Best Reasons to Create a Website for Your Business Now

Here’s a question: why do you need to create a website for your business? The Internet is the best place to market your business. It can also help you connect with potential customers. And a website is one of the best marketing platforms online. 

This blog post lists the seven biggest reasons you need to have a website. These tips are especially helpful if you’re engaged in e-commerce or want to sell yourself as a brand on the Internet.

What Is a Website?

A website is a collection of files that, when served by a web server in the right order to the right visitor using the right browser, will create an interactive experience for that person. Those files can be static, like photos or PDF documents. But in the vast majority of cases, they are written in a programming language that runs on a computer somewhere.

These files, or the program that generates them, are referred to as the server-side of the website. They cannot be interacted with by a visitor directly and must be served up for you to see a page.

The other half of a website is everything that happens inside your browser when it loads a webpage. These bits can’t be easily captured and saved into static files. The systems generate on the fly every time someone visits your site using their own particular set of browsers’ capabilities.

This is a lot harder to control. But it also allows for more complex user experiences that can be tailored to the person who is visiting.

From a business perspective, creating a website for your business gives you an address on the Internet. And like an address, it should be easy to understand why someone would want to go there. It’s a simple concept, and most entrepreneurs are aware of that already.

Why Create a Website for Business?

Having a website has many advantages: 

1. Websites Get People to Buy Your Products and Services

The success of a website is measured by the number of visitors it receives. The more visitors to your site, the higher your success. So how do you get customers?

The answer is simple:

• You build a website. 
• Then you tailor the content of the website based on the motivations or desires of your target customers or audience. 

Your website must provide customers with a feeling of fulfillment and value. What your customer wants may be very different from what you think they need.

The motivation to buy comes in many forms such as:

• Desire for new gadgetry or trendiness (the latest thing)
• Desire to save money on one item by buying it in bulk, used, refurbished, or wholesale (economy)
• The satisfaction of knowing that they have purchased a quality product that will last (quality)
• The need to impress their friends and loved ones (status). Having the newest, most expensive model is a status symbol.
• Desire to make life easier (convenience)
• To save time, by doing things faster or having someone do jobs for them they don’t want to do themselves (save or time)
• To gain admiration from others who will be impressed by the “stuff” you now own (social proof). People purchase products because of what other people think about them. This can be seen on TV with commercials showing how great the product makes you look when applied.

How Your Website Should Work

Websites should not try to appeal to all motivations at once. Rather, they should present their products to one motivation at a time. Let’s take the example of someone wanting to buy a new TV for their bedroom. Their reasons for checking your website could be:

• Saving money by buying used or refurbished (economy)
• Purchasing a quality, stylish set that will last and is built with excellent electronics (quality)
• Having something better than what the neighbors have (status)
• Buying a small size so it can fit in my room easily without taking up much space (convenience)
• Owning something that doesn’t require the buyer to change any wires since it’s going into an existing wall socket (save or time)
• Wanting to impress friends by showing that I have the “best” TV in town (social proof)

There are several reasons behind each person’s decision to go out and buy a new television. When learning how to create a website for your business, speak directly to their motivation. Don’t focus on an imaginary wanted list of all possible motivations. The only way you can get customers is by speaking with them on their level using the terms they understand. Then you can present your product or service in such a way that it seems like the best fit for their needs.

2. A Website Can Increase Your Business Revenue

Why do you need to create a website for your business? It can help you generate revenues in many ways:

A) It Can Bring You Customers

Not everyone who visits your website will be your customer. However, if you have a good conversion rate, you can generate significant income. As an example, let’s pretend that your conversion rate is 3%. In a month, at least 800,000 people visit your website. It means that you can convert 24,000 of these as your customers. Let’s pretend further that you are selling a product worth $20. In just a month, you can generate nearly half a million in sales. That’s just from having a website alone. 

B) It Lets You Create Other Means of Passive Income

Selling products and services isn’t the only way to make money from a website. You can enroll your blog in Google’s AdSense program. Every time someone clicks on the ad, you earn some income. You can also create content for other non-competing businesses, and they can pay you for the spot or even the mention. 

