We are lucky enough to work with loads of great people at EngineRoom. One is Emma Wood, who runs Big WOW; a website about events and goings-on in the Weald of Kent. Emma has kindly provided another guest blog post, this time detailing the top reasons your businesss should be on-line.

6 reasons why your business should be on-line

The founder of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee was born in London, only a short journey from the Weald. In this article I have decided to focus on the importance of the internet and how essential a website is to any business, particularly in a rural region such as this.

The World Wide Web has transformed the way that businesses trade regardless of how remote they are. Whilst numerous businesses have risen to the challenge of harnessing the web, there is often apathy from some small and even large business owners to having a website and putting their business on-line. Here I would like to cover the main reasons why it is critical that it is.

1. People are searching for you and you aren’t there: Consumers use the internet to search for products and services, as well as find information to help find the products and services that they need. Your competitors are putting their goods in front of these consumers; so should you.
2. Digital marketing levels the playing field with larger competitors: With a mobile-responsive optimised website to send traffic to which shows off your products and services and gives the consumer what they need, you can compete. You don’t need to rely on customers walking past your shop or office door to make a sale.
3. On-line marketing is trackable: Smaller businesses, particularly rural ones, have smaller budgets that need to be managed a bit more tightly. With digital marketing you can start by investing small amounts and measuring the results from this. Essentially by utilising direct response messaging on your off-line advertising you can drive those consumers to dedicated landing pages on your website, enabling you to better monitor return on investment from print, radio, television and other media.
4. Optimising mid campaign is possible: Because digital marketing is trackable from day 1, it means you can measure which channel or message is getting you better sales conversions. You can adapt your messaging, change your promotions and alter your products along the way.
5. When you have a website you convert more business: People will search for a product or service, or the name of your business and go to your website. This is much easier for consumers in today’s world, where most searches are conducted via Smart phone, than going to a printed directory for example.
6. You can reach a global audience: With various advertising tools available it is easy to run a campaign in various locations across the globe. If your product or service is transportable you can increase your turnover and profits from international customers and not be reliant purely on visitors to your locality, or those residing in Cranbrook, Sissinghurst and the
   surrounding area.

And of course with local customers in mind it is also important to remember that according to Google stats

• 72% of consumers that do a local search visit a store within 5 miles
• Local searches lead 50% of mobile visitors to visit stores within a day
• 78% of mobile searches result in off-line purchases

So no matter what the size, nature or location of your enterprise in the Weald, I cannot emphasize enough how important is it that you harness the World Wide Web by having a website to promote your business.