Ways to Grow Your Business in 2012: Your Website Is the Ticket to Growth

Your website is the link to growing your spa business, and the pun is intended. Modern day marketing requires use of the Internet by any person or business that truly desires success.

Traditional methods of advertising and promotion have been consistently loosing market share to Internet marketing for several years. Take a look at newspapers as an example. Newspaper readership is down all over the country. News junkies and those who casually stay current with the news are en mass going to websites to read the latest wire service stories, and by the time it comes out in the next day’s newspaper it is old news. With readership down, advertising revenues for newspapers have gone done and the papers have raised advertising rates to maintain their income. So with newspapers you are paying more money for fewer readers.

Think about your phone book. The Yellow Pages is great and maybe still needed in some locations, but remember that the phone book is closed 99 percent of the time, and many people now use online resources to find phone numbers or addresses when they need them. Yellow Pages rates are going up and fewer people are using them. Radio and television suffer a similar fate as segmentation means more choices, but rates staying about the same for fewer listeners or viewers.

Your website on the other hand costs very little to set up. You can do it yourself using templates and wizards, or hire a web designer for a reasonable fee to create a site for you. Using organic search engine optimization will bring more people to your web site through Google, MSN, yahoo, Alta Vista, Dogpile and other search engines when they are looking for the services you offer in the location you reside in.  Your website can be a way to educate your client base, offer coupons and discounts, and use other methods to draw people into your business. And if you don’t have time to wait for organic search engine optimization to kick in, remember the PPC or pay per click options. Both Google and Yahoo offer paid ads that only cost you a fee when someone clicks them to go to your web site. This can be as low as a few cents a click, and if your site is designed properly you will have a high ratio of click through who become clients. You control the amount you spend, and by properly using your website and modern technology you can turn a small business into a large business with minimal expense.