As a small business owner, you would do yourself a disservice by not asking yourself just how much your small business could use a website. After all, there are always better things to spend money on. More impactful things. Things that will bring people through the doors and affect the bottom line. So yes, you’re right to ask yourself is there a better use of that money. But you’d be wrong to think there is.
Even if you have a small store, having a website would be a good choice to make. Things are going on online as much as they are occurring offline, and you and your business need to have your digital counterparts to avoid getting run over by the times.
But you’re probably not convinced yet. That’s okay. Here are five real, no-nonsense reasons why your business, no matter how small or local it is, needs a website.
- People are looking online for what you’re offering
Here’s the thing about the internet: people are using it to search for everything. Food, lawyers, medical advice, love, news, crossword puzzles, the weather, politics, pet videos – people are searching for these things as you’re reading this.
The point here is that people are also searching for whatever your business is selling. Wouldn’t it be great if they found it on a website that belongs to you, and contains information about the address of your business? Don’t you see a business opportunity there?
- People don’t trust businesses without a website
There’s this funny thing when people turn to the digital world to check whether something in the physical world is real. It’s counterintuitive – every bone in your body might be telling you right now that it’s the digital world that is full of unreal things, not the world we physically reside in.
You’d be right, sort of. However, people still look online for trust signals. Having no digital footprint is a clear reason not to trust a person or a business. Your website is proof of existence, but also a trust signal you should transmit.
- Social media don’t cut it anymore
There once was a time when all your business needed was a social media page, and you’ve taken care of the business’ online presence. However, with time, those same social networks changed. The world around them changed. Things simply aren’t the same anymore.
Social media profiles won’t help a lot when it comes to local searches. But the issue is bigger than that – the way people are using social networks is changing. You simply can’t get the same reach you were once able to get. You need to do more.
- Websites make you more competitive
You might wonder how competitive a website can make you when you’re having to face the giants that operate in your niche. We all have rival businesses that have much more money and resources than we do. Usually, these Goliaths are hard to fight.
But that doesn’t mean the fight is futile. If there’s one thing to learn from the retail apocalypse, it’s that small, nimble businesses that are quick to adapt to new shopping trends are much likely to survive than the behemoths that can’t move to save their lives. People want online experiences. You should be able to give it to them.
- The website is a calling card
How much time do you think people have to dig around before they find out the basic information about any business? Probably minutes. The internet is a vast and dark place. It’s easy to get lost and lose sight of what we were looking for.
But your website is a place where everything about your business is located. It’s handy that way, like a repository of information people can browse so that they don’t have to wander around the internet. Your website is like a digital calling card. You can’t be in business without having calling cards, right?
