Every single business needs a website. I meet a lot of small business owners in my travels, frequently talking to people that own or operate businesses with only one or two employees.
They also do not have websites.
I hear a lot of justification for this, like “no one uses the search engines anymore, everyone uses social media” or “I have enough work already, I don’t need a website right now.”
The thing is that every single business of any kind needs a website, no matter how you attract customers, how much more work you want to take on, or how big you plan to grow.
There are many reasons for this, including;
- Legitimacy
It doesn’t matter how you attract clients. People look for websites for legitimacy. One of the websites we made here at Great Leap Studios was a site for someone that operates a permanent makeup service. They get pretty much all of their customers through social media.
But as soon as they put a website up – even though they did not put the website anywhere (meaning, it wasn’t even on their social media accounts), and they did not market it, they started getting contacted through their website. Why? Because people would see their social media account and try to find their website to see if they could be trusted.
Websites add legitimacy in a way that helps convert customers better.
- Time
Maybe you’re not ready to grow or market right now. But maybe you want to market yourself in a year or two. The challenge here is that a new website is always harder to market than one that has been online for a while. Google takes “time” into account when deciding how to rank someone in search engines, and so getting a website now lays that groundwork so that if you market in the future, you’re ready.
- Missing Opportunities
Similarly – though this might be a little too technical – online marketing benefits from something called backlink. We’ve talked about this before and are not going to rehash it all here, but backlinking is when other websites online link to your website. Search engines algorithms love this, but it’s also one of the most difficult things to obtain legitimately.
Now, let’s say you do work for someone and they’re so happy, they want to feature you on their blog. Or you’re contacted by a newspaper that wants to interview you and provide a link to your website. The very last thing you ever want to say is “I don’t’ have a website.” That’s because these links are like gold, and if you don’t have a website, you could be losing out on backlinks that can completely transform your business for the better.
What Are You Missing?
Lastly, I often tell people that they have no idea how much business they’re losing because they don’t have a website. It’s not always about getting more. It’s about also making sure that the business that is referred to you or the people you meet feel like they should call.
Say you own a lawn care company, and one of your customers recommends you to their neighbor. The neighbor Googles you and finds nothing. Chances are they won’t call. You’ll never know that you had that referral, and you’ll never know you lost the business. A nice website ensures that you are more likely to convert.
So yes, every single business needs a website. Even if you’re not trying to grow now, even if you’re not planning on marketing, every single company needs at least a website to make sure that potential customers can find them and know they exist.
