Many clients ask us all the time if it is still worth it to have a business website. Having free marketing options today like social media, email communications, and e-newsletters has a lot of business owners thinking they can do their company advertising without the expense of building and maintaining a website.
Here are our reasons to get a website:
- Credibility: Anybody, including scammers, can start a Facebook page or Twitter account. Taking the extra steps to build a site that has a domain name and unique, quality content makes your business more credible and trustworthy to potential customers.
- Control the appearance: Everybody’s Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages look the same regarding colors and format. A website allows you to control the look and feel you want your users to experience. Digital spaces work the same way as physical real estate. Websites are houses you buy, and social media tools are apartments you rent. When you get a website, you can use whatever colors you or install or take out any features because you own the website. Whereas with social media, you can only “move in” your content, and if you are lucky, you might get small permissions to make some changes, but that’s it.
- Control your content and brand: As with having a house, you can control how and who sees your content on your website. Many social media tools use algorithms to determine who sees your content. For example, there is no guarantee your followers will see all of your posts on Facebook unless you pay for Facebook advertising. Sometimes there are so many ads for other stuff in social feeds that your content gets lost in the shuffle, and your followers miss out.
- Home-base: Websites are the center of your online marketing efforts. When people want to learn more about a business, they tend to go to a website before going to social media to find out about its services and products. Websites also allow you to collect analytics information about users, like what pages they view while visiting, as well as get contact information from them. Social media is suitable for driving traffic to your website, but social analytics can be more limited.
- Social media is fickle: Just because Twitter and Facebook are hot right now doesn’t mean they will remain so a year from now. Social media tools are always coming and going in popularity and use, and these trends can be hard to keep up with, especially if you are a small business owner who already has limited time to do marketing. While the way a website looks and is used by visitors may evolve, websites are not going away anytime soon and will continue to be a central part of your marketing plan.
A solid marketing plan is vital to your business’s growth, including a business website. A website is a long-term investment in your business. There are many ways to get a professional-looking website that still works for your budget and marketing plan, either by building one yourself or hiring a professional web designer.
Need a business website? Contact us at info(at)globalwireonline(dot)org.
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