How many websites do you need?
This is something that will be different for every business. There are many factors to consider before a decision can be made. You may not even need a website if your goals do not align with using the Internet as a medium to attract and keep customers or if your advertising dollars are best spent in other areas.
If you are running a hot dog stand on a busy corner in a Metropolitan area you don’t need a website to attract customers. If you are selling Toyota’s in that same Metropolitan area with 4 other Toyota dealers within 15 minutes of yours, you should own your local market for your brand name so that a consumer searching for a Toyota via the Internet finds you at every click.
Nothing is more astonishing to hear about dealers spending $3500.00 for the back page of the Sunday paper but consider Internet marketing a necessary evil or a waste of resources.
Automobile Industry statistics show that 70%* of all automobile consumers go online prior to purchasing a new car while the average dealer usually allocates less than 10% of their advertising budget to attracting online consumers. Now that may have you scratching your head wondering what that has to do with how many websites you need.
Think about these questions:
- Would you start a billboard campaign with just one?
- Do you only advertise in one newspaper?
- Do you only advertise on one radio station? One multi station group does not equal one station unless ads are running on only one station!
- When you buy Television advertising do you buy on one station or do you look for multi station packages?
You have complete dominion over your websites. That space is not shared with other advertisers as it is with the sources listed above or with online classifieds services such as Cars.com and AutoTrader.com. You have the ability to deliver any message that you desire via the internet as many times as you wish. A dominate online presence is not ranking #1 in Google with your website for your brand name and city or the number one top sponsor spot with PPC advertising. That is just presenting your offer one time. Dominating is owning everything on the first page along with most of the offerings on page two and three. This could never be accomplished with even the most well optimized single website.
Think of the last time you searched for something online. Did you go to the first result and stop there or did you surf? Now think of this, if every click you made lead to the same person or company. Who would you do business with? Who would you consider the best?
How many websites do you need? Only you can answer that.
* Source Cars.com Ask the Experts
