Do You Need a Website?

And the questions you must ask to get the answer

You may have asked yourself this very question. Even if you already have one, the question may still arise. Never the less, it is a legitimate query. For most the answer is simple. Of course you need a website. Your customers, whether they are current or new, will expect that you have a web presence. A website is the number one method people use to get information about your business. When someone wants to get your hours of operation or your address, she is not going to check Twitter. Probably not going to check Facebook out either. Chances are, she is going to head over to Google and search for your business (provided they know about you)  or search for your type of business.
So before we get a true answer to the question, we need to look at a few things and answer a couple of questions.

1. What kind of business are you? Brick and Mortar? Online?
2. What are your near term goals?

Let’s look at question #1

What kind of business are you? If you are a brick and mortar establishment, you are going to approach your online strategy differently than you will if you are an online company. Likewise, you are going to look at it entirely different if you are a service oriented business.

Let’s look at question #2

Next, you need to take a serious look at what you want to accomplish. Not just with a website, but what you want to do with your business. Do you want to extend you reach into another city? Do you want to touch a younger clientele? You must do this before you attempt to benefit from a website or even using social media. But that is a topic of another post. Once you understand your goals, you can develop your requirements and then and only then can you design a valuable web presence. If you have a website that isn’t doing what you want it to, I’m willing to bet that you do not have good requirements. Skipping this critically important step, has been the downfall of many an IT project. In fact, lack of accurate requirements is the #1 cause of failure. It is obscene how many of our tax dollars have been squandered over this shortcoming.
Now that you have looked at your business type and your goals and requirements, you should have a pretty good idea if a website can her your bottom line.
Now all of this being said, there are still a few good reasons that most all businesses should have a website. You should at the very least have a page that describes your business and a way for customers to contact you. You can always start simple and expand as you grow.
So I hope that I have answered the question of “Do you need a website?” I also hope that you will now dig a little deeper into the details before you decide to start your next web project.