Why You Need a Website For Your Business
Do you feel overwhelmed and don’t know what to do with your website? Are you even hesitating if you should invest in a website? It’s tough when new businesses are popping up everywhere! To compete in today’s market, you need to stand out and you need to get yourself out there. The first step to marketing your new business is to have a website. You don’t only need a website, you need a killer website and a strong online presence. If you already have a website, use this blog as a checklist to audit your site. Here are 10 reasons why you need a website for your business and why you would want to invest in a well-designed one.
It meets your clients where they hang out
It’s your digital boutique that stays open 24/7
It builds trust and credibility
Your competitors have one
It helps your business grow
It allows you to stay in control of your brand and image
It saves you valuable time
It gets you warm leads
It belongs to you
It costs you more if you don’t have a website
1. It Meets Your Clients Where They Hang Out
93% of online experiences begin with the search engine. Without a search-optimized business website, you cannot possibly show up in front of clients. Meet your clients where they are, which is online. Be there when they’re searching for you. Without a website, your business is inaccessible to many people.
2. It’s Your Digital Boutique Stays Open 24/7
This means that even if you’re not available to answer questions and interact with your potential customers, your website will do the job for you if it is done well. It will even do the cash register for you. If you have products to sell, customers can shop at any time in the day, or night, and don’t have to wait for your store to open. If you have services to book, clients can book at any time that’s convenient for them. You’re literally making money in your sleep!
3. It Builds Trust and Credibility
Your website helps you build your know, like, and trust factor. Having a good website, just like having a good storefront, immediately boosts your credibility as a legitimate business. A website’s first impression is extremely important. You need a clean, well-organized, professionally designed, thorough, and easy-to-use website. This conveys to your potential clients that you are a reputable business. Imagine if your website is a hot mess, what message is that sending to the clients? It tells them that you’re disorganized and all over the place, which means this will probably reflect the services you provide. Your website tells your clients that they can trust you (or not). Not only do you need a website, but this is why you need a website that’s well organized and well done.
4. Your Competitors Have One
In this day and age, you need to stay relevant and competitive, so it is important that you have an online presence. If you are a baker and the baker next door has a well-designed website with a beautiful gallery of their cakes and cookies and all the information readily available to its visitors, versus you, with only a listing on Yelp. Who do you think the customer will reach out to? They will call the baker with the website because it’s a lot less work for the customer. If you don’t have a website, then you’re not your competitors’ competitors. They win. Period.
5. It Helps Your Business Grow
Having a website is a huge strategy to grow and expand your business. You’re able to reach a broader audience in a much shorter period of time. Whatever you do online and on social media, always drive traffic back to your website. Your website is the place where you can continue to expand and grow. Say you start out as a solo violinist for events. Eventually, you will add more musicians to your team. You can introduce your team on your website, letting clients know that you’re no longer solo and the different options they have for their event music. As you get busier, you can incorporate a booking system on your website to save you time on paperwork. If you’re a music composer, you can even sell your music directly on your site. There are so many other ways to grow, expand and scale with a website.
6. It Allows You to Stay In Control of Your Brand & Image
A website is like your storybook, it allows you to tell the story of your style, your ethics, your voice and so much more. If you’re a wedding planner that specializes in intimate weddings or a planner who has a strong stance on sustainable and eco-friendly weddings, this is where you tell your story. Just by looking at a picture, they found on another photographer’s website of your work, clients will not know the story behind it. That photographer will most likely not mention it unless it’s an interview dedicated to you or a blog post regarding this topic. Your website belongs to you, so you get to make it yours and paint the picture you want your potential clients to see. You get to create the image that makes you stand out from the noise the way you want to.
7. It Saves You Valuable Time
Your website can save you time by providing your site visitors some valuable information on your products and services and it’s the first step to filter out those who aren’t your ideal clients.
Having a gallery of your past work allows potential clients to see the type of work they can expect from you. If you’re not the style they’re looking for, they will not reach out to you. Your website can also communicate your price ranges to your site visitors. When they have an idea of what you charge and decide that it’s not within their budget, you will waive out lower-budget clients. Your website can also provide some commonly asked questions to your visitors so that you’re not answering the same questions over and over again. All these little things will save you so much time on client inquiries.
This goes for product-based businesses too. Your clients can purchase online so you have all your orders organized in one place. You’re not wasting time taking orders over the phone or organizing your email orders. You’re also not calling your clients for their credit card information, which to them, could be unsafe. Everything is streamlined on your e-commerce website.
8. It Gets You More Warm Leads
When I want to refer my clients to other vendors, I always send them their websites. This way, clients can know right away if the vendor can possibly be a good fit. It saves the clients time and it makes me look more professional by recommending other credible vendors. It shows the type of vendors I work with, which does have a reflection on my own work. When you refer other vendors, they will eventually want to refer clients back to you and they will share your website too. Vendor referrals are warm leads, which means it’s easier for you to book these leads.
9. It Belongs to You
You can be an expert with social media, you can get a lot of clients from Instagram or Facebook and even Linked-in and TikTok, but you don’t own those platforms. Your Instagram account can be hacked with a snap of your fingers. You lose everything overnight and there’s absolutely no way of getting any of your content back. So if you want to invest in a platform, invest in a good website. Only use social media to drive traffic back to your website. Build an email list that belongs to you so you can easily reach out to your clients even if you get banned from Instagram without warning. Of course, you also have to choose a web hosting that is reliable so your website is secured.
10. It Costs You More If You Don’t Have a Website
Do you think having a well-designed and strategic website is expensive? You know what? Not having a well-designed website is even more expensive! It will cost you cold and warm leads, customer engagements, credibility and you will have many loss opportunities.
So there you have it! 10 reasons why you need a website for your business. I hope you’re convinced that not only do you need a website to compete in today’s market, you need a well-designed website. Lastly, I will leave you with this quote from Bill Gates. “If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business.” Food for thoughts.
Is this too overwhelming for you? Do not fret! I can help you. Since I’ve rebranded my business and implemented these strategies on my own floral design website, I was able to sign bigger contracts, do less events, and had more weekends free to spend with my family. That sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Reach out to me now and let’s get started!
6 thoughts on “10 Reasons Why You Need a Website for Your Business”
I’m starting a freelance business and hopefully i can also create a website for it as neat and as pretty as yours!
Thanks Zel for your kind words! You can, as you long you have a plan and do it strategically and intentionally for your target audience. Hit me up if you need any help!
Love these tips! Thank you for sharing.
Happy you love them! Thanks for stopping by.
YES!! It makes such a difference when you have your own website to promote yourself and your business rather than dropping a link to your Instagram or facebook page!
Definitely! Make you look more legit, credible and professional.