Levels At Which Business Can Be Online

"Are you online with your business?" I have often asked.

"Oh yes." Is the reply.

Or sometimes the reply is more a rundown of excuses why not.

"Oh no, this is just a local business and everybody knows us." They say.

There is no real way to tell someone like this that every business in the local area is a local business and being local is no reason not to use the internet for your business.  Indeed, it is for the benefit of your local customers who know you that your website can be used in many ways that will be useful for them, and for your business.

But I have realised that my question is too broad and not concise enough. How could I make it more concise? That's when it hit me - I needed a scale for people to use to identify where they are in their online business efforts, for their answer to be useful.

So I devised a Levels of Online Business metric - here's a detailed article on how you can use these levels, that I wrote for a UK website to which I contribute weekly. Local Business Steps of Being Online

Here's the thing. If you want your business to make use of the internet to develop visibility online, open up the facility for it to make sales for your business and give you good placement as the Go To business in your industry, you need to be aiming for levels 4 and 5.  Can you do that in your little business? Yes, you can. Can you do it without investing in your online business presence? No. You can't do it with no money and no effort.

And you can't do it at all even with those things if you don't know how.

But it is well within your reach if you just approach it with good information, good research and good help.

Need help? Call Lindy Asimus on 0403 365 855 to explore your social marketing or coaching needs.

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