My local pub in Richmond has re-opened after a whole year being re-furbished. I took a friend there last week to check it out and it was buzzing. Now quite fancy, it has a pricey menu and throbbing wine list. I had pigs trotters stuffed with foie gras, not exactly pub-grub but scrummy nevertheless.
The owner dropped by our table to ask us how we were getting on and what we thought of the food etc etc.
Being a digital butterfly (ok moth!) I mentioned he needed to sort out his web presence. He currently had a .com and a .org site in the search engine results pages, both with different content and one with just a page – no links, no information, just a holding page with a bit of blurb.
His response astonished me!
He said that he was TOO busy and that business was booming and it was the least of his priorities.
As Steve Martin once said – “Well EXCUSE ME!”
To cap off the evening my friend who works for KPMG waded in saying he agreed! If a business is doing well, why bother with another marketing channel that might over-promise.....?
My stance was a website is your calling card if you’re an offline business. It tells you who you are, where you are, what you do and what people might need to do to get hold of you.
I’ve not used a phonebook for years. I always use the web. So when I see a shoddy website with minimal information I think it reflects badly on the business.
With so many small businesses not marketing their websites or having the basic knowledge of content management or optimization, coupled with many not actually wanting to grow because it’s too much like hard work, how can we expect search engine results pages to get better and more relevant? Don't the two go in tandem.
Am I right or have I drunk too much digital ale?
