44 | SEPTEMBER 2018
Business
Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk
CAN YOU
SHINE
ONLINE?
Whether you are running a small
installer business, or you are a sole
trader it is likely you have considered
the question, “is it worth having a
website?” Benjamin Dyer of Powered
Now looks at whether the effort
and cost make it worthwhile.
The dilemma
The value from having your own
website isn’t always clear. That’s
especially true if your business has
been running smoothly without
one. While a degree of cynicism
about additional costs is a good
trait for anyone in business, it’s also
worth giving new things a thought.
After all, if we never tried anything
new we would all be in caves.
A website not only provides an
online presence. It also lets you
set out your stall on what you do
and how well you do it. It’s under
your control, rather than some
third party.
If you are an established
business your details are almost
certainly online now. The question
is simply whether you want some-
one else deciding what is said
about your business.
Websites vary hugely in size and
cost and many installers can ben-
efit even from a one or two-page
site, which should come in at the
bottom of the cost scale.
The benefits
Recently, Powered Now, my
company, surveyed more than
1,000 home owners about their
relationship with tradesmen. One
of the questions asked was how
they found trades companies to do
work for them. Not surprisingly,
more than 70% had used compa-
nies they already knew or that had
been recommended by a friend.
Interestingly around 18% had
simply searched on Google or
another search engine. Search
engines mostly find companies
that have their own websites. If
you do the maths, that means that
on average if you used both word
of mouth and search engines to
generate business, around one
in five jobs would come through
search engines. Since lots of com-
panies either don’t have websites
or have poor ones that they fail
to promote, there is even more
potential. You are obviously much
more likely to win a chunk of this
business with a high-ranking web-
site of your own.
With your own site, you can
make sure that everything is ac-
curate, and you can promote your
business to prospects by provid-
ing testimonials from customers,
pictures of you and your team and
more.
When someone searches specifi-
cally for you they should find your
site and your details. This shouldn’t
be found in a long list with lots
of other competitors. As Matthew
Stevenson, who runs a fast-growing
landscaping service, The Landscape
Company, says “We get a lot of
our business through our website,
but we have had to work hard at
promoting it”. That’s one of the
key points, to make the most of
your website you need to promote
it. Simply putting it there doesn’t
mean that prospects will come.
The cost versus benefit
of a website
We’ve discussed the benefits but
the best way to think about having
a website is to weigh the has-
sle and cost in contrast to those
benefits.
The cost side probably consists
of either enlisting a professional to
build the site or the hassle of do-
ing it yourself. In both cases you
will also have to take time writing
text and gathering pictures, as
well as the work to keep it up to
date after that.
Then there’s the effort to pro-
mote it. At the basic level this
means putting the website address
on everything like your van, any
signs you put up at premises
where you are doing jobs, in the
signature at the end of emails and
on business cards. Beyond that
you might do some “search engine
optimisation” which either means
paying an expert or going through
a steep learning curve yourself.
Then there’s even more that you
can do, such as advertising on
Google and Facebook.
When it comes to it, the decision
on a website is fairly simple. If
you always have enough work and
don’t wish to grow your business,
you have no need to get your own
website. A simple Facebook page
should do, especially as it’s free,
just to ensure that people can
connect with you with your latest
contact details.