There are tons of people who use the internet some of which run shops and businesses, and a proportion of these sites do not have a website or web page to represent their business. Small businesses don't always see the point of having a website to represent them on the Internet.

Small businesses have so many reasons why they should get a website up and not a lot as to why they shouldn't. I'd like to share with you ten reasons your small business should look at getting a website built:

If you have a small business your customers and potential customers might not know where your business is located, driving instructions or even the opening hours of your shop. Providing this information could help a potential customer become a customer. Local search has been built into the major search engines often weighting more heavily listings that are local over national businesses.

Show off your experiences and expert knowledge within the your specialist field, a variety of resources can be used to implement different content such as video, articles and imagery to depict anything such a how to's, guides and information etc.

Self-Promotion, promote yourself and the business through the website, using digital methods of marketing such as direct e-mail allows you to send potential customers information, sales information and store information and more directly to the customer inbox.

Interaction with Twitter, Facebook and other popular social sites helps to promote your website and build up a fan base of potentially loyal followers who might buy products in the future.

Running an online business means you can operate at a lower cost of doing business, there is less total transaction cost compared with normal shops. Lower costs mean that discounts can be offered over the internet or any number of possibilities.

A website acts as the first port of contact for anyone browsing the Internet and finding you through search or referral. This is the first impression and therefore it is important that the customer finds what they were looking for.

Websites allow a visitor who could not physically get to the store to do some shopping online, making the website accessible to a wider audience; this also applies to geographic limitations.

Having a good website will let you distinguish yourself from other competitors both locally and on the internet, the more professional your site is and the more services and content you provide the more you will stick out amongst others in the same niche.

Websites are fantastic because they can be scalable if you get the architecture right in the first place, choosing the right content management system which is both suitable for 1 visitor a day and can handle thousands a day as well as new pages and new dynamic content will allow it to scale with the business as it grows.