Currently there are around 60 million
domain names registered globally. Industry experts are predicting
that in the next ten years, more than 500 MILLION web sites
will be active annually. Any single area that experiences that
level of growth should cause you to sit up and take note.
Imagine owning an automated online business that earns you
money 24 hours a day - 7 days a week, without you even lifting
a finger. Set it up once, feed it occasionally and watch in
amazement as it grows. If you had a chance to stand if front
of 10 million people with something to sell, would it be worth
it? I think so.
How do you stand in front of 10 Million?
If you have a shop in your local center you may get exposure
to 100 - 200 people per day. If you are in a major center this
number could be higher, but you will have trouble exceeding
1000 visitors a day, would you agree?
With a web presence you can reach astounding numbers of people,
and it can be any time day or night.
So that is reason 1. and it is a big one!
Now I am happy to stop there, the argument is clear for me,
but lets continue with some other resons.
If you don't have a website, then you might not realise all
the great things they can do for you. Maybe you think there
wouldn't be any point, because your business is too small -
or maybe you don't even have a business! Perhaps you think
it'd be a lot of work for little reward. Or maybe you paid
big buck*s for a site back during the dot-com 'boom' days,
only to get nothing but trouble out of it and shut it down
a year later.
Whatever your situation is, though, you need a website, and
I'm here to tell you why.
2. People Will Look for You Online.
Sooner or later, someone's going to type your name into a
search engine. What do you want them to find? Nothing? These
are people who want to find you, and if you don't have a website
then you're letting them down - they expect you to be online.
For many people, you might as well not exist if you can't be
found with a search engine. Not having a website is like not
bothering to get listed in the phone book. Whether it's customers
or old school friends you're hoping for, very few people are
going to find you if you aren't online.
3. Websites Cost Next to Nothing.
Once, it cost a lot to run a website - but those days are
long gone. There are 'pay as you go' services out there now
charging as little as $1 per gigabyte of bandwidth. If you're
sensible about the size of your pages, that dollar could last
you a whole month, or even longer! If you don't want to pay
for design, it's never been simpler to do it yourself, or find
FRE*E software to do it for you. Really, it's never been cheaper
to have a website than it is today.
4. Websites are Great Advertising.
Whatever you're advertising - your services, your products,
or just yourself - a website is a great way to do it. Every
other kind of advertising going costs a premium, especially
if you want to target a specific kind of person, and there's
no guarante*e that they're paying attention. Websites are like
brochures that are FRE*E to reproduce, interactive, and quickly
distributed to people who are already looking for them. No
advertising medium even comes close to the ease-of-use and
effectiveness of a website.
5. A Website is a Worldwide Presence.
On the web, it doesn't matter whether someone is next door
to you or on the other side of the world - they can see your
website just the same as anyone else can, at no extra cost
to you or to them. Phone and post both cost enormous amounts
long-distance, but a website lets you send information anywhere
without any extra effort or expense. You can make friends and
contacts in places you've never been and will never go - suddenly,
working globally is no more effort than working locally.
6. Your Website Can Make You Money.
There's a lot of money on the web, and it's not hard to get
some - the longer you're online for, the bigger your share
can get. If you have something to sell, you can sell it worldwide,
thanks to credit cards. Doing business online eliminates almost
every overhead there is: all you need to do is have the goods.
If you've written something useful, you can put it out there
with a few ads. You won't get rich overnight, but you can set
up a steady trickle of income... and there's no limit to the
number of trickles you can set up.
7. Your Website Can Save You Time.
Giving out information takes time, whether it's on the phone,
or in brochures, or even if it's just emailing your family.
Websites are designed to save you time. All your family and
friends can read your online diary (known as a weblog), but
you only had to write it once. Customers can see your whole
product catalogue without ever needing to talk to you or visit
you. This is the power of the web: things on it are written
only once, but can be downloaded endlessly - a good website
runs itself, and keeps being useful to people for much longer
than you'd expect.
