The simple answer is yes.
Times are changing and the Internet is taking over the way people do their shopping. Online Shopping sites or E-Commerce sites have increased a lot in the past few years.
Even if you aren’t offering things to purchase on the Internet, people are looking for places to do business in their local areas every day.
It won’t be long until the Yellow Pages are obsolete as more and more consumers turn to the Internet to look for local businesses in their area.
But I don’t know how to put up a website
That’s fine. You don’t need to know how to put one up. You can hire someone to do it for you and you’ll probably have it up and running within a week. It doesn’t matter whether you know what type of content to put on it, where to get pictures or what to display.
A good website developer will go through your business to determine how your site should look and what should be on it to attract most customers. They deal with different businesses every day and know exactly what is needed and wanted in a local website.
I don’t know how to maintain it
Again, this is not a problem. Your website developer may be able to maintain it for you and if he can’t, there are many other companies that will. You can have a website that is running completely hands-off at your end. You can give input and feedback to change anything you don’t like on your site or offer ideas for future content.
This is what many local businesses in your area are doing right now. Most people don’t have enough time to run their own company and learn how to keep the website at the same time.
I can’t afford it
Really, you can’t afford not to have a website in today’s economy. If you’re serious about keeping your business afloat you will jump on the Internet bandwagon as fast as you can with both feet. In order to maintain a steady stream of customers you’re going to have to have a website up and doing well very shortly.
The future is heading that way and you simply can’t deny it any longer. A large part of your customer base will be coming from the net in the coming years and you need to do your part and embrace them with a website.
What is your view on local businesses having a website just for information (address, working hours, list of services, etc) sake ?