This is a quote from a Columbus business lender I spoke with recently. He said he meets a lot of small business owners who come to him seeking funding to purchase real estate, new equipment, or to open a line of credit to improve their cash flow.

The first thing he does is visit their website.

He said it gives him a great idea of how viable, stable and serious the business is.

I hadn’t thought about lenders keeping as close an eye on your website as they do on your credit score, but its an interesting fact. What he told me underscores a core belief we have at SiteInSight: Your website should make your company look at least as good as your really are, if not better.

There is a time and place for most new ventures to have a do-it-yourself website. When you are floating and idea or starting something new, you often don’t have money to hire anyone for anything. Your contract is probably something you wrote yourself, too. But the time comes for every new business to grow up. You incorporate, you purchase liability insurance, you have a lawyer review your paperwork, you outsource your accounting, and you invest in a grown-up website.

When you are ready to take that step, we’re here for you. If you are already working with us and you know another company that is ready to upgrade, we would be indebted to you if you would forward this email to them.

Some of our most popular services right now include:

• Mobile-responsive design – Your website functions beautifully on a desktop, a tablet or a smartphone, with no need for an app or a separate mobile site. It’s a very cost-effective solution to the endless array of devices your customers might be using.
• Online submittable forms – If you are asking your clients, customers or patients to download a piece of paper, fill it in and somehow send it back to you (fax? scan?) you are making life more complicated than it needs to be. Let us put your questions in a nice form they can fill in online and click submit. They will thank you for it. We’ve made forms for everything from “Contact Us” to summer camp registration.