If you don't know why your business needs a website and you are asking these questions, “Why should I have a website?” How will it help my business? Well, we're not surprised.
With so many marketplaces, platforms, social media, and business idea sharing apps at your fingertips, it's quite tempting to believe you do not need a website.
But if you decide to run your business without a website, you are missing out on a lot of opportunities.
After reading this article, we will help you move from the question, “Why should my business have a website?” to “I need a website for my business.”
Read on to find out why having a website is so important for your business.
Why Your Business Needs a Website
Perhaps you need to be convinced that having a website is necessary for a successful business, or you already know this and are just checking the facts to be sure before you get a website for your business.
In any case, we have highlighted eight convincing answers to the question, “Why do I need a website?”
1. You can attract new customers.
Gone are the days when your small business was discovered by word of mouth or by a number in the phone book.
Don't know what a phone book is? It doesn't matter—thanks to websites, companies can be found by anyone, anywhere, at any time.
Thanks to search engines, even small business owners can achieve global visibility.
Here is how your website can help attract new customers to your business:
Your site can be found using organic search.
Your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts can pay off through consistency and proper use of keywords.
SEO helps your website appear in search engine results. The better your website is optimized, the more visible your business will become.
This is a great and cost-effective way to make yourself known to potential customers. Check out our guide on how to get free traffic to your website.
Websites help advertise your location.
If your company has an offline location such as a store or office, you need it to show up in search engines. This way, potential clients will be able to find you.
Your website is not just a map of your company but also one of the best places to showcase what's going on there.
It's part of your sales funnel.
If you're doing social media marketing or paying for display ads, you'll need a website to keep potential customers interested in your business.
Think about how you interact with other businesses before making a purchase or making an inquiry. Wouldn’t you want to know more about such businesses first?
2. You will gain trust.
Another important reason why you need a website for your business is to gain the trust it deserves.
As an owner, you know you've done a great job, but you need to make sure everyone else understands that too. Your website will help in this regard.
Aside from the fact that you are in complete control of how your business website looks, having an online presence makes you more authoritative:
Your competitors have websites.
Small businesses often have to work hard to access information. Regardless of the niche, you will certainly have competitors.
To keep your products or services in the public eye, you can create a website that will stand out and show up in the search engine results.
Even if your business has a beautiful store or a base of loyal customers, without a website, you will give your competitors an advantage over your business.
Your website is the perfect place for reviews.
People will talk about your business whether you have a website or not. But one of the best ways to maximize the advantages of reviews is to put them on your site.
By using your website as a place for potential customers or customers to read testimonials, you will increase the credibility of your company.
In addition, it will require you to be responsible. If you make customer reviews a feature of the site, you should always strive to provide better services.
3. You can build a brand
If you have multiple active social media profiles, you might be wondering, “Why do I need a website to grow my brand?”
It all depends on your goals. While social media channels can make your brand recognizable, a website will make it last longer.
Having a website for your small business puts you in control of how things look, feel, and sound for your customers.
This is why you need a website to build a brand:
You design on your terms.
Whether you're hiring a web designer or building your website yourself, every design element can be tailored to your business needs, from color schemes to typography.
Consistency is key when building a brand, and having a customized website will help your business stand out.
Your website is the home of your products.
With online marketplaces, retailers can easily ask, “Why do I need a website for my business when I can sell products somewhere else?”
Well, your business website is where you can really showcase your products. On any other site, you will have to work hard to stand out from other companies.
By using high-quality web design to sell products, you can create a recognizable brand for your own e-commerce website.
Your website helps in developing the tone of voice for your business.
Corporate identity includes not only visual elements, but also how you talk to your customers. How you greet them when they appear on the site and how you describe your products or services.
Connecting with people is important for small businesses, and the easiest way to do this online is to create a site whose text you control.
4. Your website will help you work with clients.
Growth is great and scaling is incredible, but let's face it, the life of a business owner is endlessly busy; wouldn't it be nice to reduce your workload?
Sites can help. Instead of spending all day solving customer questions and concerns, your website can be the first place they turn to.
Make your site as accessible as possible to people, and you will have more time for other business tasks.
Here's what we mean:
You can customize the contact page.
Your contact information doesn't even have to be on a separate page. If you're using a one-page website, just make room for it in your design.
To give people the opportunity to ask any question, you can either create a contact form or just provide an email address. It will save them a phone call.
You can also set up a chatbot. AI is the future, and chatbots these days are doing a pretty good job of solving even urgent problems.
You can anticipate problems.
High-quality text, smart chatbots, and detailed reviews will help you avoid problems in the first place.
The more information your customers see before they buy, the better. Think about how much information you can provide about your products or services on your website.
As a small business owner, you want to avoid costly mistakes. A quality website should solve most problems before they even arise.
5. You can experiment.
Having a website for a small business undoubtedly has many practical benefits. On top of all this, your site can be a useful source of information.
If you are very interested in the buying habits of customers, then you need a website. There is so much to learn about the people who patronize your business.
In addition to all the analytics your domain name provides, we can think of a few more ways to experiment:
Online Exclusive
Do you have a strange new product and you are not sure if it will hit the market? You can try it out on your site first.