Your website can be a tool for creating various digital marketing products that include podcasts, e-books, courses, training, and webinars. Even if you don’t make money from them directly, these are still excellent marketing tools to drive traffic and, therefore, potentially more customers to your business. 

3. When You Create a Website for Business, You Help Build Trust Between You and Your Customers

Websites have become the predominant medium for delivering expertise by individuals, organizations, and governments to the general public. Based on statistics from Google Trends, it is clear that user interest in websites has increased over time, while the use of other media sources such as newspapers or television has declined significantly. 

This means that if you want people to listen to what you say about a topic they care about, your best bet is to talk to them on their own turf—on your website. 

To be credible when speaking through this media channel, speakers need blogs and other websites where they can share evidence and demonstrate expertise. Let’s take a closer look at why it makes sense to build credibility on the web.

The first reason is the democratic nature of the Internet. In a perfect world, we would all be allocated an equal amount of credibility in proportion to our expert knowledge about matters of interest to us and others. This is not how it works, though! 

The reality is that we have competing claims made by different individuals or organizations who advocate for their cause or point of view based on what they think should be true rather than what has been established as fact through evidence and investigation. 

On the Internet, no one holds more credibility than anyone else. As a result, the best way to gain credibility is to get others to acknowledge your expertise by bringing evidence and reasoned argument into the public domain where you can make it available for all to see.

The second reason is that people are more likely to engage with websites if they are credible. Engagement includes everything from clicking on links embedded in an article or blog post, commenting on a blog post, or providing ratings or reviews for something you recommend. The more respect and trust users have for your website, the more willing they will be to come back and stay longer when using your site.

4. Websites Can Be a Tool for Social Proof

Social proof is a signal of popularity or quality. It translates into increased trust, credibility, and click-through rate for your website as well as higher conversion rates (sales) when you publish content in the form of articles, ebooks, slideshows, etc.

It is also a reflection of your company’s or brand’s quality. Social proof helps people decide if they should trust you, or join something you are part of.

Lastly, social proof is one of the most powerful psychological tools used to sell a product or service. Like humans, websites get their strength from numbers. More visitors bring more credibility and trust, which in turn results in more conversions for you. 

Social proof is basically convincing people that your website/article/product deserves a visit because it’s already been visited by many others before them. This happens at an unconscious level and helps increase your conversion rate without spending any additional money on ads or promotion campaigns.

5. Creating a Website for Your Business Helps Maximize the Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Social media has grown up, a bit like an old pro who’s been there and done it all. While social media used to be associated with teenagers in their bedrooms sharing photos of themselves, today people are using it for business. In fact, the tools available to small businesses now make finding new customers easier than ever before. 

Here are some of the benefits you can reap from social media:

A) Increased Reach

Here’s why it’s great to create a website for your small business. Social media is essentially free advertising, and if you choose carefully where to place your advertisements on social sites (i.e., Facebook), you’ll also gain invaluable insights into whether or not your adverts work. Not only that, but including links in your blogs will drive targeted traffic to your website, so you can boost your sales too.

B) Increased Traffic

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can be used very effectively to boost the number of visitors your website receives. They will also allow you to keep in touch with people who have already visited your site but not converted into sales. This is a great way for you to establish an ongoing relationship with potential customers.

C) Increase in Brand Awareness

When you use social media effectively and promote what products or services you offer on Facebook or Twitter, it’ll raise awareness of the value of your business within the community at large. You could also engage with other businesses in this space through collaborative projects and partnerships—another good way for you to spread the word about your brand. By getting involved on social media, you can increase your brand’s credibility.

D) Access to a Wider Customer Base

Social media gives small businesses access to customers around the world that they may not have had previously. This is especially noticeable in countries like South Africa, where online shopping has seen enormous growth in recent years. You can use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to target new markets and bring new business into the company—without having any travel costs involved!

E) Better Understanding of Your Target Customers

Regularly updating and engaging with customers through social media gives you the chance to find out more about them. After all, people are more likely to respond when they feel like they’re being addressed directly by a business. 

