Website Series: Why do I need a website?
Why do I need a website? This is a great question and one that I see discussed a lot amongst small businesses. I’ll start with the questions and comments that I see often.
No one goes to my website, why do I need to have one?
I have enough business from word of mouth.
It costs too much to have a site designed for our business.
I have a Facebook page, that’s enough.
I need to spend too much time updating the website.
It’s difficult to update the website.
The interesting part is that I really feel for the owners and the underlying issue these comments bring to light. A small businesses website might only have tens of visitors a week. And it’s true, a business might have a lot of business from word of mouth. And yes, websites have traditionally cost a lot of money to setup and then they are hard to keep updated. These are valid concerns but let’s break them down by the standards of 2023.
I think we are jaded by the early 2000s to late mid 2010’s concept of websites. Big businesses have elaborate multi-page websites with seemingly lots of content. Web developers pushed this concept that you needed a lot of content to keep visitors clicking on your page, finding more information and sharing the website with friends. That’s just silly for most small businesses. It is also silly by today’s standards. Unless you are a multi-billion dollar corporation with 50 divisions, the simpler the website the better.
The true purpose of having a website is to promote your business. That can mean different things for different businesses and for many local and small businesses it simply means the following:
Have an online presence to showcase your work and let people know your company exists
Act as an online business card. This goes hand-in-hand with word of mount advertising. When someone on your town’s Facebook page asks for a contractor recommendation you want past clients to share your name and for a potential new client to easily be able to find your business.
Create legitimacy for your business. Anyone can create a Facebook page and call themselves a “business”. The extra effort of having a website adds credibility and builds trust with your customers.
Having consistent information between Facebook pages, Google results, and your website.
Your potential customers are going to do a Google search for your business to find contact information, examples of your work, and information about your services. You should be providing them with an easy access route to your phone number, email, address, etc. Make it easy for potential customers to become customers. Facebook plays into this as well.
You want current clients sharing your business name, website, contact info, and even Facebook page with other people. You want reduce the friction when people share your business. You want your business to be easily searchable/clickable in any platform and any scenario. If someone on Facebook asks for a recommendation for X-business, you want the Facebook page to be shared or searched so that it can help draw that customer to your business. If two neighbors are talking outside their houses, you want your client to share the business name or website with their neighbor. When that person searches you, your website will pop up. Each part of the web presence strategy compliments the other. The website has links to the Facebook page and Facebook has links to the website. Then the potential customer has the option to see one or both and be drawn into calling your business.
Having a website doesn’t have to be expensive and it doesn’t have to be hard to maintain. Here at All The Technology our philosophy is simplicity. We design websites on platforms that do not need a lot of maintenance, they don’t cost a lot to up-keep, and they are easy for clients to update.