Many e-commerce sites have exclusive online deals.
Depending on your business model, you may be able to avoid ordering or stockpiling by testing online-only products.
Marketing Strategies
Marketing is a continuous experiment. You can A/B test different pages, use alternative call-to-action buttons in your emails, try out banners and pop-ups—the list is endless.
Your website is a great resource for testing new marketing strategies. It can be relatively inexpensive and easy to change.
Web Design Benefits
You can easily collaborate with web designers or website builders to improve the layout of your site. You can do so many things !
Want to add a slider feature to your landing page? Do it. Do you think people will like animation? Add a little.
We're not suggesting you change your site every week, but web design is a fluid thing. If you want to try out new features, there are no limits.
6. Your website is your marketing tool
The only traffic people care about is website traffic. When the site becomes part of your marketing plan, you will begin to attract more visitors to your business.
Just for a moment, imagine that your customer is going on a journey. To help them move from start to finish, your marketing plan should make it easy to move them from one channel to another. Without a website, it will be difficult for the customer to go further.
You will become multi-channel.
Before you start thinking that your client might take a shortcut, we'll tell you what they're missing out on.
You might think that “multi-channel” sounds too serious for a small business website. But really, it's a simple concept.
Multi-channel companies offer customers a convenient and easy journey at every stage. They buy in a store or on mobile devices: everything is easy and simple.
You will increase your retention rate
Websites are a great place for clients to stay and wander around. To help delay them, you can add a lot of features to your website design.
We're talking about a wishlist page, a newsletter signup form, and maybe even a blog that links to your site.
As long as you offer user-friendly services, these site variations will maximize customer engagement and retention. This is a very important reason why a business needs a website.
7. You are in business 24/7
We all need to take holidays. But not on the Internet—there are no weekends on the Internet. This is one of the main reasons why your business needs a website.
If we haven't convinced you with all of our practical advice, then perhaps you'll be bribed by the fact that you can do business every day with minimal effort.
You still sleep 8 hours and your website does all the work. This is why there is so much to say about your online presence:
Your customer base is global.
Or at least it could be. If you want to offer your products or services in different time zones, you can do so using your website.
Imagine you're in Abuja and someone in New York wants to buy your product. Entering the global market is easy and exciting.
Contact information around the clock.
What if a potential customer wakes up at 3 a.m. with a question about your product or service? Should they have to wait till morning to call you just to get the information they need?
A website easily solves this problem. Instead of waiting till morning to dial your number, they can just go to your website and search for an answer, use your contact form, or get an email address from your contact page.
You can focus on other tasks.
You are probably very busy. As a business owner, you often have to complete many different tasks, and sometimes that means you don't interact with customers during the day.
This is where your website really proves its worth. Your site can take the load on the days when you just can't get into the office or store.
8. Why not? Getting a website is easier than you think.
Having a website is almost ridiculously easy. Not just a website: beautiful, SEO optimized, memorable. So if you're thinking about it, just do it.
If you have big plans and a big budget, you have plenty of options. If your plans are modest and your budget is small, you still have a lot of options.
It turns out I need a website. How can I get a website for my business?
Great news! You are ready to create a website! We'll help you get started building your website.
To get started, you'll need a few things:
- Domain name
- Website hosting
- Security
- Interface-Your website design
- E-commerce functionality if you sell products.
If you decide that you need all of the above, there are 3 options:
- Hire a web designer and/or developer to build your website from scratch.
- Hire a web designer and/or developer to build your website using WordPress.
- Build your website yourself using a Website Builder
Hire a web designer and/or developer to build your website from scratch
You can hire talented people to build your website from scratch. This option is suitable for companies with purchasing power, since the cost can reach several millions of Naira.
If you work with web designers and developers, they will write the code, design the interface, and maintain your site.
They usually set up your site with a hosting company, or make recommendations if you choose to do it yourself.
Make sure you're ready for the project: hiring a web designer or developer to build a custom website from scratch can take several weeks.
Hire a web designer and/or developer to build your website using WordPress.
WordPress, an excellent content management system (CMS), is behind the vast majority of websites in the world.
WordPress is an excellent choice where building from scratch is not feasible due to budget and time constraint. Plus, gives you a lot of content management options.
WordPress has tens of thousands of plugins that allow you to fill your site with features.
You can end up spending a lot of time and money on your WordPress site, depending on how feature-rich it needs to be.
Recommended: Website Designer : What to Look For When Hiring One
Website builder
If you have a limited budget and want to plan your expenses, this option is for you. Website building platforms offer monthly or yearly plans that usually start at $10.
All programming is done for you, and your site will be hosted and secured. You'll get plenty of professionally designed templates that you can customize to fit your brand.
Website builders provide you with SSL certificates and SEO optimized websites as standard.
With website builders, you can create and launch your website in a day.
If you decide to hire a web designer and/or web developer to build your website, Acken Technologies has skilled web designers and web developers that can create your website from scratch as well as using WordPress.
Click Here to get started.
Conclusion
After reading all these reasons why your business needs a website, we do hope you are convinced enough to make the move to boost your business by getting a website for your business.