For whatever reason, there’s this misconception that if you put up a website or a blog (or Facebook page or Twitter page, etc.), you’ll suddenly get a ton of business. Having a website or blog is great if people want to learn more about your business, but they have to know that you even exist first (awareness). Just having a site on the web isn’t enough for people to know you exist. Building awareness online is just like building awareness offline. It takes some combination of time, effort and/or money.
Some Control
One very important reason to have a website is to be able to have a little bit of control over what information see about your company. Without having a website of your own, search results for your company name may bring up other sites which may not say what you want (negative reviews for example). That’s not to say that those sites won’t also show up in search results for your name, but having a website and some social profiles of your own helps you have a say too.
Base of Operations
The biggest reason to have a blog or website is to serve as a base of operations online — the place where people know they can go to get more information or do business with you. Having social profiles is important for reaching out and having conversations, but it’s a good idea to have one place where people can get even more information.
Time & Effort vs Money
Building awareness online either takes some time and effort or it takes money. Even by spending on promotions and advertising to build awareness, it still takes some time to get traffic flowing. Nothing is free. You’ll either need to dedicate some time and effort into building an online network, or you’ll need to spend some money to build awareness through advertising and promotions (or a little of both).
(photo by sarah may scott, on Flickr)