Build a website and customers will magically arrive… right?
A designer colleague of mine is working with a handful of recession-hit businesses going online for the first time. As he keeps telling them, a website isn’t a field of dreams. Just having a site isn’t enough to bring customers running.
An online business is the same as any other business. The internet is just another highly competitive marketing medium amongst a shed load of media. And a website won’t automatically save your business from going down the tubes.
Despite all the ’get rich quick’ claims made online, making money on the internet is rarely easy or fast. It is almost always just as challenging as making money offline.
So don’t expect miracles from your website, especially if it is brand new. Unless you’re incredibly lucky there aren’t any short cuts. If you want people to find your site you need to bite the bullet and get marketing.
