Investing in a Business Website

How important is it for your business to have a presence in cyberspace? Is a website a money pit or money maker? These questions have been heatedly debated by Fortune 500 companies and small business alike. While there is no definitive answer, surveys of corporate executives and entrepreneurs indicate that websites enhance the bottom line. Here are our top ten reasons to establish an online outpost:

Think of your website as a 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week branch office, always open for business to anyone with Internet access. Information you now distribute on paper or with telephone reps can be posted on your site, providing customers with all sorts of useful information: a searchable database of retailers who carry your products, maps and directions to your office, business hours, job postings, press releases, electronic instruction manuals, brochures and catalogs, answers to frequently asked questions and much more.

Are you in the brokerage business? How about electronic trading? Do you sell books? Encourage people to order online. Do your customers regularly call your office to have their questions answered? Let them e-mail you as well. You get the idea. The opportunities are only limited by your imagination and resourcefulness.

If you've been online for a while, you've undoubtedly heard about electronic communities, groups of people with common interests and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Think about creating a community around your product or service. If your company manufactures bicycle gear, initiate a group where your customers can discuss cycling; if your company provides financial services, consider an investment blog.

Remember when you had to wait in line at a bank to get cash. Thanks to ATMs, those days are over forever. Banks now make you do much of the work of inputting data; in return there's the convenience of around-the-clock banking. A website can help your business in much the same way. A textbook example is the FedEx website, where customers fill out shipping forms electronically and track packages. How did we ever live without it?

Your website can be a valuable source of data about your customers. By examining the traffic reports generated from your site, you can learn when they access the site, where they come from and which features they use.

You can actively solicit information by asking visitors to fill out online surveys. Many people are willing to do this, especially if you provide an incentive, such as an online coupon or discount on their next purchase. Be aware that people are often reluctant to give out personal information unless they know how it will be used, so be candid.