As a small business owner, or someone who is thinking of starting a new business, you may be thinking: Why do I need to have a website? Can’t I just function over Instagram or Facebook? Isn’t that the easier and cheaper option?
Yes, it definitely is easier and cheaper. However, by limiting yourself to only Social Media, you are missing out on numerous opportunities to grow your business, attract new customers, and establish credibility.
A website makes you seem more professional
having a website gives you a sense of credibility that an Instagram profile never can. 84% of today’s consumers think that a website makes your business more credible. Additionally, when you host a website online, you can create a branded email address with your business’s name that allows you to respond to your customers more professionally.
You can attract new Customers from Google
Social media is great when it comes to attracting customers through paid advertisements or through following people and hoping some of them notice you. But with a website, you can unlock a whole range of new customers through Google’s search engine if you work well on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The concepts are simple to understand and implement, and if you work on them properly, you can rank high on Google and attract more website traffic.
A website is no longer intimidating or expensive to create and manage
It would be understandable to shy away from having a website if we still lived in the days where you needed a programmer or expert to create and sustain your website for you. But with today’s technologies, you can easily use website builders such as WordPress and Wix to create attractive and mobile-friendly websites without any prior coding knowledge.
Additionally, you can find several web hosting plans online ranging in prices and features according to your needs. Lynx Server offers low-cost hosting plans tailored to the needs of small business owners.
You can integrate Google analytics with your website
A sure way to keep your customers happy and loyal is to understand their behaviors and attitudes toward your business. This can be done through your website by integrating Google analytics which unlocks metrics such as visits, clicks, duration of stay, and more. These can help you understand what your top-performing content is so you can learn from it and what your customers dislike and how you can fix it.