Why on earth would you want a website? - Video Blog Script

Colin Harris asks "Why on earth would you want a website?"  With the perceived hassle and cost, why does anyone bother?

• I’ve been reading a great book by bestselling Sales author Jeffrey Gitomer on The Law of Sales and he comes up with an excellent case study
• In it he says that a guy walks into a hardware shop as says he needs a drill.  Shop assistant says no he doesn’t, he needs to make a hole.
• The world of the web is no different.  Unless you are some sort of techno-geek, no one has a website just for the sake of having a website.  Or do they?
• There are three main reasons to have a website
  • 1) To sell something – for example auctions or E-Commerce
  • 2) To offer a service through your website – Facebook, Twitter, Directory sites
  • 3) To market your business to new and existing customers
• Now I’d imagine that everyone would think that their website does at least point 3 – market their business – but does it?
• If your site looks exactly the same as your adverts and reproduces the content of your brochures, how is that utilising the power of the web?
• If your site has no clear message of what you do to benefit your customers, what’s the point?
• If your site has no objectives – amount of business you’d like to receive, number of website visitors, time you’d like to save from answering customer enquiries, what’s the point?
• If you publish your site and never change it for months or even years, when everyone around you is adding news, features, offers and services on a regular basis, what’s the point?
• If you ignore what your competition is doing online and do not follow the trends in your industry, what’s the point?
• A website “to market” is only worth it if it actual delivers – sales and enquiries in most cases
• Have a think about your website – does it deliver, does it work, does it return for you the investment you have made plus a profit? 
• If it doesn’t, then ask yourself why not?  Did you put effort and objective planning into your website? 
• Or did you just give Yellow Pages an extra £50 a month to do it for you and assumed job done?  And why on earth would you do that?

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