Everyone's out there searching and searching, hoping to find what seems just out of reach sometimes. No, we're not talking about Sasquatch – we mean revenue! The green stuff that helps your business thrive. And while a website seems like a no-brainer, as a responsible business owner, you need to justify the expense. Here are some supporting arguments for having a well-designed website for your business.

The main reason for having a website is to have your contact information available to people looking for it. A Pew Research Center survey showed in 2015 that 68% of adults in the U.S. own a smartphone*, which means that over 2/3rds of the purchasing power can find you wherever they are. By having a website with a click-to-call phone number, they can reach out to you right away. By having a map in addition to your phone number, they can see that you're just around the corner and stop on by.

Another big reason to have a website is to have a place for customers to access information about your product, all day, every day. Many people talk about a website as the hardest-working and least expensive employee your business will have, and with estimated website startup costs anywhere from $2,500-10,000, they're right! Even simple facts and figures posted on webpages can serve your customers well, and if you have a product or service that can be sold over the web, you can even earn money while you sleep.

A small business that has a website also has a leg up on the competition. One recent survey showed that almost half of small businesses have not invested in an online presence**. With this statistic in mind, coupled with smartphone ownership, you can see that just by having a website you're a few steps ahead of your competition. And if your competition does have a website, you can learn yourself or work with your designer to optimize your website to rank higher in search engine results. When your site ranks higher, more people see it in organic searches, which can lead to more customers and increased revenue.

We hope we've helped to provide compelling evidence for your business case to build a website. It can seem like a lot of work, but a good partner can help shoulder a lot of the load. If your hunt for revenue leads you to Bigfoot, we'll be happy to lead you out of the woods and into the fields of green (yep, we're talking about revenue again).

*http://www.pcworld.com/article/2999631/phones/pew-survey-shows-68-percent-of-americans-now-own-a-smartphone.html

**https://clutch.co/web-designers/resources/small-business-websites-2016-survey