6 Crucial Reasons Your Business Needs A Website(+ How to Create the Best One!)

If you are a small business owner you recognize that having a strong online presence can dramatically affect the success of your business. That being the case it is reported that with 30 million businesses in the U.S. only 64% of small businesses have a website. While we can think of plenty of reasons why small businesses think they don’t need a website. Let’s look at the 6 Crucial reasons your business needs a website and tips on how to create the best one.

Reason 1: It Proves Credibility

Having a website proves you have a credible business. You might be saying to yourself, “anyone can have a website so how does this prove my business is credible?” But when you stop and think about it, have you ever done business with a company that doesn’t have a website? It’s a known fact that 93% of online experiences start with a search engine and most consumers do research online before they decide to even make a purchase. Not having a website sends the wrong message to your potential clients. They may interpret it to mean that your not an expert in your industry or even worse your not a legitimate business. As a business owner, the last thing you want to do is present your business as not trustworthy or non-legitimate.

Reason 2: It’s Your Online Headquarters (a.k.a “business hub”)

You can and should create social profiles for your business but the main reason for setting up your social profiles will be to advertise and market your business’s brand. So it’s a great marketing tool but you honestly have little control over your pages on these social platforms. However, if you have your own website and it’s the” hub” of your business you have ownership and 100% control over how your business’s brand is presented. Your online visitors will learn more about your business and get a better understanding of your brand if you have a website. You control how and where you display your business’s logo, brand colors, and key messages. Also, all your online marketing promotions done on social media and Google can lead back to a landing page on your business website.

Reason 3: It’s The Best Place To Gather New Leads

If you are like most businesses you want your website to convert its traffic into leads. Having your own website gives you the flexibility to offer a lead magnet or opt-in to your visitors. A lead magnet is usually a digital product that you can offer to your customer that will help them solve their problems. In exchange for offering the visitor something, you get their email and permission to communicate with them weekly or monthly. Some great examples of lead magnet/opt-ins are the following; an ebook, a checklist, or maybe even a workbook. In addition to lead magnets, you can add interactive content like quizzes and polls or live chat to gather leads and learn more about who and why customers visit your website.

Reason 4: It’s A Significant Part of Your Online Marketing

A good business website that gives its online visitors a clear idea of what your brand is about and the types of products and services it offers can be utilized as an important part of the companies marketing strategy. For instance, if you want to promote your products and or services on Social Media you want to ensure that consumers who see the ad know where to go to get more information about your company. For Instance, when one of my clients ran a Facebook ad to reach and engage with new customers looking for pediatric dental services, she needed to make sure her clients knew where to go to schedule a dental appointment. Likewise, let’s say you want to use email marketing to stay connected to your customers, then your best choice on where you can convert customers and get them to subscribe to your weekly email would be your website.

Reason 5: It Can Help You Reach More Customers & Make More Sales

When building your website you should definitely plan to have it fully SEO optimized for search engines. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which is the process of optimizing your website to get organic traffic, or un-paid traffic from search engine results. This means your website will appear at the top of search engines. This is important because search is the #1 driver of traffic to a website beating social media by 300%. It also has the best (ROI) Return on Investment and the biggest impact on lead generation & conversions. The fact is that more and more people are using the internet as their go-to resource to purchase products and services. Not having a website that is built to sell your products or services or having no online presence will keep you from being visible to potential customers and ultimately making sales.

Reason 6: It’s Accessible Around The Clock

Your website is always accessible to customers. This means that no matter what time of day it is customers interested in your products can get access to your website and possibly purchase your products during certain times of day when you aren’t working. Do you know how they call New York the city that never sleeps? Well, your website is essentially never sleeping. Consumers can buy your products or book an appointment or register for your online course from their tablets, smartphones, or desktop with just a few clicks. If you don’t have a website then your limited to only do business during the times you physically work. Also, let’s say you want to have a business update you wanted to share with your online community and it’s time-sensitive. With a website, you can post the update at any time and not have to wait until traditional business hours.

How To Create The Best Website

The bottom line is, It’s no question that all businesses need a website, and the more strategic you are about building it the greater the chances will be at how successful it will be. So now that you know why you need a website, what do you need to consider if you want to create the best one? Here are just a few things to keep in mind:

Offer a Unique Value Proposition: A successful website that connects and converts its customers will have a clear concept and a unique value proposition.
Include Impactful Call-to-Actions: To get your target audience to convert once they have visited your website they need to know what it is that you want them to do. That is why high converting websites make use of strong calls-to-actions.
Make Sure it’s Responsive: When your website is responsive it is formatted and optimized across all devices. This means it will make your website more user-friendly and will help improve your website’s SEO. All our Custom Squarespace websites are fully responsive.
Make Lead Capture One of Your Priorities: When you provide free useful and helpful content to your visitors so you can obtain their email you get the opportunity to stay in contact with them and educate them on your business. A win, win!
Make It Clear How Visitors Can Contact You: This one is a no brainer. If your visitors don’t have a clear way to get in contact with you then you have failed at creating a good website. If you have a local in-person business then It’s best to clearly list your address and phone number at the top of the page or in the footer. If you work from a home office make your contact form easy to get to by putting a contact button at the top portion of the website. Where it won’t be missed.

Get Started On A Custom Website For Your Business

Now that you know all the important reasons why your business needs a website and the key elements you need to make the best one, it’s time to get started building one for your business. Alternatively, you can work with me. I have proven expertise in building custom Squarespace websites that focus on lead generation and online marketing. I can improve your efforts with expert strategies that will quickly outshine your competitors.