Running your own business is no easy task, and your to-do list is guaranteed to never end. This said you shouldn’t use this as an excuse to take shortcuts when it comes to having online visibility. Beginning with your website, it’s vital to position yourself online with a strong, professional destination that gives customers the impression you mean business and the motivation to want to engage more with your business
1. First Impressions Count
Let’s face it – we live in a world where people Google before they shop, visit online review sites like Yelp before they buy and “check in” via Facebook as they go about their days. Because of this, you want your first impression to be the best it can be.
2. No Website Means Losing Business
By now it’s clear that if you don’t have a website, you’re missing out on opportunities for customers to identify who you are and if they want to spend money with you. This said, if you have a bad website it is better to have no website. While no website equals missed opportunities, a bad website can actually be worse since it literally makes your business look bad.
If you can’t proudly promote the website you have currently live and available for the world to see online, take it down. A bad website is far worse than no website – but let’s be clear… both are bad for business.
However, having a professional, polished-looking website that functions easily and offers customers easy navigation, strong photo images, professional quality content and an overall experience that engages them enough for them to want to do business with you is key.
3. Importance of a Website for Digital Marketing of a Local Business
This one is for those who’d always say, “But I sell donuts, why do I need a website?”
The answer is, “You need a website because people will Google the “best donuts” in their area and if you do not have a website, you will lose a significant number of local customers.”
As per statistics, over 80% of internet users use it through their smartphones and from the nearest hospital to the shopping mall to diners, they Google them all.
4. Importance of a Website for Local SEO
Yes, I know:
Technically speaking Google My Business is a part of local SEO, but since it is too important and yet there is a lot more to local SEO, I decided to talk about both of them separately.
So you must be wondering what is Local SEO apart from Google My Business, and why do I need a website for Local SEO?
For local SEO, you need a website because Google ranks web pages, not businesses. It is just as simple as this. Except you decide that in an age where people Google before they dine or before they buy anything, you want to go down with zero presence online.
5. It helps to Establish a Relationship with Clients
Businesses that do not go beyond selling and do not establish a relationship between themselves and their clients always lose the race to the companies that build a better relationship with their customers.
What could it be? It can be a mutual set of skills or hobbies and workshops around them! It can also be educating the clients and customers about the product or service. And how can you do it best but with a website? The textual, visual, or audio-visual content on a website can educate your clients and let them know that you are the authority on the subject matter.
This leads to an ever-growing trust in their expertise, which then leads to conversions. Do, you still wonder what is the purpose of a website? If yes, then keep reading.
6. Website is more important for Sales
Everyone wants to make more money than what they’re making today. It is a matter of fact. Well:
If you have a business, online or offline, but you do not have a website so far, you can make more money by simply having a website.
How?
Let me explain. Websites are what you need to rock on Google My Business and to gather a big and then huge crowd via Google and other search engines.
Yes. Your customers are searching for you, and you are missing out on them by not having a website.
7. Importance of a website for Digital Marketing
We’re not living in pre-2000 anymore. And the world that we’re living in has gone digital long before 2000.
Without going digital and getting your hands dirty in digital marketing and presence practices, you cannot spread the word about your brand just as effectively as you can with a website.
Think about it:
You have your business Facebook page, and perhaps a LinkedIn page and pages on one or two more social media handles just to do some marketing, but you have not laid down the foundation.
Your own business website.
Benefits of having a business website are unlimited, and your social media handles are useless if you cannot channelize that traffic to a website from where they will get more information, and then they will buy.
8. A Website is vital for Credibility
Yes, you need a website and people who deal in a certain field and have their own website, are considered more credible than those who do not have a base of operations.
9. Important for marketing
If you want potential clients to convert to actual clients, having a website where they will get directed is important, your website is essentially the core of your overall marketing strategy.
10. Keeps customers informed
If there’s constant change taking place within your business – new products you’re launching, promotions or specials you’re offering or company-related updates you need to inform clients of, your website will help keep people in the loop.