Every business whether small, medium or large needs a website because the competition for customer attention and their money is intense everywhere. I believe that having a website is important for any business regardless of its size and location.
Having a website is the first door for any entity be it private or public to enter the ecosystem of online presence. Social media and other funnels to get to the customers and clients is also important and part of the online presence ecosystem.
But, a website has many advantages over everything else in the online world and these include the following:
- Website gives you more trust and credibility in the eyes of clients, customers and the authority in which your business is based particularly if you are in the developed countries.
- Website lets you describe your business as much as you want and include as many information as you wish in one single location that anyone can visit, see and interact.
- Website lets you use a professional email/emails that make customers, suppliers and government institutions take you seriously and interact with you without confusion, misplacement of orders, payments and other important information that businesses share with other important partners.
- You can update any information instantly without directing anyone to any other source or doing anything that may cost extra efforts or expenses.
- Website lets you sell your products and services online and also let customers and clients communicate with you directly anytime and anywhere in the world.
The above mentioned advantages of having a website are only few of the many advantages that you get from having a website that puts your entity name on the online world. For example, if your domain is registered a year ago, it has more credibility than the one registered yesterday or two months ago because the time the domain is registered is recorded in the domain registration systems and ranked according to the date it is registered and so on.
Therefore, having your website early makes a lot of difference when it comes to competition and finding your business easily online. There are many other factors that help your business to be found online that includes paid advertisement, information published on the website and the frequency in which the information is published and many others.
But, because of the adoption of mobile phones and social media companies dominating the online world today, many people particularly less developed countries don’t understand the importance of having a website for their business, organisation or government institutions. This explains why many businesses in Somalia for example don’t have a website and that makes Somalia in general to be absent from the online competition and business story telling that badly needed in Somalia to overcome decades of bad publicity about the country and its people.
I advise all Somali business leaders particularly those in the country to have websites for their businesses, organisations, towns and cities so the true story about the country come out.
All major businesses, organisations and other interested parties to the Somali nation, economy, business environment and have potential to invest the country need to know how companies in Somalia operate and what opportunities are there to attract their investment and attention.
So, having professional websites for many companies, organisations and towns/cities that let the world know that they are open for business is a paramount in today’s ever changing world events, opportunities and threats.
Why close your door to opportunities out there when you can harness the many developmental opportunities in our country and the potential business partnerships that you could have with other international companies that may have an interest in investing in Somalia’s large untapped natural resources.
My call to any business is to have a website and use that website to effect the way the business, location or the country viewed in a positive way. Opportunities are endless when you really see beyond the lack of technical know-how and the limitations of one’s foresight to see past the difficulties in the local surroundings and politics.
Siyad Ali Yusuf
Ogaal Services.