It can be hard to decide the best route to take your business’ marketing efforts but you won’t regret making a website a priority for your business. Established business or fresh start-up, either way, our advice is the same, a website for your business can have so many benefits in the digital age where everyones online – here are a few of them.
You’re missing out on business
There’s no two ways about it, if you don’t have a website, you will be missing out on business. When looking for any product or service, the public turns to search engines to find the right website for them; and if you’re not showing for your product or service, your competitors will be winning the business you’re missing out on.
Some businesses might think “our customers aren’t internet users” and dismiss the idea of a website right off the bat. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s true your customers at the moment might not be internet users, because your online presence isn’t winning you business online yet, so you’re not seeing the benefits. But you will have a customer base online that you’re not tapping into.
Businesses that use Facebook pages, or other social channels for their online presence are experiencing a constant decline in reach due to being a crowded platform with content on the platform being confined to news feeds and groups that are updating frequently, causing posts to be hidden almost as quickly as they appear.
Your competitors have a website
Whether you decide to get a website or not, your competitors will. They’ll be winning the business that you’ll be missing out on if you don’t compete online.
Your competitors will be showing in search results for your industry gaining brand awareness, authority, and legitimacy and ultimately, beating you. A healthy business should be able to rival other businesses in their industry and join the businesses they compete against on all platforms. Businesses that don’t even try to compete face being left behind to decline.
A website looks professional
A business website adds a huge sense of legitimacy to any business. Like we said, the first place your customers will look to research is online, and finding your website along with details about how you operate will be a huge sigh of relief if they’re considering using your business.
Branding on a website shows there’s been real thought about the business and how professional and established they are.
Control the Narrative
There’s information online on just about any business for customers to find. Having a website means appearing first for your business on search engines and controlling the content you want searchers to see about your business. You get to choose the testimonials, the images, the FAQs and every other piece of content.
This gives the perfect opportunity to ask visitors to get in touch or get a quote from you – turning the site into a great marketing tool to showcase the work you do.
Gather data on users
Every visit to your website can be recorded with anonymous user data using Google Analytics. With a tracking code installed on your website, you can find out your top performing pages, how long users spend on each page, where abouts your users are accessing your website from, and much more. This can be a priceless resource in making decisions about your business both online and offline.
Other analytical tools can take this a step further too by actually recording the screen of website visitors to see exactly how they browse and navigate your website, showing clear indications of what’s working on the website and what isn’t. Information like this can help improve your website and increase the chances of a web user visiting. This is called conversion rate optimisation.
Open for business
A website can act as a huge open sign – 24/7/365 it’s always online with an email, phone number, and contact form making you always reachable.
Users don’t need to wait to hear back from you, they can find information about your products or services on the website and get an initial feel for whether you’re the right business for them.
Conclusion
A successful business should definitely use a website as an asset for their business. Branded websites are considered the “HQ” for everything related to your business and can be used for a wide range of purposes. They also often pay for themselves in the enquiries they bring in.
Looking to get online with a new website? Creative Asset can help! Get in touch with the team today.
