Why offline businesses are reluctant to sign up for web design and SEO

TommyCarey Level X³

May 24, 2017, 6:10 am

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Why offline businesses are reluctant to sign up for web design and SEO

When it comes to the old mom and pop shop type of offline business, they are usually reluctant to sign up for any web design or SEO services. Normally this is due to a few basic things which usually revolves around the fact that they don't like change. How many times have you heard an old person not want to do something new? It's because they're set in their ways and have the old mentality of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" but in reality they could have a broken system and not know it.

I've recently started helping some older businesses get online and I don't really charge them much to do so. I'm basically doing this to help them out when I have some spare time. Usually older people are afraid to let a young whipper snapper like me into their website that was designed by their grandson or some person 20 years ago, but eventually they start to trust me and that's when I can help.

Now not all offline businesses are ran by people who could be friends with our grand parents. There are some who are ran by people in their 20's but they just don't know how to get online. The problem is that most people don't have the knowledge it takes to get a website set up in a short amount of time.

Below are a few reasons why offline business owners are reluctant to sign up for web design and SEO.

Pricing
When it comes to how much a website costs, people always think they're going to have to spend $5,000 on something and not know if it's even worth it. I know that I personally won't hire a website designer to do a "Custom" design for me anymore because they're usually way too overpriced and cocky. I've dealt with plenty of designers who claim they can do anything and then show me complete piles of crap when they're finished lol. You don't want to pay thousands for a garbage looking design, and for this face, I think that's why a lot of business owners who aren't savvy don't have websites.

Now we all know that you can get a website up and running for $100 to $150 and then pay a monthly hosting fee, but not everyone knows that. I certainly won't set up a persons website for free, but I will tell them what I'm going to do and my fee is usually around $500 for everything. They will obviously have to pay for the hosting, but after that they get everything
Not sure if it will even work
A lot of people who don't have websites for their businesses don't have them because they see it as a waste of money. Touching on the first point I made, they don't cost much but people are not aware of that. People don't want to invest thousands of dollars on something that might not work. It's similar to purchasing a car for $5,000 and then it turns out to be a lemon. We now have lemon laws to prevent something like this, but there's nothing in the law saying your website will make you an extra $1,000 a day just for being live.

This is especially targeted at older people who run a business. If they're making money already, they don't see the point in having a website since they're already successful. Even if your website is going to be semi-stagnant and just take up space on the internet, it's still a good idea to have it so you can potentially get that one big sale a year
They think they are fine with what they have already
I've talked to plenty of website owners who are making decent money from PPC campaigns and don't want to sign up for SEO because they see it as a pointless thing to spend money on. When in reality, as we all know, SEO is a great way to bring in a flood of traffic that will convert much higher than most paid advertising methods

Plenty of companies don't invest into SEO and it could eventually be their downfall. If they are relying on PPC alone to bring in sales, what happens if they get banned from a paid platform like Adwords or Bing Ads which were bringing in all their sales? The answer is that their sales will plummet because they don't have anymore traffic coming in. Now if they had just invested some money each month into SEO they would see the true power and their sales would still be there. It obviously wouldn't be as many sales since you're cutting out a big portion of your traffic form the PPC campaigns, but at least you're not dead in the water for a few months lol.
They don't know the importance of it
A lot of times people won't know how important it is to have a nice web design for their business and proper SEO as well. Usually they think that they can just put up a website and start making money because some ebook told them it was possible. What they didn't know is that you need your website to be optimized for not only the search engines but for your users as well. If you have a crumby website that isn't user friendly, you won't please many people and they won't be opening their wallets anytime soon on your website lol.

Having a proper design as well as a good SEO team working on your optimization you can usually generate just as many sales through your website as you could your physical location. Now that really depends on what you're selling and where your business is located to get the traffic to it. Sometimes a business only survives because of it's online sales, so if you're working offline mainly, you should think about getting a website up and running
They think it won't work anyway
This really gets my gears turning when a business owner tells me that they don't think that a website and proper SEO won't do anything. They are stuck in their ways and think that it's all snake oil that we're trying to sell them and they won't budge on the idea that it's pointless to start now since their competition is already so far ahead.

These type of people are always hard to talk to because they like to think their sh*t doesn't stink and that you're just trying to scam them out of their hard earned money lol. Over the years I've learned that if I'm every talking to a potential client and they say "It's not going to work even if I have it set up" then I just tell them to have a good day and i move along. I do this because every single time I've heard that response, it ends in a charge back after 2 weeks because they think I'm just taking their money and running.

In Conclusion:
Having a website for your business should be what every business owner is focusing on when they start up. If you don't plan on being online with your business then you're already failing. This isn't a situation where if Johnny jumps off the bridge are you going to do it to. This is a situation where if Johnny jumps off the bridge, you need to find a higher spot on the bridge and do it a back flip in order to win over him lol

Remember to follow me!
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/Razzy

Thanks!

Razzy

Comments

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Cristian

I personally hate working with older clients that have no index what the Internet is and how it works. I mean, once you have a website you should at least understand the very basic stuff on how the internet and web pages work.

For an SEO to work with an older person like this it is usually a pure pain. They'll search for a random keyword that mildly touches their niche and will ask why aren't they on the "internet" yet. So I'm put into a position where I will need to explain to the client what Google is and how it works. The kind of stuff that most certainly won't be understood.

They will also have the permanent impression I'm robbing them somehow, even when I'm trying to help them for free.

Bottom line: Working with older clients is a lot of work, way to much work if you ask me! I personally avoid and stay away from such clients that clearly don't understand anything about the Internet, yet alone how their website will work.
Of course, no everybody will be like this some younger clients are the same level of clueless which I again, I will avoid at all costs.

Sorry. But I had some really bad experiences in the past, where I made a ton of money for such clients only to get treated as the lowest type of thief. Eventually, they all come back with apologies but I usually never forgive such a client.
thief
thief

9 years ago

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overcast

I think a lot of SEO professionals are misguiding the business. And that's something we all are going through. Not a lot of them are promising things properly. SEO is not assured service anymore. Just dropping backlinks does not give any one any assurance of the position. And that is something one has to learn from and avoid doing the stuff. I think for that point it's better to consider wait and test approach with any such companies.

9 years ago

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vinaya

In my opinion, offline businesses are reluctant to sign up for web design and SEO because they don't know the importance of having a good design and doing SEO. Even if they are aware of the benefits of web design and SEO, they are reluctant to sign up because they believe their customers are in the real world so there is no need to spend money for seo and web design because they do not have customers in the virtual world.

8 years ago

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Corzhens

It depends on the kind of business. I know of many business owners who have no intention of growing so big especially for those with small stores and earning well from the local customers. They don’t think that having a website will markedly increase their sales because their clientele are local, those who are near the store. But for those ambitious business owners who dream of hitting it big then I guess a website is important even if their business is based offline.

8 years ago

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SEOClerks

Why offline businesses are reluctant to sign up for web design and SEO

Why offline businesses are reluctant to sign up for web design and SEO

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Cristian

overcast

vinaya

Corzhens

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