Websites for businesses are more than just another way for selling products. A website is a 24 hour information hub about your business.
In the past people would search the phone book to find your business, and if you had paid extra, additional information about your business like your address and hours of operation might be available. More and more people are choosing the internet to find information about local businesses. If you do not have a website then the information found about your business is not in your control. If the information is incorrect and/or incomplete you won’t be able to update it. Having a website for your customers is a curteousy, providing at least basic information about your business.
In addition to basic information your website is a place to expand on information about your industry. If people are interested in more information they should be able to find it on your website, but if they have further questions your website can have a form to fill out and submit electronically so that you can get back to them when your business is open.
Local businesses should have a website so that locals and tourists can easily find the address, phone number, map or directions, information about your business, information about your products and services, and pictures or even video.
Without a website people will end up finding information from a competitor’s website, and you may lose potential customers, or at the very least you’ll frustrate your current dedicated customers.
You need a website if your business is located in Napa. The tourist industry in Napa is expanding. Visitors search the web before they visit the area so that they can plan out their trip ahead of time. Now with the rise of mobile phones ability to access the web, more tourists are looking to the web while they are on vacation. Tourists are certainly drawn to vacation related businesses, but may need other products or services when they are away from home. Any business could capitalize on visitors to the Napa Valley, as well as the locals.
Consider all the benefits of having a website, and contact us today.
What you include on your website is partially dependant on your business, and what you would like to achieve. However, there are some things that every website should have. Here is a list of some items that you should consider including on your site. You should also prepare these items so that your web developer can incorporate them into the design of your site.
Logo and name of business
A catch phrase to describe your business
Address and phone number
An interactive map
Hours of operation
Pictures of your office
A mission statement or paragraph description of your business
Information about your staff (training/credentials/associations)
Frequently asked questions and answers
Forms that need to be filled out by clients
Office policies
Billing policies
All product descriptions with images
All service descriptions with images
Links to helpful related websites
A way to contact you through the website.
Deconstructing the differences between static and dynamic websites.
Many websites are static, meaning that they always stay the same. The information doesn’t change. People looking for this information expect to find it, but once they have what they were looking for there is no need to further explore the website, because it is always the same.
A dynamic site is one that is constantly changing, being updated with fresh content. This draws more people looking for information to your site and makes people who have visited your site in the past want to return to your site and visit regularly to get the latest content. Search engines also like dynamic sites better than static ones and rank dynamic sites better.
A site featuring information about the Napa Valley.
Posted On: January 9, 2010
First Christian School is located in Napa, this site is for their annual fund-raising auction.