It’s really easy to ask your followers questions like, “What are your favorite products?” or even invite them to email you directly with suggestions. This way, you’ll know a lot more about how to approach customers and sell to them in the future. 

F) Customer Service

One of the best ways of getting more out of social media is to engage with customers via forums and online communities. If you can answer their questions or refer them to relevant articles on your website, they’ll appreciate the extra service. 

Plus, if they’ve enjoyed themselves using your products or services because of the support that you’ve provided over social media, they’re more likely to recommend you as a business. When you create a website for business, you make it easier for customers to reach out to you.

6. A Mobile-Friendly Is Also a Win-Win for the Business

Today, more people are using their smartphones to go online. Once they find what they are looking for, then maybe they will make a purchase of some kind or check out other products that might be interesting to them. But if your website is not mobile-friendly, then you have lost an opportunity for a possible sale.

If you’re looking for incentives to create a website for mobile, the following may convince you:

A) Improved Search Rankings

Google loves mobile-friendly websites because they make it easier for them to read and understand your content. In fact, Google now implements mobile-first indexing. The more users can engage with the page and content of your site, the better it is for Google and other search engines. 

When a mobile website is properly optimized to be “mobile-friendly,” this helps improve both user experience (UX) as well as Google’s ability to crawl pages into its search results, which translates into an increase in rankings on their SERPs. In one analysis study conducted by Searchmetrics, 61% of all mobile sites were found to be non-optimized or barely optimized, resulting in a loss of 90% of potential traffic from Google searches even if they are on Google’s first page! 

B) Higher Conversion Rates

When you create a responsive website for your business, it will offer a better user experience and encourage repeat visits from existing visitors who are familiar with how your site functioned before. In addition, it’s likely that more conversions will be made because mobile users typically make purchases or call businesses quicker than desktop users do because they’re already on the move. 

Having a compelling mobile site design also reduces bounce rates by allowing people to easily find what they need and get in and out faster (since shorter attention spans are usually key for people using their phones). Conversion rate optimization is the ultimate goal of all marketers out there, so it’s safe to assume that businesses that have a plan in place will see an increase in conversion rates for their mobile sites.

C) Improved Search Engine Rankings by Improving Engagement Metrics

A responsive website design can also help you improve your overall traffic because mobile users often spend more time on site than desktop users do. An average consumer spends about twice more time on a mobile site than on a desktop site each month. These people are still likely to come back to check out your content after they become familiar with it from using their phones. 

Lots of studies have shown that consumers spend a lot more time within apps and browsing social media feeds rather than visiting websites, so having a responsive website that’s easy to navigate and offers a good UX will keep your audience engaged while offering more opportunities for you to share content.

D) Promotion of Brand Loyalty

Of course, not all businesses can create an app due to budget constraints or simply because they’re in a niche field, but having a mobile-optimized site should be the first step into creating an online presence on smartphones. 

A responsive design indicates that your business is embracing the changes of this digital era—something consumers will appreciate and likely use as a deciding factor when choosing where they spend their money. If the experience is pleasant and they find what they need easily, why wouldn’t they come back time after time?

7. Websites Make You Visible in Google

Why should your website be in Google? Google is the first place people look for information, so it’s important to get your website found in search results. In fact, more than 90% of customers start their shopping at Google or a related search site. 

Web visitors who start on your homepage and find what they’re looking for are three more likely to purchase from you even if they don’t buy that day. Moreover, customers who come to your site from Google spend more than those who come directly.

In short, having a great website makes business sense.

Can you run a business without a website? The answer is yes. But when you don’t create a website for business, don’t expect that you can last long without one. Without it, you cannot take advantage of the full power of the Internet as a marketing tool, such as giving you leads and customers, boosting your conversion rate, and raising brand awareness.

If you’re looking for some great tips on how to grow your company, we have them right here. Ask Chamber is full of helpful advice and resources that will help you get started with a digital marketing plan that works in the modern age.