Taking your business online doesn’t need any effort. Create a social media page, and good to go.
But, it also makes it hard for potential customers to trust your business because anyone can make a page on social media and call it a business.
You can surely run a small business through social media and call it a day, but things get complicated when you want to scale.
This is where a website can build a bridge of trust and credibility between your business and potential customers.
If you’re still not convinced about starting a website this year, here are 7 reasons why your business needs a website in 2024.
7 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Website
1. Builds Trust
When your potential customers are searching for your business, they need to see more than your social media pages.
They need to see testimonials, reviews, photos, working hours, and more. While you can display most of the information on an Instagram or Facebook page; however, you don’t have control over how the information is displayed.
In a similar situation, when you have a website, it gives the impression to your customers that you’re serious about your business.
For example, would you trust Amazon.com the same way if they only sold their products through Instagram? No, right?
In the same way, building a professional website in 2024 costs money.
Thus, your customers can relate that you’ve put in the effort to build and invest in a website, which indirectly shows trust towards your brand.
2. Improve Brand Visibility
Apart from social media marketing, top-tier brands invest heavily in content marketing. Through your website’s content, you can increase your brand’s visibility on search engines like Google, Bing, Yandex, and more.
In addition, a website also helps with your social media marketing strategy. Because, once your potential customers see your ads on social media, your website is an ideal landing place for them to learn more about your brand and the products or services you offer.
Similarly, when someone searches for your brand on Google, having a website pop up with your social media channels improves brand visibility on the search page.
3. Control Your Narrative
McDonald’s is a world-renowned fast food chain, but many people call it a toy company because of its Happy Meals.
Starbucks is a coffee company, but some people consider it as a bank because it rewards its customers for adding money into the Starbucks app’s wallet.
What really matters here is how McDonald’s and Starbucks portray themselves to their consumers.
Similarly, having a website helps you control your brand’s narrative. It helps you portray what you really are to your potential customers unless you’re into a money laundering business.
Thus, if you’re an interior designer who focuses extensively on kitchen remodeling, then your website helps you set a similar narrative.
4. Connect With Target Audience
It’s easy to think that your business is useful for everyone. But that’s where most businesses fail.
Finding your target audience is the key to unlocking the doors to success for your brand or company.
For example, Mcdonald’s and Starbucks, as mentioned above, both serve coffee and food, but their target audience are entirely different.
Starbucks focuses on customers who:
- Love to have a go-to coffee cup on their way to work
- Offer a peaceful space for customers to drink coffee
On the other hand, McDonald’s focuses on:
- Budget-conscious consumers who want a cheap lunch
- Children, thanks to its Happy Meal service
Both of these companies extensively focus on their target audience to make them a loyal fan of their brand.
Similarly, when you have a target audience in mind, you can use your website to cater specifically to them.
For example, if you own a multi-cuisine restaurant, you can create numerous pages on your website and focus on each cuisine on a single page.
Thus, for customers who prefer oriental food and check more informational about oriental food items on the menu. The same can be done with customers who prefer Continental, Indian, Mexican food, etc.
5. Showcase Your Product/Service
Imagine Apple’s website without the iPhone or Rayban’s website without its aviators.
The main aim of a website is for companies to showcase their products or services.
Thus, if you’re a graphic designer who also happens to sell courses about learning graphic designing. In that case, you can promote your graphic designing service and sell courses on your website at the same time.
Similarly, if you sell smokeless candles, then your website is a great way to focus on your product and help your customers learn more about it.
6. SEO Traffic
SEO is the best way to convert readers into customers for cheap.
That’s why big brands invest heavily in content marketing to leverage SEO.
It’s because once you write an evergreen piece of content, it can bring in readers from search engines for years to come. Once a reader lands on your website, you can use different ways to turn that reader into a customer.
Using the same principle, you can write hundreds of articles targeting the pain points of your target customers. This way, when a user searches for the solution on Google, they can land on your website, and you can sell your product or service as a solution.
7. Display Social Proof
The best form of marketing is word-of-mouth marketing. But, in an online world, it’s not possible when you’re targeting clients from all over the country. This is where, social proof comes into place.
Social proof is what makes products like the Stanley Cup turned into a craze among consumers.
It’s because people are wired to buy things that others are buying and who also recommend it.
Social proof is what makes a restaurant with 4-star ratings from thousands of customers more desirable than a restaurant with 5-star ratings from just one customer.
If your brand has credible social proof, you can proudly display it on your website. Social proofs can be shown on a website through different formats like:
- Customer testimonials (through text or videos)
- Embedding customer reviews from the GMB page
- Social media following
- Adding client logos
- Showcasing case studies
- Adding before and after photos
- Press coverage
- Podcast interviews
There are numerous other ways you can add social proofs on your website apart from the ones shown above.
It is what makes potential clients serious about your brand or business and helps them take the final call.
Conclusion
I hope this article helped you convince you why your business needs a website in 2024. And not just in 2024; your business needed a website yesterday and also for the years to come.
There’s a reason why social media profiles offer an upfront placement for you to add your website’s link. It’s because a website tells more about your brand than what customers see on the social media page.