The Internet, blogs and social media have taken hold of society, but apparently small businesses still haven’t embraced going online, with 55 percent not having a website and about the same percentage claiming it’s a myth that they need to have one, says a new survey by Discover Business Card.
The number of small businesses with a website has grown 36 percent in the past two years, but still fewer than half of the owners have one. The segment that has websites grew from 33 percent in November 2007 to 45 percent in August 2009.
“Over the last three years we’ve seen a steady increase in the number of entrepreneurs who are going online to promote and grow their businesses, but the Web has yet to become a must-have tool for everyone,” said Ryan Scully, director of Discover Business card, which commissions monthly research by Rasmussen Reports. “While traditional methods for marketing and advertising a small business still work, Web resources are starting to make a difference for a significant number of entrepreneurs when it comes to fining new business leads.”
In another finding, 46 percent of small business owners said it is a myth that every company should have a website, while 44 percent felt the opposite and 10 percent were not sure.
Consumers seem to agree, Discover said. While 46 percent of them say that they expect every business will have a Web site, another 37 percent don’t think every company needs one. The remaining 17 percent weren’t sure.
Of small business owners who are online, more of them are taking advantage of social media and other online promotional tools.
Small business owners who are part of a social networking site have jumped from 22 percent in October 2007 to 40 percent in April 2009, and 40 percent of small business owners said this year that they have used e-mail to promote their businesses.
Nearly half of all owners said they have used social networking to promote their businesses, and nearly a third of those owners said the biggest benefit of using these sites is getting new business leads.
The survey was part of the Discover Small Business Watch poll of 750 random small business owners with less than five employees. Consumer data is from a random sample of 3,000 users of small businesses.
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While social media is an excellent method of getting the word out, you have to start by having a website to link back to. Have you heard of Office Live Small Business? It’s template-based, so you don’t need to know or learn how to code, plus it’s extremely inexpensive. Remember that you get what you pay for with free website building services—someone else’s ads all over your site. Office Live Small Business is ad free.
Check it out at http://www.smallbusiness.officelive.com.
For great tips and conversation about running a small business website, join the community over on the Office Live Page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/officelive.
Cheers,
Kate
MSFT Office Live Outreach Team