These days every business needs a website to be credible. Unless of course, you already have a well-established, successful business from long ago. I do know some businesses like that but it doesn't apply to most of us.

However many business owners overestimate what a website will do for their business.

Here are some of the major pitfalls I see in service businesses:

• Believing that ALL you need is a website and putting all your focus on it. No! A website is one pillar of your marketing and doesn't eliminate the need for networking, public speaking, or whatever other methods you prefer to use. Your website will not do all the work for you.
• Assuming that the website will automatically work for you, simply because it's there. There are no quick fixes, and no overnight millionaires! Once it's up you still have to massage it, keep it current with new content, drive traffic to it. It takes time and effort to make sure your website is supporting your business in the way you want it to.
• Not having a strategy. Your website is part of your overall marketing strategy. It should work together with all your other marketing activities so that they all support each other and your brand.
• Relying on your website to get you clients. It probably won't. Most likely your website will connect with potential clients and engage them to the point where they are willing to take the next step in the process (whatever you define that next step to be). If you're in a service business, it's unlikely that someone will read your site, then call you and say "I want to send you a check to get started." Sure, that's the end result you wish for, but there are interim steps in the process that the website can't take for you.

If you're not getting the results you want from your site, check the points above and see if any of them resonate with you.