I’ve been a business owner for over 20 years. An early adapter to the Web, it is fascinating to me that we are still discussing if business needs a web site. Or a blog. Or even email.

Yes and Yes and Yes.

You need a web site, enhanced by your company voice (active content management, which can be easily created and maintained by using blog software), if:

• You want to reach a global or local audience. Even if you are the local deli, you’ll find non-locals discovering you. They’ll want to send a goody basket to their college student during exam cram week. Or have a bottle of wine delivered as a celebratory gift.
• Your target customer is online — and they are. They may still get information from other sources (magazines, trade shows, word of mouth), but they will check you out online anyway.
• You expect customers to find you. Few of us use the yellow pages anymore. It is more convenient to go online — and the information you can provide (times you are open, directions, maps, sale items, coupons) is vastly greater than in a print ad.

Your website does not stand alone. Integrate it into your business plan and your marketing plan. Be consistent in all your messages and your branding.

Consider an interactive web site. Make it easy for your customer to buy your product. With the amazing — and often free — array of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) content management tools, software and design elements, this is so easy to accomplish these days — with a polished professional look with reasonable investments of time and money.

Now that you’ve committed to an online part of your business, do schedule in regular maintenance, updates (here’s where that blog comes in), and expanding your reach by promoting your expertise to that whole Wide World out there on the Web.

Gayley Knight is a guest blogger for Great Minds Interactive, LLC. She is Founder/Principal of Business Her Way (a social media management company). Delighting in opening the technology world for your company, Gayley draws on her extensive network and personal business experience to simplify your online world. Showing you best social business practices and simple tech tools designed to increase your business visibility brings social media into perspective, saving you time and money. You can contact her directly at http://www.businessherway.net or via email at gayley@mothergeek.com.

Tags: Social Media Strategy

This entry was posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 12:00 AM by Wendy Troupe and is filed under Wendy Troupe's Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.