If you have a business and want to be able to compete online to sell your products or services then ideally you need to have a website. You can try and manage with social media profiles, but you may be missing out on a potentially large number of customers.  Many companies offer websites but getting one that works as it should initially and that you can build on in the future is essential to allow you to compete with the rest of the industry.

When it comes to having your first website built, yo may be tempted to go with one of the companies that allow you to build your own free website or one that offers you a site for less than a pound a month. This may be ok if you purely want a basic to – three page site that you can put on your business card, but if you want to be found on the search engines, then this is not always the best option. They often have very little or no SEO (search engine optimisation) so you may find it hard to get ranked on the search engines for your main terms and the template may not be able to be edited to include what you need.

Ideally if you are serious about marketing online then you should speak to an SEO expert who will be able to offer you advice as well as assist with any technical changes that may need doing. You may decide to use a marketing agency for this, as they will be familiar with what works well and what doesn’t.