Every business needs a website – not just any website but one that’s well structured with a professional design.
If the social feed ad is interesting, your potential customers will expect to visit your website to find out more about the business. If there isn’t a website, they might not take the next logical step in the customer journey.
Your competition has one
- If you don’t dominate the Internet, you are giving your customers a reason to buy from the competition
Your customers expect it
Social media reach is diminishing
- You don’t have any say in the changes Facebook chooses to implement
- What if one day Facebook decides that it won’t support businesses anymore? All all the clients and followers you built would likely disappear
- While it might be quicker to create a Facebook page, you would be able to command more authority and trust with a business website
- Many people find advertisements annoying, especially when they want to interact with friends, making them ignore your business posts or ads
- Your Facebook page and other social media should support your website—not replace it
- When you pay for ads on social media, your potential clients only see your ads for as long as you run them. If they don’t see it, you’ll have to pay again to run the ad campaign. On the other hand, a business website will give you ROI over time
- If there’s a social media blackout, like when Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all disappeared for several hours, your website and its content remain safe
- Facebook claims that people in 2018 spent 50 million fewer hours on Facebook than they did the year before
People go to Google to find information
- According to SEOTribunal, there are 5.6 billion searches on Google per day, and 63,000 searches per second on any given day
- In 2017, 97% of people searched online to find a local business near them
- People are searching for you online
- If you don’t have a website, that competitor next door who has a great-looking search-optimized website will get the business
- When more than 50% of smartphone users discover a new company or product while searching on their smartphones, not having a website can damage your credibility
You can attract new customers
- 63 percent of consumers primarily use a company’s website to find and engage with businesses
- If they remember the name of your business, they Google you by the name. If they don’t, they can find you by the product or service you provide
- Even if you can easily compete with larger websites, you can optimize your site for local searches to attract an audience in your area
- Commercial transactions in every industry—including B2B, industrial, and manufacturing—are influenced by digital website content
It makes you more credible and professional
- Creating a business website is not free and indicates that you’re relatively serious about your business
- Oeople only buy from businesses they know, like, and trust
- Anyone can create a company page on Facebook; it’s free and can be done in a jiffy. This low barrier to entry takes away much of the credibility of a business social media page. Customers don’t know who’s behind a Facebook page, where they are, and whether it’s all a scam.
- You can establishes your place in the industry
You can clearly showcase your products and services
- A business website ensures that you have a potential client’s full attention
- While you might do some legwork to get them over to your website, once they’re on your website, the chances of patronage are higher
You can prominently display your best reviews and testimonials
- Publishing your best reviews on your website ensures that third-party review sites don’t minimize the good things people say about your business
- Even when your brand is rated 5-star on review sites, people expect to see your website to get more information about the brand
It improves your customer service
- Allows you to answer basic questions quickly
- There’s no need for them to call about location, hours of operation, and other simple questions
- Simple questions from customers don’t bog down your workforce, they can focus on other vital processes that increase company productivity
- Website is your platform to answer all basic questions your potential customers may have about your business and brand
- Having a website means that your content is available to users anytime during the day, at their convenience
- Good for relationship building, especially if you have AI-powered chatbots enabled on your website that can solve the basic problems of your customers when they need it the most
- You can have more constructive conversations
You can expand your working hours
- Your website delivers your marketing message 24 hours, 365 days a year
- Being accessible at all times supports marketing and increases sales dramatically, and this is especially true for e-commerce companies
It is your property and you have total control over it
- While it is difficult to control what people say about you, you can influence your brand perception by writing your own story on the website
- With a content management system (CMS) like CMS Hub or WordPress, it’s now easier than ever to manage a website
- You don’t need any technical skills to keep your website up to date
- You can control the narrative
You can sell your product online
- Having an online storefront can help you attract new customers and help you continue selling even when your physical store is closed
- Ecommerce sales are exploding and are projected to hit over $5.4 trillion in 2022
It is especially important when you have a small local business
- When people visit your website, they seek answers to basic questions like what you do, your products/solutions, your location, contact details, etc. Once they are satisfied with all that, they decide to either follow up or not
- You can integrate your website with Google Maps so people can find you more easily
Other reasons:
- Gives you a fair chance to compete with big brands
- Ranks high and be at the right place at the right time when it’s optimized
- Showcase your offers
- It is cheaper than you think
- It is easy to manage
- There are over 4.5 billion active internet users worldwide, and over 90% of them accessed the Internet via mobile devices.