509 Media offers web design services to people around the world.  Business owners in Dothan, AL and other small town USA towns should understand the upcoming decade will hold many changes in the way local and regional businesses advertise their products and/or services. Even for small local businesses in towns just like Dothan the first line of contact may be your website.  More and more people are turning to advances in technology to look up telephone numbers, to determine business hours for a store they want to visit, and to look for a local supplier of a certain item.  The internet increases the Speed of Business not only for the consumer but for the business owner as well.  As the Speed of Business increases in speed it is paramount that you stay at the leading edge of your competition.

You may be asking, “What do you mean by the Speed of Business will increase?’ By saying the Speed of Business is increasing and will continue to do so in the upcoming decade is a simple idea.  More and more people are purchasing “Smart Phones” like the new Verizon Droid or the extremely popular Apple iPhone.  A smart phone increases speed of business in a few different ways.  The first thing many business owners in Dothan and other small towns should realize is you should make your business easy to do business with.  People are searching for products and services with smart phones on the internet and the easier your company can be found the more likely you will gain a sale.  If your company does not have an up to date website you could be missing out on increased sales due to increasing Speed of Business.

Speed of Business can manifest itself in other forms.  More and more consumer confidence is rising in regard to making online purchases.  By purchasing online it can save the consumer time and money by not going to the physical location of the business.  Speed of Business here is effected in that people never have to talk to you, they never have to step foot on your place of business.  All the customer has to do is enter some basic information on the internet to order a product.  An online store might not be a perfect fit of some companies, but for many it can open a new revenue stream.  509 Media offers e-commerce solutions to help you sell product online.  We will be happy to educate you on everything needed to begin selling product online.

The last area concerning Speed of Business I would like to cover in this short post has to do with information.  Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace have helped change website design.  In years past a website was a few pages describing your company, products, and services.  The website design was placed on the net and left to direct customers to for additional information.  Well if this is the approach you still have today for your website design you are going to be left behind by other more aggressive businesses.  Today website design is about current up to date information.  A website needs to be updated on a regular basis with new information encouraging visitors to come back and read more.  Older websites (Legacy Websites) are becoming antiquated.  Legacy sites are being replaced by Dynamic Websites which are easy to add and remove information .  Often times the business owner can add information to their website with out the need of a web designer thus saving them money and time.  An example of things to update your website might be the following:  Your company just received a new product.  You should take a couple pictures and have it posted to your website.  With a dynamic website this process could be completed in 5 minutes.

Here is how all of this ties together in a working package.  A potential client turns on their laptop while sitting in front of the tv.  The potential client sees an item on tv they are interested in so they perform a quick search on the net for the item in their local town.  For conversation sake lets say it is my home town Dothan.  The potential client finds a search result of the product you just posted to your website a couple days earlier so they visit your website.  After a couple minutes the potential client decides to order online to make sure they do not miss out on the new item before it sells out.  The potential client opts for a local store pickup when checking out on your website.  The credit card is ran and the order is placed.  The following day you have the order processed and waiting for the potential client to pick up.  When this customer walks into your store for the first time to pick up their item they notice a few other things they can not live without because you have taken the time to optimize floor space in your store to up sale.  Of course if you are shipping the product to the customer you want to make sure you have the website set up for cross selling items to gain the up sale.

Not only does an up to date website open the door to creating sales online it also increases the chance you will be found when a potential client searches the internet.  Google and other search engines index content from your website.  The more information or content you have posted to your website the more the search engines have to crawl and index.  Information is king in the internet world.  It is very easy to maintain a website with up to date information. Is your company and website ready as the Speed Of Business increases?  Do you need a web designer who understands advertising and converting visitors to sales.  After all no business invests money on advertising just to say they have an ad.  You should make sure your website is an asset doing work for you and not just sitting there.

I hope you found this short post interesting.  Please leave a comment below.  I will be adding more informational post on web design, digital printing, advertising, vehicle wraps, and more.  Be sure to check back to 509 Media.