It always fascinates me when I realise the amount of businesses that operate without a website. For someone that spends so much time online, I would never even consider a business whether it be a hairdresser, clothing shop or plumber that did not have a website containing their business details and products or services readily available for me to view.

Some businesses rely solely on their website to educate, inform and sell their products or services. This is not the case for many service industries such as printers, builders and electricians, who rely solely on word of mouth, directory listings and perhaps the odd walk by or letterbox drop.

When I am searching for a service company I will generally use a directory such as Yellow Pages to produce my short list of candidates. From this list I will then investigate each business further by checking their website. If I have a list of 5 viable businesses and only 3 have websites, then the other 2 are quickly discounted, because for me, and many other regular internet users, a website provides further validation of business credibility.

Not all websites need to be masterpieces! But they do need to be presented well, provide the user with the information they need and provide clear and concise contact information for the user. For small businesses a basic website that consists of a couple of pages is enough to provide potential customers with all the information they need about your company. As an added benefit, a website will allow new customers to find you outside of normal business hours and gives them an opportunity to contact you immediately.

Websites can be indexed by popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo, if your website is rich in content and has a good use of keywords that potential customer might use to find your business, then you are well on the way to getting noticed by the large majority of internet users that use these search engines to search for products and services.

The process of setting up a website does not need to be difficult, and for most, I feel this is often the barrier that stops them from having one. Web Content Management Systems or CMS allow businesses to easily set up a website and maintain it, without having any web developer or web design experience. These systems are generally designed to be used by people that have basic word processing and formatting skills but can contain a great range of features. They generally come with a range of predefined templates and allow users to customise them with product colours, logos and imagery.

There are a host of options available to the small to medium business owner looking to establish a business website. Many web content management system providers will bundle these with domain name registration, email hosting and web hosting packages making it even easier for the small business owner to get online!