If your business isn’t online yet, you’re missing out on huge opportunities. The digital world is where your customers are, and having an online presence isn’t just a luxury, it’s a now a necessity. People simply expect your business to be online.
Prior to 2020 so many businesses like shops, face to face services, and restaurants, would not have considered getting their business online as their top priority. If you were in a physical location, like a city centre or a busy high street, you wre probably relying on the regular footfall. If you needed to advertise something like an event or a price drop, then popping a poster in window would probably have been your go to way of alerting and attracting customers.
Since 2020, buying patterns have changed and so have customer expectations. During lockdowns more and more people embraced searching for and booking and buying online. For some it wasn’t by choice, there just wasn’t any other option.
These buying patterns have not only continued, but yhey have grown. It’s an expectation now that you will find what you want online.
Buyers have got used to the ‘Amazon factor’ – they expect to be able to order, book, purchase online.
. Here are five key reasons why your business needs to be online.
1. People expect to find your business online
Now people expect to be able to find a business online. They turn to Google before making a purchase or choosing a service. If your business isn’t online, potential customers may never find you.
Buying patternes have changed with time-poor people increasing using the Internet tio buy and book online. If you aren;t there, then you are missing out on that business.
A website, social media, and business listings ensure that when someone searches for what you offer, you show up.
2. Builds credibility
Being online in a professional ways certianly makes you more creidble to today’s online customers. It goes back to the first point, in that people expect to find a business online and if they can’t then they seem less credible. People will ‘do the Google’ and if they can’t see you, are you even a legitimate business?
It’s true that a strong online presence makes your business look legitimate and professional.
A well-designed website, positive reviews, and active social media accounts help build trust with potential customers. In today’s world, if you’re not online, people may question if your business is real or reliable.
3. Builds trust
A strong online presence is the starting point that builds credibility, but that can then lead to trust.
Knowing that the business in online can start the triuc process and what builds that is online reviews. These can be directlt on you website, as customer revierws for products that you’ve sold or on online review sites.
The independant review sites can build even more trust for your customers. Seeing how your business is independantly reviewed can boost that trust, Using Google Reviews, Trust Pilot, or TripAdvisor, or whichever matches your business sector, lines up all those happy customers for potential customer to see. And if you get the odd bad review, then make sure you respond to it because everyone expects the odd not so glowing review for a business, but it adds so much more if you can see how a business deals with it.
You should make asking for cusotmer reviews part of your sales process and make it as simple as possible for customers to just click and leave a review.
3. Available 24/7
Unlike a physical shop, your online presence never closes. Your customers can be buying, booking or brwsing while you sleep!
A website allows customers to learn about your business, browse products, and contact you at any time. This means you can attract customers from different time zones, expanding your reach beyond just local customers.
Websites can provide a true self-service where your visitors can research more about your products or services. They can read reviews and compare you to other businesses. And ultimately they can buy or book directly from your website. Without you having to lift a finger.
4. Helps customer engagement
HAving an online business can really help with customer engagement and that in turn can help you to understand your customers more.
Interactive features like live chat ans contact forms can encourage customers to engage by asking questions, leaving comments or reviews or asking for more information. Having blogs and FAQs can allow customer to self-serve to soem degree and get answer to most frequently asked questions. These can help to give valuable insights into what is important to your customers.
Having a website can also allow you to provide a personalised experience, such as customer accounts, recommendations or tailored content based on previous perchases or habits. Shopping sites are getting so good at this now – if you buy a product they will recommend similar types of products, or even send tyou reminders when they think you need to repa[eat purchase. Big buisnesses like Amazon are so good at this, but now you don;t have to have a big budget to provide a customised experices.
And don’t forget email signups or loyalty programmes. These are really good at fostering customer loyalty if you can offer interesting and vaulable content with newsletters, discounts, and exclusive offers, keeping them engaged and returning for more.
5. Compete with bigger businesses
The internet levels the playing field. A small business with a great online presence can compete with larger companies by reaching the right audience using the right digital strategies.
Digital marketing can be very cost effective with social media and optimising website content for SEO, which can allow small businesses to reach a broad audience without the massive budgets big companies have for traditional advertising.
Online advertising can allow small businesses to use Meta Ads and Google Ads to target specific customers based on interests, location, and behavior which ensures their message reaches the right audience.
With strong SEO strategies, a small business can rank high on Google, making it easier for customers to find them over larger competitors.
So with a mix of good SEO, organic social media marketing, and online advertising, you can attract customers who may have otherwise gone to a competitor.
How to customers sue the internet to find businesses?
Well, if people are looking for a hairdressers, they aren’t going to wander into the nearest town and just walk up and down the street looking for one they like the look of. People are more time-poor than ever before. They will:
- Search online – they will Google ‘hairdressers in my town’. Some might use devices like Alexa and ask the question, which in turn will search Bing. Then a list of hairdressers will pop up. Now if you aren’t online, your competitors will pop up and you won’t even be in there with a chance.
- Check reviews – if there are 4 local hairdresses in town that sound good, then the next step is to see what other people think about them. These will be Google reviews, Trustpilot or reviews on social media. Reviews and tesimonials are very poweful in making a buying decision and around 90% of people will read reviews before making a purchase decisison. In the online world, it’s the equivalent of asking your mates what they think.
- Want to book – now what can be easier than clicking the Book Now button and seeing a list of available dates and times? It’s certainly easier than jotting down the phone number, ringing it, finding it’s engaged and then ringing agan.
If you don’t have a presence online then you are missing out on customers. It’s not jjust local customers it’s also visiting customers. Location based searching is common place now. If you are on holiday and are looking for a bakery and you don’t appear in their mobile, local search, then you won’t get that business.
So, where do you start?
There are lots of free and easy routes just to get online. One of the simplest ways is to set up some social media – and that can be a Facebook Page, Instagram, Twitter or TikTok, whichever is right for your niche. They are free to set up and use but it’s best to use the social media that your potential customers are using. Have a read through Which Social Media Is Right For Your Business to check where your customers are likely to hang out.
If you are confused by all the lingo used when trying to think about getting online, then I have a FREE Digital lingo buster guide called From CSS to SEO. in my Freebies section. You can download a free copy and start to get to grips with your SEO, DNS and ROI like a pro!
Getting a website for your business is even better than just haveing some social media. It doesn;t have to be some big old budget-busting website either! You can build your own website and I have a blog Can you DIY your website or if you want to get something more professional then look at maybe a single page website build by w web designer> These are pretty popular with my start-up clients, becuase you get that SEO friendly website up there, quick and easily, but it can be expanded as your business grows. Check out my Website Portfolio to see what can be acheived.
I also have a free support Facebook group called GET DIGITAL where you can ask questions and engage with other female business owners. It’s a safe place and no question is too daft!