Study after study has found evidence that small business owners are not taking full advantage of the world wide web. Many business owners operate under the assumption that a website is not a necessary part of their business operation and never develop one. Other business owners, while recognizing that a website may be a useful tool, simply have not developed one due to time-constraints, or not knowing how to get started. And finally, some business owners have actually invested time and money into developing a website but their websites are not being used to their full potential. These business owners are not getting the full benefit of this powerful business tool.

At eSynthesis, it is our conviction that EVERY business and organization should have a website and we've come up with a list of 25 benefits that a website can provide for your company:

1. Differentiate Yourself From the Competition
Many of your competitors may not have a website or have websites that are poorly designed and used ineffectively. A professional looking website helps to distinguish your company from the hordes of competitors and re-assures your customers, and potential customers, that you are a professional organization worthy of their business. Also, a website address that matches your email address further extends your professional image. All things being equal, who would you buy from, a guy whose business cards read greatwidgets@yahoo.com or from John Smith whose business cards read: johnsmith@greatwidgets.com? The answer is obvious.

2. Promote Your Products or Services
A well-designed website allows you to easily showcase your products for everyone to see anywhere in the world. You can explain the benefits of your offerings and compare it with other products. You can show testimonials of happy customers that already bought the product, thus encouraging potential customers to buy from you as well. And best of all, dollar for dollar, a professionally designed website is the most effective way to promote your business. No other marketing communication medium is as economic, effective and efficient in helping spread the word about your business than a website.

3. Sell Your Product or Services
A website allows you to not only promote your products or services, you can also sell them online! You can sell products online easily and accept credit card payments without ever opening up an online merchant account. This wasn't possible 5 years ago, so why not take advantage of it now that it is so readily available?

4. Use Web-based E-mail
If you are not systematically staying in touch with existing customers or trying to attract new customers via E-mail, you are missing out on a wonderful opportunity for increased sales. You can send web-based newsletters and ads to everyone on your email list promoting your products or services. This helps to build trust and loyalty with your existing customers and really impresses potential customers. And because your are sending web-based (HTML) messages, recipients see beautifully designed messages with color graphics without having to open attachments. These web-based messages can have links enticing recipients to visit your website and buy from you.

5. Save Time by Automating Manual Tasks
Websites can help you with many manual tasks. Are you always busy answering customer questions on the phone? Why not send them to a web page that has all the most frequent questions and their answers. Do you take product or service orders over the phone? Why not have a form on your website that customers can complete to register for a service or to buy your products? There are countless ways that you can eliminate many manual tasks that are currently slowing you down. All the big companies are finding ways to use the web to automate tasks and so can you.

6. Save Cost and Improve Customer Service
By integrating systems and automating certain tasks you may be able to actually save costs and improve customer service. For instance, you can integrate your e-commerce website into your inventory and accounting systems. You can build interfaces and connect and share data with suppliers and clients alike. You can provide downloadable documents on a website rather than mailing them out. The opportunities are endless. And customers appreciate the real-time data and control they get from these sophisticated websites. For example, if you want to know the status of package you shipped yesterday on Fed-Ex, you don't actually call Fed-Ex, you log into their site and enter the tracking number which tells you exactly where your package is at that precise moment. That's powerful customer service!

7. Build A Community
Want to be perceived as a leader? Want people talking about you, or provide a platform for people to share ideas and ideologies? A website, especially with a forum or bulletin-board, can be a great help in building an online community. It may even be the cement that keeps an offline community together, because of its empowering character and 24/7 availability.

8. Share Pictures, Sound And Other Files
You can use a website to share pictures, media kits, sound bites, or even PowerPoint presentations and miscellaneous documents. A website is a great tool to exchange multi-media and to get your customers to interact with you in a more dynamic way.

9. Reach A Local Market
More and more people use locally defined keywords in the search engines, which indicates that they use the Internet do find local information. "Used cars Miami" or "Coral Gables real estate" are obvious, but mentioning a website in a local ad may do wonders in terms of converting a reader into a customer.

10. Reach A Regional Market
A website is one of the easiest tools to expand your exposure into a wider geographical area. Want to move your business from just South Florida into the whole of Florida? A website allows you to do that.

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