Having a website benefits

14 Aug 2022

Looking at some of the benefits of having a website.

When you are just entering the digital platform there are certain things you may need to consider. If you want to reach a larger market, then a website is definitely ideal. Now the question would be, what is a website? What are the benefits of having a one?

There are several ways we can define a website, here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website defines it as   a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. But in simple terms, we can define it as a virtual storefront of your business that people can access any given time.
Let us look at this definition with examples;
You have a physical shop that is centrally positioned. It is open everyday where people can come and shop your products and the services you offer anytime. Already this definition points out some benefits before we start explaining them

Do I need to have a website?

Now the question we are going to look at is, what are the benefits of having a website?
There are many benefits of having a website unlike having a physical shop that is digitally absent. In my previous post I pointed out that, “The 21st century business has now migrated to the digital world. Internet users takes up more than 60% of the world population and approximately 91.5% of internet users are mobile users that spend a minimum of 2.5-7hrs online.” The Covid-19 pandemic has taught many businesses a very difficult lesson especially those that were never present on the digital platform.
One of the benefits of having a website is that you reach the global market. In other words your shop will be open to the whole world unlike a physical shop where only people in your street know about it. This will help you grow your customer base as you will attract new customers that are interested in your products and services. Someone maybe be in Egypt and your business is in South Africa but they would like your products or services. They can only shop your products or services via your online store(website).

A website gives you some form of legitimacy and credibility. In this digital era most clients would expect a business to be online. Now another advantage of a website is Trust. Lets say you meet some one interested in your business today, the first question they may ask is, “I need to see what you do, what is the nature of your business”, this can be in a form of a business profile or your services. You are not going to write them a 15 page email or give them a 100 paged book full of the products you sell or services you do as this might deter them from doing business with you. This will also be time consuming to look at 100 pages with difficult navigations.
But if you give someone a business card with the links to your business profile, they would definitely give it a try. A website has simple and yet visible navigation links which can tell visitors where to go and where to find certain products or services in your store.

What does it take to have a website?

As explained here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website You need to register your name known as domain name, this can be your company name or any alternative that people can easily identify to your business. Just like any physical shop where you need to lay bricks and build your shop, a website takes the same process. You need to find contractors known as Web Developers to help build your store. Although they may be cheaper alternatives if you are familiar with computer design, it is always advisable to seek professional help.
Also just like paying levies for a physical shop, on the digital platform you pay what is called hosting which allows your store’s files(foundation) to be accessible to the world on a web server. To answer the question, depending on the type of business that you do, some websites may be costly and some may be cheaper. There are basically two types of websites: Static and Dynamic.
Static website are HTML websites with content that does not change hence the name “static”. These are often very cheap and affordable, but can be costly when you update your content regularly as this would require a web developer or experience in html to alter content.
Dynamic websites, these can be very expensive as they offer so many advantages, one which is to easily change content. Some of these websites take time to develop but ideally it is a good investment as you would not need experience or a web developer to update your content. Most of it is just drag and drop.

If you need help selecting a website for your business, ask our experts here info@trifold.co.za