Does a business really need a website? The quick answer is YES. At least in my opinion. These days many small business entrepreneurs are quick to offer up a facebook account or an instagram tag and even a twitter hashtag, to potential customer. This has recently been the new trend to share your business contact info. It seems like listing your website address is way too long and outdated now. At least phone numbers are still safe.
Who has Website Traffic
It is true that there are so many people searching on social media sites that it make sense to take advantage of some of that traffic. Facebook has about 2.9 billion visitors as of Q2 2021 , while Instagram touts 2 billion visitors in 2021. Is your independent website traffic that high? probably not, and that is why you would think you should get on board and join the social media bandwagon. As you should! that is why, so many new entrepreneur are quick to set up a Facebook profile before setting up a website. These and other platforms make it easier and easier to conduct business online, making it appear hassle free.
Reasons to still have a website
However, its still wise to maintain your website. Here are a few reasons why.
Website Ownership
It helps to know that you entire year of video content doesn’t just disappear one day due to the whims of a large platforms employee. With a content management system type website, such as WordPress, you own your content. You can do what you want with it. With some of these platform, you are informed that once you upload your content, you no longer “own” that content. Image you are no longer the owner of your family vacation picture from last year.
Mailing List Control
With your own domain/website, you are able to continually capture email addresses for building your network. a mailing list give a business a competitive edge of potential customers to advertise to. If you are relying on your access via Facebook, if you violate any of their ever changing policies, you can lose access to your potential customers and existing customers. This weakness can kill any growing business. Keep control of your hard work gathering followers email address information.
Immediate Website Monetization
Many of the platform, like YouTube, requires that you gather a set number of watch hours or subscribers, before you are able to monetize the content you have upload to their platform. Why wait? and why share the profits of monetization with the platform? If you monetize the content on your own website, you keep more of the profits.
Website Keyword Power
Using are really strong keyword in a website’s domain name, help get your website found in search engines. If you lucky enough to think of a catchy name, one that others would think to type into a search browser, then its a good idea to purchase that domain name asap. Even if you are not ready to set up your website right away, you can have a website forwarded to another website address such as an Etsy store or a Wix store. The search engine ranks a website higher on the search results if the website address includes keywords from your search term.
So, Answer to the initial Question…
Since we already said earlier, “Yes” we could have skips over the article, but it is important to remember why. The social media giants have done a great job of getting millions of viewers on their platforms. They are in a position to be the “go to” place to get your customers, but if you are a business owner, you should think about ownership.
The social media platforms own the platforms and have all the rights to the content. You may be able to get lots of traffic from these platforms but you are also giving away your content ownership. I believe it is important to keep your own content on your website or a remote cloud file server. You can and should direct all the traffic from social media platforms and onto your own website and remind the world that you exist outside of the web 2.0 social media world. Think of your website as a physical store. Real estate is vital for offline traffic. So, your domain name is vital at a minimum but online traffic. Once you own your domain name, you can get your website built or redirect to your pre-built online shop (Wix, Etsy or Shopify).
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