Why Should You Have a Website?

It’s a new year and you still don’t have a website. Or maybe you have a website but it’s not doing anything to help your business get where you want to go. What do you want to do?

Ask yourself the following questions:

Why is having a website important?

How can it help my business?

Why is having a website important?

Someone might say, “well everyone has one so I guess I should too…”

Just because everyone has a website doesn’t mean you should, too. If someone has a website just “because” that means they probably aren’t putting in the work to update it to accurately represent themselves. Having a mediocre, nonfunctional, #laaammme website probably will hurt their business more than help them.

People look at a website and see a business. I’m sure you do that, too. When you go to a website looking for a phone number, email, address etc. and can’t find it how annoying is that! When a website takes longer than 20 seconds to load, it’s the longest 20 seconds of the day. Google did a study showing mobile websites that load in 5 seconds can earn up to 2X more revenue than sites that load in 19 seconds, the industry average. If the business looks like they haven’t updated their website since 1990, don’t you automatically exit? I know I sure do.

As a society, have a higher standard of what we want to see online and that means that if a business wants to compete, they have to see the importance of a website and invest time to make it the best.

**Cheers** BE! AGGRESSIVE! BE BE! AGGRESSIVE!

No Website Means Losing Business

Not losing out on business is your biggest “why.” If you don’t have a website you are losing the opportunity to reach an audience that 1. Are looking for you but can’t find you 2. You have never met in person and 3. Want to know more about what you do/provide.

In 2016, 46 percent of U.S. small businesses still don’t have a website for their company, according to a survey by research firm Clutch.

2016 wasn’t that long ago… If you asked 10 business owners if they have a website about 5 of them would say yes. If you sell online that means you have a 50% upper hand on the competition. Yes, I know I rounded but you get the point.

Credibility

You know what you do. Your family more or less know what you do. However, a complete stranger has no clue what you do until you tell them, right? And even then, how do they know you’re legit and the real thing, not just some random that says they’re the best in the industry but literally started last week.

Having a website is the first step of giving you some credibility, but what you put on your website is more important. Make sure to include:

1. Contact information
2. Case studies
3. About page
4. History of the company
5. Services

And keep in mind what I said earlier about updating your website. If you offered a service but it was for a limited time, make sure to take it off. Moved locations? Change the address. Pretty simple things but make sure to do it.

Mirror of your business

Your business has a history, a purpose, and a “why”; consumers know your business for its uniqueness and voice, and this is what you want to portray on your website. You’ve worked hard to shape your business into what it is today, regardless if you’ve only been in business for a week or over multiple years, you deserve to be represented in the best light that fits YOU!

How can it help your business?

If you’re a business owner, you are BUSY. I understand business owners reasoning when they question why they have to invest in something that’s going to take a lot of time, effort, and maintenance that they could use for something else. Well, let me share with you a little analogy:

A website is like a tree. At first, it’s small, doesn’t really give anything back to you, and takes a lot of energy to get the results that you want. But once you decide that it’s worth the time and effort because you know your end results will be worth wild, you nurture it into the big tree that provides fruit, shade, and oxygen.

Websites are the same as trees in the sense that they grow, need maintenance, but provide so much return in the long run. As business owners, we have to remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint (even if it feels like the sprint never ends).

Here are a few ways your business can help you:

Sell Online

Buying online has doubled over the past three years and Statista has reported the shopping behaviors in the US to continue to increase. They stated that “Around 42 percent of U.S. consumers had searched and purchased products or services online, while 14 percent prefer searching online and buying in store.”

Below is a graph showing the distribution of web-influenced retail sales in the United States from 2014 to 2020, sorted by segment. In 2017, web-influenced offline retail sales were projected to amount to 1,366 billion U.S. dollars. I mean, I would be happy with just one of those billions… just saying.

Anyways, factors that play into this increase to buy items online rather than go to physical stores are reviews, social media, advice, recommendations, and discounts. Yes, selling online does take more than just throwing onto the website, but look at those projections!

Reviews that Build Trust

Reviews. Reviews. Reviews. They are like free promotion for future customers by current customers. By having a section on your website with reviews, your trustworthiness and profits will go up almost immediately. Not to mention how they help with SEO and click-through rates.

Like Forbes said, “Online reviews are kinda a big deal.”

Ta-Da

These are just a few things that make creating a website worth your wild! If you’re looking to have a website but need someone to create it for you, well you came to the right place. DigiSavvy has been creating websites and training business owners how to maintain it for over 8 years now and we know how to get your business where you’re going. Contact us and let us know where you see yourself with a website that represents you and your business.