There are still people wondering whether their business really needs a website. Or they say: we do not have a business, but a not-for-profit organization: should we have a website? Definitely! I could easily come up with 50 reasons why you need a website:

1. Promote Your Products
A website allows you to showcase your products for everyone to see. You can explain the benefits, compare it with other products, or show testimonials of happy customers that already bought the product.

2. Promote Your Services
It is hard to showcase services in a store, or office. The web allows you to introduce the service, the professionals providing the service, and how several services can complement each other.

3. Promote Your Organization
People buy from people. People support organizations and causes that they believe in. A website is a fantastic tool to promote an organization and build trust – that is, if you do it right… A well-developed website can convey trust and credibility, making people to buy from you, or support you.

4. Promote Yourself
Whether you are a professional looking for a job, or an expert in your industry: you can show that to the whole world by having a comprehensive website. The use of an associated email address also increases perceived professionalism: a letter from someone at me-the-expert.com will certainly open more doors than an email from a hotmail account.

5. Promote Your Ideas
Political campaigns are now all over the web. A website can be a powerful way to promote your ideas, and build a following of like-minded people. Or you can just write online journals (“blogs”) to ventilate some of your thoughts and concerns.

6. Promote Your Events
Have a fundraising event? Want to promote your business with seminars, workshops or a trade show? You will increase awareness when you create a website for the event. Show dates, programs, prices and driving directions – to name but a few features that will be greatly appreciated by your target audience.

7. Sell Your Events
Want to take it a step further? You may even want to consider selling (or pre-ordering) tickets for your events on a website. Shorter line-ups, less expenses: it sounds like a good idea to me…

8. Sell Your Organization
Whether “selling your organization” is a figure of speech (to convince people) or a true selling effort, a website can be considered a very valuable asset to your organization.

9. Sell Your Services
A website can be a great tool to not only promote, but also actually sell your services. You can automate many repetitive tasks, such as registration, billing, collecting and much more. Whether you are selling phone services or speaking engagements: you can effectively do it with a website.

10. Sell Your Products
A few years ago, after all the dot-boms, people lost faith in e-commerce. Now e-commerce is booming. Gift moments like Christmas and Valentine’s Day show record sales numbers, and money-guzzling giants like Amazon are starting to make money. Offering a great user-experience and minding usability is the key to success.

11. Save Costs
By integrating systems and automating certain tasks you may be able to actually save costs. For instance, by integrating your e-commerce website into your inventory and accounting systems. Build extranets to connect with suppliers and clients alike. You can provide downloadable documents on a website rather than mailing them out. The opportunities are endless.

12. 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.

13. Share Pictures, Sound And Other Files
I just watched wedding photos, I enjoy watching funny commercials from all over the world, I like listening to music – on a website. You can use it to share Media Kits, sound bites, or PowerPoint presentations. A website is a great tool to exchange multi-media.

14. Offer Service 365/24/7
This may not be of great value to you (it may even be a burden…), but to your customers it is very empowering and important. The Internet puts the web browser in control – and if you are not there, you will be more and more passed over in favour of an online competitor.

15. Answer Frequently Asked Questions
Answering the same questions over and over again can be a great waste of money and employee morale. A carefully crafted list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), posted on a website, can reduce the stream of repetitive questions so your Customer Support department can actually start supporting customers, and your Sales Department can really devote their time to selling!