Many small businesses in the UK are still not going digital with just a paltry 38% of micro-businesses having a website. Domain name registrar 123-reg completed research recently which showed that despite the 38% update by micro-businesses, 70% of firms agreed that digital skills were imperative to their success.
Micro-businesses are defined as those with 9 employees or less, and as such they are always limited on resources and time. Many of the business owners are hands on, and used to juggling many roles. A digital presence however, has been shown to grow a business by 14% on average. This all beggars the question, can you boost your business by 14% whilst still spending less than you generate.
As well as lacking a web presence, micro-businesses also fall down technically. In-fact the research showed only 53% of the existing websites were easily read on mobile phones – one of the key factors in Googles mobile friendly test which effects a websites ranking.
You can test your website using this link:
https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
The research did not include a figure for the number of micro-businesses which are actively marketing their products and services via the digital marketplace, but it goes without saying, if they are struggling to find the resources, either time or monetary, they are unlikely to be active on a more regular basis.
In many cases micro-businesses are well placed to service their customers online, in the same vein as they do offline. For example, using social media marketing, as they can have experts on hand to deal with queries quickly and efficiently, without the query disappearing into a black hole or being moved around departments looking for the correct answer.
Given that an improvement of 14% is achievable, it is worth considering whether outsourcing some of these processes could work for micro-businesses as a marketing tactic? Furthermore, is it worth spending a little more to guarantee the technical expertise to create a well-founded website offering, that works on all devices, and genuinely converts into sales? The alternative being to using a build it yourself website builder which, although financially, less of a burden, takes up more time, often is less aesthetically pleasing, and is less likely to generate the maximum amount of profit.
Do you think there is a benefit, financial or otherwise to using a web designer over a do it yourself builder?
