E-mailing is a quick way to contact someone but only if you have their exact E-mail address. I often need to send a personal message to some person in the locksmith community but finding their E-mail address is not always easy. Many businesses usually do a good job of showing business addresses and phone numbers on their websites but less often include an E-mail address except perhaps for a 'contact' choice. This is especially true in the locksmith business.
One example locksmith business in New York state had website listings under Superpages, DandB, yellowpages, chamberofcommerce and findthecompany. None of these listings had anything more than information on amount of employees, annual revenue, etc. Nothing on any of these example websites displayed what services this locksmith company offered. When "locksmith" for that particular city in New York was Googled, seven other locksmith firms were listed before our example locksmith business was displayed.
Google locksmith positions one through seven in this example made better use of their website and appeared ahead of the weak website discussed above. A good website is designed first to attract the interest of a customer and then to capture further interest of the potential customer as they spend time reading additional information. Items of interest may include a gallery of hardware installation pictures, educational videos, a 'thought for today' blog, signup information for your recurring newsletter, a short history of your business, a slide show or an eStore for sale of products. Of course, the locksmith services you offer should be front and center.
It was once a simple matter to purchase an ad in the Yellow Pages and wait for the phone to ring during the next twelve months. Today people press buttons on their cell phone for any goods, information or services they require. An outstanding website is a business necessity. Here is an informative article from the Locksmith Ledger archives: Getting Found On The Internet. You can also Google "creating a website" and learn the basics. You can either do it yourself or at least learn what you want before talking to a professional website builder.
