Last week I was thinking about how many businesses don’t have a website. Depending on what report you look at anywhere from 44% to 51% of small businesses do not have a website. When I saw this statistic for the first time I could not believe it. As I called a list of local dental offices I quickly found out that most of them don’t have a website. Now I understand how this website may actually be true. I was shocked. It made me think I should write an article on why having a website is important for small businesses if they want to get new customers, or even just keep their existing ones. This articles summarizes all of the reasons that came to me as I wrote the article. I am sure there are more, but these are main reasons that stick out to me. In my opinion everyone should have a website because they are so inexpensive and yet so effective, hopefully my article will help you in determining if a website would be beneficial for your business.
93% Of Business Purchase Decisions Start With A Search Engine Search
In order to gain new customers you need to understand where your prospects go when they are looking to find suppliers, research suppliers and make a purchase. In today’s world the place where most people in most markets go is to the internet, specifically a search engine like Google, Yahoo, Bing. These search engines are the big three (in that order) and account for over 90% of all searches. Google is by far the biggest with about 6 of every 10 searches. To learn more about the market share each search engine has go to ComScore. With 93% of business decisions starting with a search engine search that means if you don’t have a website, you are only selling to 7% of your market. That is right, you are reducing the potential size of your business by 93%. I would suggest that the same statistic for consumer purchases is lower but still very high, especially for larger ticket items. The larger the item, the more research and shopping people will do. My guess is probably 40-50% of consumer purchases start with an online search.
