Reasons Why Businesses Still Need A Website

In the past 10 years, we have seen a huge change in the way that people use the internet. The acceptance and adoption of Social Media and website owners fighting for a top spot on search engines. There is now a never-ending demand for faster internet and video content by users around the world. The demand from businesses for consumer engagement on social media has grown to unprecedented levels. There is also an expectation that you will give quick response times when someone contacts you through your website. This leaves business owners asked the question to website builders “What are the reasons why businesses still need a website”.

Customers Need A Consistent Message

One thing that any social media platform and search engine love to see is consistency in the message you are delivering to your consumers. At the same time, they also expect that the content you post unique content, whether it be on social media or your website. People have the misconception that they can bypass this by posting the same message across platforms (social media, blogs, etc). The fact is that doing a straight copy and paste doesn’t across each platform doesn’t work out well. Changing the text without changing the message is the key. Now, this may be something that seems very easy to say from an article standpoint but it is harder for most than you may think.

The better way to handle this consistent message is to have a website, preferably one that has blogging capability attached to it. Creating a blog post will then enable you to deliver new content to everyone who visits your site. You can then post a link back to your blog post via your social media accounts.

Creating Content To Give Customers A Reason To Return To Your Site

It is true that there are a lot of media outlets out there working in specific niches. Just like you, they need a source where they can get information to create new content for their readers. This same content is also reviewed by your customers and potential customers. While there are dedicated blogging platforms like Medium and WordPress.com or even Blogspot in the market place your business profile and the authority of your brand will increase if you did this on your own website.

Give Your Business Its Own Piece Of Online Real Estate So It Can Make A Statement

The one thing a website will do that no social media platform can give your business its own space. It is a piece of online real estate where your business can be whatever it likes, offer whatever it likes. It also is one place where you cannot be dictated to by social media rules and policies. This is important as it can mean the difference between your business having a real identity or not. If you think that websites are dead or are not far off being dead, you are sadly mistaken. They will be around for a long time to come. In fact, based on history, they will be around when the traditional retail fronts as we know them are gone.

Give your brand a platform that you control, don’t let styles, trends, and other so-called demands drive how your business appears to people. Believe it or not, branding is one thing people relate to and operating under your own business brand comes with the element of trust. This is one commodity that you cannot survive without in business. Knowing what relationships people have with colors, shapes, and symbols is powerful and it translates to whether your business will sell or not.

It Can Help You Reduce Ongoing Costs

Untold numbers of startup businesses have started off on websites like eBay, Alibaba, Amazon and alike. Just like any business that starts there are ongoing costs that are just a part of doing business. The key things that cost businesses greatly are the cost of transaction fee’s from payment gateways, freighting companies and of course advertising platforms. This is especially true for businesses selling physical products through websites. On top of these often hideous fees, there are offline costs as well. These costs chew into profit lines just as much as competitors do as they come to the market. Businesses then have to overcome these costs by reducing them or removing them. The latter option is better because it is a logical way to save the business and return it to a more profitable state.

So What Realistically Can You Save As A Result Of Setting Up Your Own Website In This Scenario?

Well initially it will not be much at all, but, if you are patient and give it time. The results can be very impressive. For example, if you look at eBay, it is a sliding scale. It starts from around 8.75% and goes up from there with different sale price brackets. If you said the average product sale price was $1,000 then you will pay $100 per sale. You can have anywhere up to 5% in payment gateway fees on top of that. Traditionally retail companies make low-profit margins and this translates to needing to sell more products. If you sold 30 of these products per month with that $100 per sale fee then you have just lost $3,000.

Let’s say that you wanted your e-commerce website built correctly and you want it to carry out some pretty cool things like feed Google Merchant Centre or something. The cost to build a site like this would more than likely have a starting cost of $5,000-$10,000. As you can quickly work out this means that you will have your own website paid off after 4 months by no longer advertising through eBay.

The ongoing savings mean that you can then use that same budget to advertise and promote your website. When you look at $3,000 per month in this example it does work out to be a very good internet marketing budget. From a paid ad standpoint it is roughly $100 per day advertising budget. This is a budget that a lot of small businesses don’t have but yours would.

Does This Mean That Your Business Should Have Its Own Website?

Looking at the 4 points mentioned above alone. There is no reason why you wouldn’t look at having your own website. In fact, these reasons alone show you why they should. While it is not always the best way to go initially, there will be a point in time where it is. Our team at Suncoast Web Solutions can help you work out when that right time is.