Why Does My Small Business Need a Website?

According to research, only 51% of small and individual businesses have websites even though 97% of consumers purchase online by searching for relevant products and services.

From the above statistics, it is evident that your online presence can make or break your small business.

It is worth mentioning that simply having a website is not enough. You should make sure your site has all the essential elements of successful websites such as responsiveness, usefulness, interactivity, and well thought out design.  All these elements are necessary to make your business stand out.

Now let's look at some of the reasons why businesses of any size, but especially small businesses, need a website and how it can substantialize and grow your business.

Find Genuinely Interested Customers

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a great technique to bring customers interested in your products or services to your website. A solid online presence is possible only when you have an excellent website, and you make use of onsite SEO techniques, and submit your site to Google and Bing search engines.  There is also much to be done once your website is finished. You can view our article about this, I Have a Website for My Small Business, Now What? for tips on what you should be doing after your website is online.

Having a search engine optimized website can give small businesses the ability to stand on equal ground with larger companies and to get a fair share of the market. Moreover, it is a cost-effective way of marketing as it is using your website content for you. The more unique and informative information you provide as content on your site, the better your chances of being found in search. The effects of this are often exponential, which is why it can be better than paying for clicks with online ads.

More than 50% of the small businesses in the US do not have websites and thus will lose out on any potential online sales and referrals. However, with a website, you are already ahead of the game and have the opportunity to bring in new customers who are searching for products and services relevant to your business.

A Website Helps You to Build Credibility as a Small Business

In this modern era of technological advancement, simply being on social media platforms is not enough for a small business to meet its online goals.  Often social media accounts are harder to find on search engines as compared to a traditional website, and sometimes it can even be challenging to find your business inside the social media platform’s searches. So instead, you must prove yourself more credible by linking your social media game with your website.

Maintaining your online presence only on a social media platform limits you, because a lot of times, your site will be able to do more custom tasks than a social media page will allow you to do. For example, offering advanced forms that can allow for booking or conditional responses.  By having a successful website linked with your social media, you will start to see a synergistic effect that provides customers with an easier way to approach you and work with your business on your terms.

Hiring a designer will free up your time to work on your business instead of learning the proper techniques to design your site and get it listed in search results. The right design company not only increases the value of your website but also enhances your credibility and will allow you the freedom to grow your business and engage with your customers and your community.

Educate Your Customers About Your Products & Services

Your website serves as an all-in-one platform where your current customers and potential new ones can find helpful content about your products and services. Moreover, they can enhance their overall knowledge about your business and what it stands for.

If you include a blog page on your website, you can post detailed educational information about your niche business.  You don’t have to limit yourself to just offering articles on your blog.  You can also include infographics, white papers, videos, podcasts, e-books, and more.  Your content offering is limitless, and your customers can even interact with your content and create an online community or forum.

Your content can also rank up on search engine results pages (SERPs). Your overall page rankings will increase if you focus on creating unique, engaging, and valuable information that is specific to your target audience.

In this way, more and more people will come to know your business and your knowledge of your industry and expect that you will be providing high-quality services. Also, the better the quality of your content, the better your business will be perceived.  As a result, this cost-effective content marketing solution increases your conversion rates without having to pay for each ad and click.  Creating killer content is the key to success in this regard.

Greater Number of Potential Customers & Opportunities

The ultimate goal of every business website is to increase revenue and generate more sales. Instead of only working with local customers if you can provide online services to those outside of your locality that makes your potential customer base huge.

A local business can become a national or even a global company by selling its goods and services online.  By creating a website, you will have a chance to gain more business opportunities and get in touch with a more significant number of potential customers. This point can be further strengthened by the fact that more than 81% of the small and individual businesses of the US agree that having a website has helped them grow their revenues considerably compared to businesses with offline marketing efforts.

Adversely, having a website is also a great benefit to your local sales because people who don’t know about your business can find it in local search results.  For example, when one searches for “Dog Groomers Near Me,” if you have appropriately listed your website online for local SEO results, your site could come up at the top of results just by being close to that person’s physical location.  Local SEO, when done right, will make it easy for people to find your business even if you don’t list a physical location online.

Having a website for your business will expand your business’s reach beyond its physical location.  Your business still operates from a single location, but more people (investors, manufacturers, consumers) become aware of your business and can reach out to you when needed.  You can even target your website to perform well in multiple locations without having formal business addresses in those areas, or you can target a service area that applies to how far you will travel to work with a customer.

A Website Is Crucial During the Pandemic

It is sad to think about, but whether it's a pandemic or any other global event that can restrict people’s physical activities, a website becomes the primary source to reach out to customers. Small businesses without websites will miss out on most opportunities during the pandemic and will be considered outdated.  We are in an unprecedented time, but we are all making do the best we can.  If your small business is struggling and doesn’t have an effective website or online strategy, please reach out to Prime Encode for help. They care about small business owners and will do everything they can to help you within their skillset.

Pro Tip!

Promoting your website on social media can bring more interested customers to your website than you might think.  Take advantage of the power your website has to convert users into customers while funneling people in from promoting your business on social media at low or no cost to you.

You Need Professional Services to Create, Design & Rank Your Website

Whether you are a local small business owner or have a large business setup, you need to seek the help of professional website designers in your local area.  Having a professional website is crucial if you want to attract, convert, and retain clients. In addition, it will give you a competitive edge over those who built their website which is not designed or optimized well, or those that have no website or online presence at all.

At Prime Encode, you can get professional services for business including Logo and Graphic Design, Printing Services, Web Design, and Web Hosting. They are based near Lake Ontario in Olcott, New York and they love working with local businesses like them.