If you are setting up a new business or are already established and are looking to improve the profile of your existing business there are many ways in which setting up a website can help you.  If you're deciding whether it's worthwhile or not, then take a look at some of the benefits you could be bringing to your business.  By setting up a website, you could be;

1. Reaching new customers online
2. Adding credibility to your business
3. Raising awareness of your brand name, particularly if your competitors already have a website presence
4. Promoting your products and services
5. Showcasing your previous work in a portfolio or photo gallery
6. Sharing existing customer feedback with new prospects
7. Enjoying inexpensive advertising compared to other advertising medium
8. Taking advantage of a 'shop window' for your business that is open 24 hours a day, available whenever your prospects and customers want to visit you
9. Updating your message to your customers whenever is convenient to you, or when you have new products and services to promote; you are not bound by copy deadlines for traditional printed medium, or, for examples, restricted by directories that only publish once or twice a year
10. Putting your customers in control of how they shop for and choose prodcuts and services they require; they can choose what they look at, when they look at it, and then follow up with you in person.  By this stage they should be a much 'hotter' prospect

These are just a few of the benefits of setting up a website.  Why not take a look at how having a website presence has benefited some of my existing web design clients?