Isn’t it shocking that more than 36 percent of small businesses don’t have an online presence in the form of a website? If you own a small business but don’t own a website, you’re missing out on excellent opportunities to market to a broader target audience, grow your business, and generate steady income online.
This is because over 93.5 percent of global internet users have purchased products or paid for services online. There are many other benefits of opening a website for your business. For starters, you need the best web hosting and should compare costs and hosts in Canada.
That said, here are the benefits of opening a website for your business:
24/7 online presence
A website makes it easier for prospective customers to find your business – anywhere, anytime. Your website represents your business online, even outside business hours.
Your potential and existing customers can access vital information conveniently and via any device.
Credibility
It is naturally expected in today’s modern world for a reputable business to have an online presence aside from social media. Most prospective customers distrust any business that doesn’t have a website and an official email address.
Websites and emails are valuable tools for sharing crucial information about your business, products, services, etc., with your customers. The website answers the whys and whats that potential customers have.
Your website must efficiently communicate quality information that distinguishes your business from your competition. This means if you want someone to write for your website, you can share that information and get people to pitch their services.
Moreover, having a user-friendly website keeps customers at ease when using your services, and the positive experience will make them return again and again.
Digital marketing
Owning a website for your business makes it easier to leverage digital marketing in order to boost your leads and grow your organization. This covers running Google Ads to drive high-quality traffic to your landing page or site.
Running ads that drive leads to your site makes it easier to reach potential customers with much more reliability and accuracy than traditional offline advertising methods.
You can also leverage search engine optimization to help build awareness about your business. For example, your site could be one of the first potential customers will see when searching for a particular product or service within your niche.
Statistics show that more than 60 percent of online users perform in-depth online research via a search engine. In addition, up to 61 percent read product reviews before making a purchase. Your website should showcase those reviews and make purchasing easier for customers.
Having a website makes it easier to perform content marketing. If done the right way, it allows you to attract prospective customers and even convert them.
According to InsideView, organizations that engage in blogging regularly generate up to 67 percent more leads every month. This is 67 percent more selling opportunities than those who don’t own a website or blog.
Brand recognition and brand visibility
Every new business needs to get as many prospective customers as possible informed about them. It is essential to let those people know about the existence of your organization, what your organization is doing, how useful it can be for them, what it is called, etc.
Your website provides online discoverability and visibility while establishing or enhancing brand recognition. In addition, having several backlinks from authoritative sites within your niche to your website will further boost your website’s – and business’s – credibility.
Trusted resource
Another excellent benefit of owning a website for your business is that you become the go-to resource for solid information within your niche. This is easier when your site has a blog section with up-to-date information and informative articles or blog posts.
In other words, it becomes easier to become an authority in your field with a website dedicated to your business than without one.
Tell your story
Your website gives you the opportunity to tell your story to the world. Your background or story is an excellent way to humanize your business. What motivated you to start this business? Do you run it as a family business or take it over from dad and mom? Have you been around for years but only came to the fore due to recent developments?
Letting people know how you started your business or what motivated you makes it easier to engender trust. In addition, your prospective customers will connect with you when you display the personality aspect of your business.
Minimize operating costs
Websites make it easier to sell products and services to customers. This eliminates the need for a brick-and-mortar store which generally requires high operating costs. This is how many eCommerce brands have kicked off and are thriving today.
Taking away these overheads makes lowering the prices of your products or services easier. This also gives your business another competitive edge.
Promote your physical or brick-and-mortar location
Although it was mentioned that having a website makes it easier to eliminate the need for a physical location, you can also use your site to promote that particular location.
Your website makes it easier to promote your brick-and-mortar store, which helps boost foot traffic to that location.
Some websites showcase basic information such as store locations, phone numbers, addresses, operating hours, etc. This creates a data footprint that search engines like Google and Bing can readily pick and run with it.
This means the next time a prospective customer looks for your store on the internet, they will likely be shown search results, including your brick-and-mortar store details. These search engine results are even more significant for potential customers using mobile devices.
Boost SEO rankings
Lastly, when you search for a business within your field or niche, major search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing will present a list of websites that match your search query very closely. If you have a website, it should be part of that list.
You can apply several search engine optimization strategies to your website. This will significantly boost its rankings on search engines. Ranking high on search engine result pages is a recipe for free, organic traffic – and ultimately sales – from search engines.
You can help your site by having a social media presence that helps get your business noticed online.
The importance of having a website for your business cannot be overstated. The benefits are too numerous to ignore, which is why only a few have been shared in this article. Therefore, if your business has no website, ensure you create one as soon as possible and enjoy these crucial benefits daily!
