Honestly, good question — especially if you’ve never had a reason for a website before. The short answer is yes, absolutely. No real reason exists for your business not to have a website.
A business’s online presence — or lack thereof — can, and often will be the difference between a website viewer becoming a customer or moving onto the next business. A website should be the hub or centre of your online presence. And, not only should you have a website, but it also needs to be clean, easy to navigate, and actually contain correct and up-to-date information that explains what it is your business does.
But, I assume you didn’t come here for the short answer, so here are some of the biggest reasons why your business absolutely needs a website.
1. The majority of your target market — and by extension, the world — is on the internet.
Think about how often you look something up on the world wide web: when you’re looking to purchase a product, to get directions to a restaurant, to find the hours of a store in town, to look up a recipe or news story — I could go on and on. The possibilities are endless.
Now multiply that by everyone in the world who has access to the internet. That’s a lot of searches. 3.5 billion a day to be exact (if an average can be exact).
Of course, not all of those searches are related to what your company might do. But if you don’t have a website, you’re missing every single one.
2. A website gives credibility to your company.
A website is often the first impression for a potential client. Not only does a well-designed, easy-to-use website give a client a good first opinion, but a quality website also creates the impression that your company as a whole is well-built and easy to deal with.
Investing in a good-quality first impression — AKA, a good website — also establishes you as a business owner who believes in their own company.
3. A website is a different type of online presence than social media.
Both social media and websites are a good online presence to have; however, social media shouldn’t be the only presence you have. Generally speaking, a website should be the centre of your business’s online presence, and social media channels should be the extension of that main hub.
More often than not, if a client is searching for a specific service, they are going to google it. You want your website to show up before your Facebook page. A big reason for this is that a website is the one online presence you have complete control over. You create all of the content, you sign off on the look of it, and you control when it gets updated. Social media platforms are controlled both by the external companies that built them and the users that scroll through them every day.
Pro Tip: If you want more information specific to social media and digital advertising, check out our Digital Marketing Program.
4. Websites do work for you.
Quite simply, websites can and should do the leg work in educating potential clients about your services and products. This is where the majority of information about what your business does should live.
On a website, a client can look your company up, read about the services you offer, and then call to book an appointment. That saves you the time it takes to find that potential client, give them your information, explain to them what it is you offer, and then book them an appointment (or whatever process you use).
Websites can also collect information for you with forms and analytics. They can answer frequently asked questions with an FAQ page, showcase products and team members, and much more. Basically, whatever it is you need a website to do can be built into it.
5. A website builds your brand.
Once again, your website is the one online place that you have full control over (if you have a good web designer, of course). This is the place to tell your company’s story and set yourself apart from the competition.
It is — or should be! — a visual representation of your company, and you get to decide what it looks like.
6. Everyone else has a website.
This might be the simplest answer on this list but, honestly, it’s one of the most important ones. You need to have a website because your competitors have one.
And yes I know there are plenty of businesses that don’t have websites, so maybe not all of your competitors have them, but that’s just all the more reason to have one: to stay ahead of your competition.
Whether we like it or not, this is the way that the world is now. A website is quickly becoming — if it’s not, already become — one of the most important investments you can make in your business.
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