It still amazes me that even in today’s advanced society there are still business that do not use the internet as a promotional, sales and networking tool. Is it down to being scared of the unknown or are there a few that are still yet to be convinced?

For me, the fact there is approx 250 million people surfing the internet world wide at any one time, is a sure indication that maybe it is doing something right. As for exploring the unknown, I appreciate that the internet can be a daunting place and for most creating a website isn’t an everyday occurrence. It is therefore important that you have a clear plan and direction for your website before anything is even started to be uploaded. The internet success lies solely down to the ability to supply and access a boundless quantity of information at a touch of a button – and with todays fast connection speeds the formats to which the information is being supplied are hugely inspiring. Music is played, videos downloaded and messages sent across the globe in milliseconds. We live in a society where when is now and where is anywhere. You have admission to the world, what you choose to display is up to you, but make certain it is engaging and innovative, or your audience will swiftly click to one of the other estimated 8 billion websites currently on the net.

Caught in the net
Websites make excellent promotional tools. Not only are they accessible to millions, but easily updatable, good for the environment and economical compared to other forms of marketing. Where a website differs from something like a brochure is that it can contain as much or as little information as required and enables you to capture the attention of your customers using sound and motion - alongside your inspiring words and stunning imagery of course. Even if you decide not have all the bells and whistles it is important to have an online presence.  More and more consumers use the internet simply as a point of reference, searching for basic things like opening hours or directions. Not having these essentials available to a potential customer could be passing your sales to someone else.

Shop shop shop
More and more business are using the net as a sales outlet for their products. To have a shop open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and accessible to the world is something that most find hard to decline, but struggle to know where to begin. Setting up an online store isn’t as scary as it once was, there are now many generic ecommerce systems available to website designers, which save a huge amount of time and money. With this in mind the initial set up can still be costly depending on what level of system you require. In most cases it is worth investing in a content management programme which allows you the client to easily amend and add products remotely, thus not having to employ a website designer each time – this will save you money in the long run.  If you are only going to sell a few products online with the content and products rarely changing, it will be far more economical to get your website design agency to make the relevant changes. 
As setting up an online store becomes easier, more and more business are taking advantage. It is therefore important to have a niche and to know your market, there is no point trying to compete against the Amazons or equivalent of this world, their pockets are always going to be far deeper.  Having a niche is valuable because it gives you a stronger standing within the marketplace and helps your search engine rankings enormously.  If someone searches on google for ‘saddles’ they are going to get far more options then if someone searched ‘dressage saddle’ for example.

Stuck in traffic
Having a fantastic website is one thing, but if you’re not getting the visitors and hits you require it might as well not even be online. There are many options available to drive traffic to your website, but the one that is mentioned often is search engine optimisation (SEO).  SEO is the process of improving the number of visitors to your site through organic (unpaid) search engine results. This is achieved by improving your ranking on certain search keywords, generally if your site is placed high the more visits it will get. Although there are numerous methods used to optimise websites for better rankings, the most effective and important still lies in how it is constructed.  If your website is built poorly, search engines like yahoo and google will struggle to scan its code and therefore will not categorise it for any search terms. It is vital that when a website is built every element is considered for optimisation, from what the pages are called down to the format of the buttons.  A website may look beautiful or have been cheap, but if it’s not built with the search engines in mind it will be invisible.