8 crucial reasons why your business needs a website
Your business is crushing it on social media. You have a ton of followers and great engagement, so why would you need a website? Social media may be the main place where conversations are occurring between you and your audience, but a website is still essential for your brand.
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Here are eight crucial reasons why your business needs a website today.
1. Credibility
First of all, people may learn about you on social media, but they are going to be checking out your website to learn more about you.
A website is like your digital business card. It lets your audience know who you are and it helps establish your brand and credibility.
People are much more likely to do business with a brand that they trust. The first place that potential customers go to check out your credentials, reviews, and how you can help them is your website.
2. You Own It
This is SO important to understand! You do not own any of the social media platforms. That means if Facebook or Instagram decides to shut down your account one day, you lose all of your followers. All your years of hard work building a following and brand is gone. End of story.
When you host your own website, you have total control over your online presence. You have the final say on how it looks and what the user experience is like. No one else gets to decide what happens on your site.
You control the narrative completely.
3. Get Prospects on your Email List
Next, an email list allows you to build a connection with your audience that you control and a website is how you get them onto this list.
With algorithm changes occurring frequently on social media sites, less and less of your audience is seeing your messages. As things are shifting to more of a “pay to play” model with promoted ads, you cannot be sure of how many of your followers are actually seeing your posts.
An email list is still the best way to reach your audience.
When someone gives you their email 
address, they are giving you permission to keep in touch with them. People typically check their email every day so if you have an important message that you want to ensure your audience receives, email is still your best bet.
When a potential customer visits your website you can offer them a free “quick win” in exchange for their email address. This offer is often referred to as an opt-in, freebie, freemium, or lead magnet.
This freebie could be in the form of a cheatsheet, course, tutorial, ebook or anything else that is relevant to a pain point your audience has and is related to the products and services you ultimately have to offer them in the future.
Not sure which email provider to use? ConvertKit is who I have used since the beginning and love. They just started a completely free plan for those just starting out as well. Check it out here.
4. Improves Customer Service
Your website is available even when you aren’t. It’s accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer frequently asked questions and to promote your brand on autopilot.
A strategic website allows visitors to quickly learn who you are, how you can help them, what steps they need to take to work with you, and how to contact you if they want more information.
5. Increase Your Reach
You need a website to house your amazing content so that you can start getting free traffic from Google and social media platforms like Pinterest.
If you have a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy in place, whereby your content includes keywords and phrases your ideal customer is searching for, then your organic reach can grow over time and generate free leads!
6. Allows you to showcase your work
No matter what type of product or service you offer, a website is a great place to showcase your work. Your website can do the talking for you by displaying an image gallery of your products or a portfolio of your work. It can house videos and testimonials to further communicate your skills and why you are the right person to help them.
7. Excellent ROI
A website is one of the best investments you can make for your business. The cost of website design varies, but it is now easier than ever to DIY or get a customizable template that is plug and play.
For the cost of one nice dinner out or a day trip with your family, you can easily buy hosting and a domain and have a site that you own up and running quickly and affordably. It is a small investment with the potential for big results.
Want to get a WordPress website all set up and ready to customize within 20 minutes? Check out my video below for step-by-step video walk through.
8. Your competitors have one
Customers with a problem frequently head to the Internet as the first step on their problem-solving journey. They do research by reading educational content on websites. If and when they are interested in buying something they read reviews and testimonials before deciding to do business with a person or company.
In the digital age that we live in, customers expect businesses to have a website and will often consider one without one as less professional and reputable.
If your competitor has a website and you don’t, you could be left behind.
A website matters
In conclusion, no matter what service or product you offer your customer, your business needs a website to grow quickly and effectively.
Think of a website as the peanut butter to your business jelly! You can have one without the other, but together they are complete!
Your self-hosted website is all your own so you control the narrative. It gives you credibility, improves customer service, keeps you competitive, increases your reach, and gets prospects onto your email list and into your sales funnel.