Benjamin Dyer is the CEO of Powered Now. Powered Now aims to take the pain out of admin and paperwork for trade businesses like gas engineers, electricians, builders, and many more.
www.powerednow.com
IT
Is a website worth it?
THE days of looking things up in The Yellow Pages or buying the Encyclopaedia Britannica have long passed. Nowadays we all go to the web.
That is, of course, when we don’t already have a favourite tradesman, or one recommended by a friend. Then we turn straight to them.
And that’s why it’s not clear if it’s worth having your own website when you run a trade business.
People search online
A while ago my company, Powered Now, surveyed more than 1,000 homeowners about how they used trade companies. One of the questions asked was how they found them. Not surprisingly, more than 70% used companies they either already knew or that had been recommended by a friend.
Interestingly, around 18% simply searched on Google. This means that, if recommendation is the only way you get business, you are missing out on quite a bit of potential other work.
The arguments in favour
A website has two objectives. The fi rst is to try to capture some of those searches. The second is to let people know what you do and how well you do it.
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If you are an established business your details will almost certainly be online already. Try searching. The problem is there’s likely to just be some short text with nothing to promote you. Also, someone else is deciding what is said about you.
With your own site, you can make sure that your contact details are always up to date. You can provide testimonials from customers and pictures of you and your team. You can highlight your experience and qualifi cations. When someone searches specifi cally for you, they should fi nd your site. There they will see your details, without all of your competitors listed as well. The sort of information you can provide includes:
● how to contact you; ● the geography of where you operate;
● whether you will do emergency call outs or not; and
● what services you provide and don’t provide. If you provide any kind of specialist service, it is vital to cover it. Prospects can be put off if they are not certain what you do and where you operate.
The cost versus benefi t of a website
The problem with your own website is that it takes hassle and money.
And this isn’t just a one-off cost when you start it up; there’s an ongoing element too.
The cost side consists of enlisting a professional to build the site. The hassle is the time it takes to gather the text and pictures. Then there is the work to keep it up-to-date and, as well as that, provide a continuing online presence which can typically come to around £100 per annum. There are services, such as Wix, that let you do it all yourself although the results will rarely be as good.
In contrast, there are several benefi ts:
● Prospects increasingly expect to see a website, especially other businesses that are considering using you.
● You control what is said about your business.
● You ought to get some leads for new jobs. Matthew Stevenson, of The Landscape Company, says: “We get a lot of our business through our website”.
Please make a decision
The internet has radically changed our world. It may be right to decide not to have your own website, but you need to make this a defi nite choice. A one or two page site can be much better than nothing and fairly economical too.
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