Should my business be on the Internet?

	If your business relies on communication with employees, customers, associates, vendors, etc., to remain in business, then your business should be on the Internet.
	If your business relies on profit from sales of a product or service to remain in business, then your business should be on the Internet.
	If your business relies on donations or volunteers to remain in business, then your business should be on the Internet.

If your business (fill in the blank) __________________, then your business should be on the Internet. Bottom line, if you’re in business and want to stay in business - you must be on the Internet.

What are the benefits of having a business Web site?

The benefits of a Web site are numerous. Whether you do business on a global basis or within the confines of a small community, staking your claim on the Internet is important and can be a rich source of supplemental marketing 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The most obvious benefit is the ability to provide information about your products or services to customers in a graphically pleasing manner.

Consider your business’ value proposition. You possess information about your products, services, industry, or related industries about which a potential buyer is interested in learning. Your Web site can be the source of your specialized knowledge. If the information is organized effectively and listed in Web search engines, Web users can easily find you. Price and product lists can be updated quickly and inexpensively. Requests for information can be received and answered immediately via interactive forms and automated e-mail systems.

A Web site can also be a valuable commerce tool. Products can be showcased in much the same way as a catalog, but in an interactive manner. For example, visitors could check the availability status of a certain product, fill out a form requesting more information, or place an order immediately. As consumers become more comfortable with online purchasing, Internet commerce is becoming a part of mainstream purchasing.

In relation to the advertising benefits of having your business online, a Web site offers the highest coverage area of any advertising medium in the world (potential web visitors). Since the coverage potential is so high, it follows suit that the reach (actual web visitors) and frequency (the number of times web visitors are exposed to your message) will be a percentage of that coverage.

Since most advertising costs are determined by how many people can be reached via a specific medium, Internet marketers have attempted to adopt traditional measuring yardsticks for the World Wide Web as well. Although absolute costs for Web site creation are easier to identify, relative costs where it relates to price comparison of other media vehicles is not as clear cut. For example, print media uses cost per thousand (CPM) as a formula for cost breakdown while broadcast media uses cost per ratings point (CPRP).

Initially, relative cost formulas for measuring Web marketing effectiveness involved tallying the total number of clicks or hits per page (also referred to as traffic) or visits to your Web site. This process can be accomplished through such software programs as WebTrends. These programs are designed to automatically log Web site traffic data and create a file for you to reference on a daily basis.

As the medium has grown, marketers have included page views (the total number of times a Web page is viewed), ad views (the total number of times that an advertising banner (or link) appears on a specific Web page), and “click-throughs” (the total number of times a visitor actually clicks on an ad banner) as other instruments by which to measure Web marketing effectiveness.

As Web sites become more divergent, so will the ways of measuring their success. However, the big question is, "is the Internet right for my business"?