Press Release

Leasing has always been an option for small businesses but is leasing a website realistic?

Startups and small businesses are always faced with tough decisions to make in the initial stages of getting off the ground. The challenges of managing your cash flow and balancing your priorities while focusing on establishing your business can be nerve-wracking as it is exciting.  There’s always the off-putting statistics of how many businesses fail in their first 12 months of trading hovering above them.

One of the main issues to decide on for newly formed businesses is their website – who to use, what to include and how to make it work for them?

In the current climate, a business without a web presence will struggle to keep up with its competition but yet at present around a third of SME’s still don’t have a website.

If a website is more or less a necessity in the internet era and the financing of capital in the first six months is pretty stretched what options are available on the table?

Although it’s not the first thing that springs to mind perhaps opting to lease a website may be the solution.

Why consider Leasing?

• Leasing provides an all in one solution so that the actual web design, hosting , ongoing maintenance as well as marketing is covered – pretty convenient for small businesses that want to focus less on running a website and more on the practicalities of their business.
• There’s the flexibility of managing your payments. By paying monthly you get to budget your finances and spread your costs out, and don’t have the potentially high costs being paid for upfront. For small and growing businesses this could prove a lifesaver especially in the early stages of their development. A quality website can prove costly and a substantial initial outlay for a small company, whereas with leasing the outlay is relatively low.

• There are certain tax benefits of leasing in that it is tax deductible enabling them to deduct their monthly costs from their gross profit – pretty useful when loosening the burden on your annual balance sheet.
• Most website leasing packages offer SEO as part of their service. Rather than having to fork out extra costs on costly SEO work, it’s included in your monthly  package. This gives your website that extra visibility to stand out amongst your competitors and helps you get ranked on search engine results pages.

Capturing your audience?

If you don't have a website, you'll most likely be losing business to those that do, and it’s in your interest make sure that your website makes your business look good, not bad -- you want to increase revenues, not decrease them.

Looking at the economical argument against going for the leasing option- the question arises why would you lease a website when you can buy one outright and keep it forever? Well, why own a website at all when it’s not actually doing anything for your business? No traffic, no visitors, no customers and no sales – just a mere presence online. This is where most businesses miss out. The internet offers vast swathes of potential customers looking for your products and services only that they‘re not able to find you. The days of listing your business in a directory and waiting for the phone to ring are long gone. The fact is using search engines to find what you’re looking  for has become the first point of call for the majority of your potential customers, and if they’re not finding you, well they’re finding someone else.

Surely in this day and age of competitive online marketing, a website that attracts customers directly is far more powerful than one that sits on the shelf as a mere static online presence.

A website that delivers

For businesses operating in highly competitive industries such as within the medical or legal field, each new client is vital for growth, and this is where small, niche, growing businesses can benefit from leasing.

The key to developing a successful website is tailor making it to position itself in front of highly targeted audiences. Newspapers, direct mail, email marketing although having their benefits have become a somewhat scattergun approach to marketing with it becoming untargeted and expensive.  The website traffic is definitely out there, only your website’s not receiving it. With SEO integrated into your website you have an opportunity to put your business in the line of sight of customers who are already searching for you.

Although website leasing may be in its infancy, the fact that there’s a new model which incorporates the value added of SEO, most definitely highlights why this is going to be a growth area in the future as more and more seek to establish their businesses online. Businesses are familiar with leasing cars, furniture, or office space, but leasing a website can also be added to the list as a viable option for small businesses as they look to establish themselves and grow.

Business Development Manager - September 2013