in that statistic.
You might think I’m talking about the upside for me, owner of a web development company, but I’m talking about the upside for you, the small business owner. Whether yours is one the businesses that already has a website or not, that statistic represents a “sweet” opportunity you can take advantage of.
First, you need to understand that more than 70% of consumers have adopted the web as a place for finding information before they buy (and sometimes as a means of purchase: e.g., Amazon). A great deal of that information gathering results in a local purchase from a local business found online. In support of this trend, Google has made recent changes that enable people to find local providers of goods and services more easily. If you want customers, you want to be where 70% of them are looking (radio ads, newspaper ads, and even Yellow Pages ads do not draw that percentage).
Second, of the 38% of small businesses that do have a website, fewer than one-fourth have websites that are effective in terms of drawing search traffic or giving web visitors reasons to become customers. This is for a variety of reasons, but from observation, I believe it’s mostly because typical small business websites are static, non-interactive, and haven’t been updated since the day they were launched. We call those set-it-and-forget-it websites. A few years ago, they were of some value, if for no other reason than to show your prospects that you were “with it.” But things have changed and that’s no longer enough.
That means fewer than 10% of small business websites are of any value whatsoever in attracting new customers. Which means that, if you create an “effective” web presence, you’re in better position to take advantage of search traffic than 90% of your competitors, and that opportunity is open to you if you already have a website that isn’t effective, or if you’re one of the 62% that doesn’t have a website at all.
The thing about the web is, it’s a constantly changing environment. What worked 5 years ago is hopelessly outdated. What works today will be outdated 5 years from now. That might seem discouraging, but only if you decide to let it discourage you. There are some things to learn in order to use the web effectively as a marketing tool, but as my wrestling coach used to say, “It ain’t rocket surgery.” Once you get into it, you will find it all within your capabilities, and you’ll be able to keep up as things evolve.
Let your competitors keep their assumptions that it’s too hard (not knowing makes everything seem hard), or too expensive (certainly not compared to that Yellow Pages ad!), or ineffective (and it is ineffective, if your website is the set-it-and-forget-it variety). As long as they think that way, your opportunity is intact (and as long as you think that way, so is theirs). But as a business person, I’m sure you know some action is required to turn opportunity into reality. (Our phone number, BTW, is on our website and blog contact pages. I’m just sayin’…)
