Comments on: 11 Reasons Your SMB Still Needs A Web Site

By: Christopher J

Christopher J — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:06:13 +0000

One of my projects is to put together a business (and website!) to market my services as a web developer. So thanks, your points are certainly compelling, and helpful for me in trying to come up with convincing arguments to sell the services I intend to provide.

By: ted benson

ted benson — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:19:20 +0000

With all of the great editing tools available today, it’s hard to believe that anyone would use a cheap template…but of course they do. Some have to learn the hard way, i guess.

By: Melissa Andersen

Melissa Andersen — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:52:14 +0000

This is a great post. I am currently new with a company that had the company that comes from a “traditional business” standpoint. They have a website but have been terrified of letting me tweek it to be optimized for using it with social media (which they also have a lot of privacy concerns with).

By: Christine Morris

Christine Morris — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 20:09:00 +0000

These days, there really is no reason not to have a website for your smb. What’s almost as bad as not having a website is not keeping it updated. I think many believe it is too difficult to update or not as important. With technology today, it is very easy to keep your website updated either by your self or with the help of a dedicated virtual assistant.

I will be sure to share this important post with my clients!

By: Catherine Davis

Catherine Davis — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:01:12 +0000

This is a great post and really good conversation. I do think that many small businesses and brands don’t have the resources/expertise (more than dollars) within their current structures to do it all. There is a real need to prioritize and do a few things well. They need to find the right overall marketing mix on and offline to really build their businesses. I would argue that even larger businesses need to pick and choose the marketing channels that best support their objectives.

By: John Ashworth

John Ashworth — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:02:43 +0000

Great post Lisa,

Especially the comment about “what if any of these sites go away.” In everything I develop online, that truth is always living in the back of my head. What should I be making sure to do so that I am in control of my presence online.

I have multiple sites with multiple purposes, and at least for me, I use my social media stuff to point there, not as an exclusive solution for my online presence. That’s ridiculous.

John

By: rick gregory

rick gregory — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:19:00 +0000

I’m not sure about Blogger, but wordpress.com does have a domain mapping service that’s available for a small fee as do Posterous and Tumblr. The nice thing about doing this is that it removes the issues of hosting, making sure your site is up to date (if it’s based on a CMS like WordPress), etc. It’s not as flexible as a site that you can fully customize, but it does reduce the barrier to getting a site up and running.

The problem I’ve run into time and again is people who don’t maintain a site. The put it up there and, when it doesn’t magically transform their business, let it languish.

By: Michael Swartz

Michael Swartz — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:29:56 +0000

Don’t forget about the people (i.e. your customers) who will never join Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. I know many who haven’t or won’t join, but they use the internet quite frequently.

By: Heather Villa

Heather Villa — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:39:12 +0000

Not to mention that consumers/client/customers expect you to have a website. If you’re a small business and a customer asks for your website address and you say, “We don’t have an actual website, but we are on Twitter and Facebook,” check out the face of the customer. You just lost some credibility there.

Customers/clients understand, “We have a website, but we’re still working on it. Check it out and let us know how we can improve it.” But when you say you don’t even have one, I think they take you and your business a bit less seriously.

By: Julie Kosbab

Julie Kosbab — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:44:15 +0000

The rude side of me would like to suggest small time drug dealers as one such exception. I listened to a member of my staff explain to a criminal defense lawyer why his website came up so strongly for searches by people seeking out houses of prostitution in his locale, as well. (Reason: Brothels aren’t legal in his state, so they don’t exactly design sweet custom websites.)