Does your Cape Town small business really need a website

Does your Cape Town small business really need a website

This article is specific to the people of Cape Town, but anyone can apply the knowledge who runs a small business.

So you run a small business in Cape Town and you wonder if you should get a website or not. Internet is south Africa is becoming more available and cost effective. There are a lot of potential customers in Cape Town surfing the net daily. There are a few factors to consider before making the choice to have a website and this article will list some of them here.

Cost

It is true that today you can get a website and domain name for relatively cheap. There are lots of Cape Town and South African businesses that offer a website very cost effectively. But that should not be the only consideration when considering cost. Will someone have to be paid for their time to maintain the site? And will that be money worth spending? In addition, the site needs to be submitted to search engines, directories, and other potential link partners. All these take time, and some although you can pay someone to do it for you, that part of website maintenance is expensive. Unless the site is an integral part of your business plan, this may be a lot of extra cost.

Time

Submitting a website to search engines and directories takes time. A lot more time than most people realise. And just because you have a website does not necessarily mean you need search engine optimisation (SEO). That is more applicable to those who run a website as a primary business. Most small business in Cape Town would consider having a website to give information to potential customers or business partners or be more contactable. However, the time and money spent getting and maintaining a website may not be money wisely spent and the pros and cons need to be considered carefully first.

There are alternative and cheaper ways to get your business advertised on the internet with less effort. Some of these methods may even be more effective than having you own website. Here are some ideas.

Open a Facebook page for your business and let your customers and partners know about it. Link to other pages related to Cape Town businesses. Here your customers that use facebook can post messages to you, you can respond to them and let them know about any news and changes or special offers of your business. Most people are on facebook and this is a great way to build relationships with your customers.

Advertise on speciality sites that are custom made for you to advertise. A great example is this site Around Cape Town. The site is tailor made for businesses of Cape Town to advertise their services and products. The webmaster makes sure the site ranks high in search engines and popularise the site. People needing a service search the site and if the search term is related to your business you listed, you will be part of the results. For a small fee the site even allows you to have a description to potential customers about your services or products that you can edit as you please when logging in. The great thing about listing on a site like this is the fact that you zoom in to customers in your area and who need the exact service or products your business offer. So you are not competing with the whole wide web, but only with businesses in your area. There are even free listing available, but without the description.

Getting your business advertised on the net can be cheap and with minimum effort.

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