I don’t need a web presence. . . I’m in the phone book.

Why should your business have a web presence? Here are a few reasons. First being, How will people find your business?

Word of mouth is the best advertising, but that can take a long time to build, especially if you are a new business. Even established businesses need to continually grow their customer base because people move away, forget about you, and get lured away by competitors.

Phonebooks were the best place to be when people had a want or a need, but today more and more people are using internet searches as their phone book. Bill Gates said “Yellow Page usage among people, say, below 50, will drop to zero -- near zero -- over the next five years." , he said that May of 2007. An independent study for the Yellow Pages Association showed “age groups, 18-34, are using print Yellow Pages and internet Yellow Pages considerably less than search engines for finding local businesses.”

Whether you like it or not all businesses need a web presence to compete in today’s digital marketplace. People are now considering internet search engines like the old yellow pages, that’s where people go to find what they are looking for. Say, for example, you’re a hair salon and you search “hair salons downers grove”. Will you business show up? Where will you show up?

About 90% of people who search never go beyond the first page of search results, per some AOL leaked search data. And where you rank on the first page is important too. Google’s AdWords (a non-organic approach) can help you get quickly to the top/side of the page thru their pay per click program, something to consider.

I know it can seem overwhelming if you aren’t familiar with it, but in today’s marketplace you definitely need to consider starting or expanding a web presence for your business. There are companies that can create, maintain and optimize your website (remember to do your due diligence and ask for references) or you can take a stab at it yourself, just be prepared to do a lot of reading and research. Whichever way you go, make sure you make web presence part of your overall marketing program.

Best of Luck in your Ventures!!!