Do I really need a website for my business?
Have you been making do with a Facebook page or just social media accounts? Are you wondering if you really need to have a full on website? I can say, regardless of the fact that I make them, yes, you really do need a website for your business. Why? In a word, credibility.
Visibility and first impressions
Think about the last time you tried to find a business for something you needed or wanted.
How hard was it to find them in the first place?
And when you did, all you could find was a Facebook page.
What did you really think of them?
What was your first impression?
Did you look and see if they had a real website listed on their page?
Hello, judgement going on, right? If they couldn’t be bothered to have a proper website, where you could see what they do, what they sell, where to find them/contact them, learn more about them, how much care are they likely to take if you do do business with them? Is this just a hobby? Are they even a real business? Isn’t that they kind of thing that first comes to your mind? It does to me.
I want to know that you’re a legitimate business, that you’ve put some thought and effort into showing that. I want to know that you aren’t some drop shipper, fly by night operation, or a scammer. I need to know that I’ll be able to get some help if something goes wrong. The bare minimum there, frankly, is a website. With real contact details and an about page etc.
Here’s an imaginary sailing school. What looks better here? A social media page that gives you no control over what shows, no contact form, no courses people can book, no way to highlight why someone should choose you. Or a website that makes it clear what you do and why you should be their first pick?
Showcasing your business
Having a website allows you to show who you are, what you do, in a way that you control. You’re not beholden to the algorithm of a social media page. And you’re also not up the creek without a paddle, if they shut your account down. Whoops, TikTok killed your account? Guess what? They killed your business as well.
You website, that you own, means you can show how fantastic your business is, without worrying that you’re SOL if your social media account gets hacked and you’re locked out. You can show the range of services or products you sell. You get to make a great first impression as it’s up to you what visitors to your site see, as what’s important to you, and to them, is what you can focus their attention on.
People don’t want to work to have to find the best solution to their needs. They don’t want to have to try and figure out what you do, if you’re a good fit, if you even provide what they want. And attention spans are short. But a great website with a fantastic design that hits the highlights and grabs their attention means you’ve got a good chance at winning their business. Or at least getting them to stop long enough to try.
Start selling online or booking clients automatically
If you sell products, how many more could you sell if your shop was open 24/7, even while you’re sleeping or taking a vacation? If you sell digital products, you don’t even have to worry about shipping them. While you can sell some products from a social media account, the buying experience generally sucks and you have no control over it. Plus, you can’t showcase all the great things you do like you can on your own website, suggest other items they might like to buy, have upsells etc.
And if you sell services, can they be booked without a consultation call? If so, how much easier would it be to have them booked automatically from your website, popped right into your calendar, without you having to always take a phone call or answer a bunch of emails? Or constantly monitor social media messages and hope they didn’t get dropped or missed? Just think of all that sweet time you’d get back. You could even take off for the day and just leave your phone at home, while your calendar just fills itself.
Creative Freedom
With your own website, as opposed to social media, you’re in control of what your visitor sees. Take a look at one of my favourite printmaker’s site. How much better does Angela Harding’s website look compared to Instagram’s website? You can see her inspiration, as you can on her Instagram feed, but it’s organized the way she wants, giving emphasis as she wants. You can also see features like her new book and her prints. Plus all her shop links are there on the side.
If you’re a creative, imagine beautiful, full screen images on your website, showing the amazing work that you do. Your latest painting, textile work, etching, dance number, drawing etc., in full resolution on a large screen. While someone might look at your social account on their computer, they can’t see anything in a large format or at high resolution. And you can control what they see first, not some algorithm.
You can showcase a particular project that you’re proud of, the latest exhibition you’re in or upcoming events you’d love to see them at. You’ve got space to get into what’s behind your work, tell your story, in a coherent and clear manner. And if you sell your work, how about not paying through the nose for fees to Etsy and the like? Or handing over half to a gallery or shop? It’s all yours when you sell through your own web shop.
Your website doesn’t have to be complicated
What do you need for your business website?
You need a great home page
An about page
Contact info
A page or two on what you do that showcases it well
A policy page
Some way to contact you
You can make it as extensive as you like, but that’s the basics. And those basics are so much a better experience for a customer than the jumble of ads and garbage on social media.
If you like to DIY things, you can do it all yourself. You need some great images, excellent copy (text that is) and an idea of what you want to communicate and to whom. Use a website builder like Squarespace (my fav) and do it from scratch, or get a template and customize it the way you’d like.
Or if you don’t have time or the skills, hire a web designer. Hello! We love making you look awesome and creating great sites that function well to connect you with your customers. Trust me, regardless of who does a website for you, that time and effort will pay off massively in growing your business.
Getting found
You need to ensure people can find you. How do you want to spend your time and money when it comes to marketing your business? You can run ads, in traditional media or social media but that can get pretty pricey for maybe not that much return. You can network, but that’s a lot of one on one time or time spent reaching out to people via electronic communication. You can get listed in directories, get some PR, show up on other people’s platforms, hope and pray the social media gods send your stuff viral. But what happens when you do get in front of somebody’s eyeballs? You still need somewhere to send them.
And the best place to send them is your website. Know what else sends people to your website? Search engines. Google is the biggie, but there’s Bing and others. There’s also ones like Pinterest, YouTube etc., where you get to determine what content shows up by putting it there yourself. Yes, those are search engines. And if you have content on your website or submitted to search engines, that shows up 24/7. That’s a lot of reaching out you don’t have to do. They’ll come to you.
And with your own website, that content is completely up to you. You can have blog posts with great articles. You can have images with searchable text. Same for videos. You can have helpful resources that people can access and maybe even downloadable ones that they’ll keep and be reminded of you every time they use them. You can have case studies, your products or services that you sell, all the copy on your website.
All of it is not only searchable, but you can use keywords (search terms) for SEO (search engine optimization) that ensure your website shows up when people are searching for what you offer. And not only is it there 24/7 but it keeps showing up, search after search. Your post on Instagram 20 minutes ago will be long forgotten, but your blog post on the same thing keeps working for you for years.
Your business website doesn’t have to cost a fortune
Are you thinking this sounds expensive? It doesn’t have to be. And how much is it worth to you to keep reaching your customers without having to sweat it? As long as you keep adding new, relevant content, on a consistent basis, search engines will want to serve up your site. That doesn’t cost anything but some time.
As for money, you can go the really cheap route, web hosting is $10 - $15 a month, a domain is $10 - $15 a year and you can get a free Wordpress template that you can customize. The next step up, in less headaches and a bit more cost, is to use a website builder that hosts the site for you, such as Squarespace (did I mention it’s my fav haha?), Wix, Showit, or Wordpress builders. That brings your hosting cost up to typically $20 - $30-ish a month. And frankly, it’s worth it to make things easier.
Your own website is minimal outlay for maximum reward, compared to spending a couple of grand a month on ads. You can do that in the short term but it’s not a sustainable strategy. While your website won’t bring you a huge amount of people immediately, over the long term, as you continue to keep things fresh on it, add good content and create a useful resource for your customers, the number of people you’ll reach will only keep growing. Without spending a fortune on it.
So hopefully, if you’ve been on the fence about it, you can see that not only is a website useful for your business, but truly essential in getting you in front of your customers and a huge help to grow your business. Without having to shake your ass on TikTok.