The End of SMB Websites – Not!
Greg Sterling declared in his blog Screenwerk The End of SMB Websites as:
- Increasingly marketing services companies offer landing pages optimized for SEO and conversion to SMBs.
- The directories where the SMBs place their link have a higher rank than the actual SMB website.
He predicts a future where the data of SMBs will be online through third party efforts.
We believe the contrary as:
- All business websites will need to compete increasingly with each other for obtaining the
attention of the potential customer and nurture the existing customers.
- The perception of the importance on the Internet will support the business of any company.
Accessibility of technology
As the technology of setting up and running a website has lowered in price and thus has become accessible to many more SMBs and SMEs.
It is no longer the problem of getting online; it is now the problem of bringing content. Content that needs to keep pace with the business and being renewed driven by the changes in the market of the SMB/SME.
- Technology is more accessible and no longer a hurdle.
- Setting up and running a website can be done at a significant lower cost than before.
- Presentations and video can be embedded in the website making a visit a richer experience
Thus the decreasing cost for technology is making websites available to more businesses, but the cost for content will be increasing.
Omnipresence of the Internet
The Internet is becoming more important:
- Dominant for information retrieval
- Findability: being found as a company or the product/service
- Being referenced for higher SEO
- Being trusted as a company: if the company is on the Internet, it exists
- Importance for lead generation
Third party websites bringing less
Third party websites are:
- Rarely free of (competitive) advertising
- Hard to have SMB/SME branding
- Hard to differentiate any product, service or the company itself
- Hard to involve the visitor online
- Hard to implement a call to action
- A hard place to be remarkable
Local SMB/SME need Internet presence
Even if a SMB or SME that sells locally, it is:
- A way to differentiate
- A channel to communicate information
- A chance to get selected
- A method to capture or create interest
- A chance to propose a call to action
Tools like email marketing are of no use if you don’t have your own website, as the addressed would land on a third party website where the competition is also present.
SMB catching up with current large corporation websites
The website SMB/SME will grow and will be enhanced with different features and functionalities for more communication and interaction with visitors (potential leads) and customers.
All at a fairly low cost compared with other existing communication channels. Thus in order to keep the operating costs low, SMB companies will implement web technologies available at a fair price.
Of course by that time the large corporations will have taken another leap forward in websites.
It is about Internet presence perception
The importance of a website is not related to importance of a company.
A small company can have an impressive and interesting website generating a lot of traffic, projecting the image of being more important than the market leader with a less developed website and less traffic.
Being found easily on search engines using many different search words or search terms, being mentioned in blogs and articles, getting a high traffic score on Alexa will project a more important image of the company than the actual importance in the market.
SMB websites will challenge and will be challenged
The SMB Websites will be challenging the big brands, whereas SOHO companies could be challenging the SMBs as the issue of content and quality of content plays an important role. Good content can be written by anyone having the right ideas or concepts.
SMB websites, third party website and directory listings will exist side-by-side, as references and being found on the Internet are getting more and more important for any company.
The perception on the Internet projects an image of importance of the company.
All businesses large and small will be competing for your attention on the Internet. Those companies who ignore this competition might be lagging behind in lead generation, business development and ultimately in sales.
