What is your website saying about you?
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The Joys of Summer
I hope you’ve been enjoying your summer this year. Even though we’ve had some rainy days, I’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors, at least whenever I can get away from all the other things I have to do each day. Our family is also making the most of barbecue season, and we’ve been enjoying many of our meals outdoors, especially in the evenings when it’s cooler. Lately, however, we’ve been chased indoors a few times by wasps hovering around the table.
I didn’t worry about it too much until early this week when I was shutting the garden gate and noticed a few wasps fly out. “I think they’re building a nest inside the gate,” one of my sons observed. “Maybe,” I said, but by the next day we all knew he was right. Little wisps of grey were beginning to show through the wooden slats of the gate. And the nest was growing fast, because by the following day it seemed to have doubled in size. We needed to act quickly. What to do? That’s when someone suggested I call an exterminator.
That shouldn’t be so hard to do, I thought, as I picked up the Yellow Pages phone book. Instead of finding one or two entries, as I had expected, I found four pages of exterminators. I had no idea how to pick one. They all offered similar services, but without phoning each one individually, there was no way to know which one was better. I needed to know more about the companies, so I turned to the Internet.
That narrowed it down quite a bit. Sure, the big companies had websites, but none of them had local offices, and I’d have to call a national number and talk to someone in another city, who would then call someone here, who would then … well, you get the idea. I wanted someone local.
Only three of the local companies seemed to have a website. The first one had that ‘homemade’ look and didn’t seem particularly professional. The second gave me a ‘not found’ error page. And the third had so little information about the company that it might as well have been a print ad. These websites did not inspire a lot of confidence. I did not call any of these companies. Still, by digging a little further on the Internet, I found a company that was able to manage the wasp problem quickly.
My point: The way that people search for a business is changing these days. We no longer rely only on traditional sources like phone books or newspapers or magazines. We most often use the Internet to find out more about a company before we decide to do business with them. Companies that are not on the Internet are missing out on a lot of potential customers. But even those companies that do have a website need to make sure they are giving visitors the right impression.
If you already have a website, do a quick check. What does your website say about you and your company? Does it appear professional? Or homemade? Does it inspire confidence? Or is it just bland? Does it highlight your expertise? Or is it just a generic ‘ad’? Does it help you stand out? Or is it just a ‘cookie cutter’ website like so many others?
Remember, it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. Your website has a job to do. Make sure you’re not missing out on business because you failed to see how potential customers see you.