There are several different benefits of a website for your small business. In this article, we’ll highlight all of the advantages of creating a website for your small business.
Why websites are important for small businesses
If you don’t have a website for your business yet, now is the time. In this day and age, not having a site makes potential customers question how reliable or credible you are. Plus, there are plenty of positive outcomes that come with setting up a website—so much so that not creating one would be irresponsible.
Certainly, one useful outcome of having a small business website is that potential customers can easily find and contact you. In fact, a well-designed website may result in sales you otherwise would not have received.
In this post, we will explore 10 reasons why having a website is crucial for small businesses.
10 Benefits of a Website for Small Business
1. Increase Your Online Presence
With the way people use the internet now, if you want to be a relevant business, you almost definitely need an online presence in the form of a website and social media profiles.
Having a website is important for more than one reason. It can help sculpt how people see your business and make it easier to connect with current and potential customers. How? By stocking your brand with positive reviews, behind-the-scenes photos, informative posts, and any other content that paints your business in the best light possible.
We’re not exaggerating when we say that online marketing is key to success in today’s market—in fact, it might be one of the most critical components of success period.
2. Provide More Information About Your Products and Services
While your potential customers can give you a call to learn more about your business over the phone, it’s significantly easier for them (and perhaps for yourself) to look it up on your website.
For example, we offer services on our website which include web design, blogging consulting, and SEO, and provide detailed information about them throughout our site.
Most of the time, our visitors can find everything they’re looking for right on our website. If not, that’s when we can have a 5 – 10 minute call.
No matter the kind of business you have, your website can teach customers what they need to know to make more informed decisions before purchasing your services and products.
3. Receive and Answer Online Queries
Small business owners now counterpart online queries to phone calls. Having a form on your website where you can collect visitor data enables you the freedom to not only have a record of the communication but also respond to them at your own convenience.
The best websites will offer visitors various contact methods, such as a phone number and email address. A contact form on the site is also an excellent way for customers to get in touch without having to leave the site. Additionally, some businesses set up live chat options in order to communicate with their customers in real time.
4. Reach Customers in Your Area
We’ve all been there. We need to purchase something and have no idea where the closest place that sells what we need. If you’re not from around the area and you’re craving some Chinese noodles, chances are you’ll scour through the internet and look up if there are any restaurants that offer it nearby.
Your website’s ranking on search engines can directly result in more customers and brand awareness for your local business. This is because if your website appears as one of the first few results when somebody searches for related keywords, they are much more likely to visit your site (a Search Engine Optimization or SEO strategy helps achieve this).
5. Make Your Business Reach More People
Since we’re already in the demographical part of small businesses, when you operate a small store, the majority of your clientele will likely be from the surrounding area. If you provide good quality products and services at reasonable prices, they’ll keep coming back for more. In other words, most small businesses have limited reach.
Having a website helps you circumnavigate the issues that come with running a small company. You can cast a wider net and reach more potential customers than you would’ve been able to offline, which is especially useful if your target audience isn’t local.
6. Sell Products Online
Not only does a website extend your business’ reach, but it also offers a new avenue to make sales. You’re no longer bound by selling products through brick-and-mortar stores alone.
Although you might think otherwise, setting up an online store is simple, and you can even integrate it with your regular business website. That way, you’ll be able to make sales 24/7.
7. Promote Your Business Through Social Media
Although some people think that social media can be a website’s replacement, you actually need both if you want the most expansive online reach possible. Not to mention, it’d be beneficial to advertise all your social pages right from your site.
The website of your small business is your content empire where you can post anything you want in any format. Social media marketing then becomes a useful tool to publicize your content, gain a devoted following, and funnel traffic back to your site. There’s no reason to prefer one over the other when they both offer such different but complementary benefits.
8. Get to Know Your Customers
Websites serve more purposes than just being an online business card. If managed carefully, they can also be used to understand your customers better. With that information, you can then focus on strategies to increase sales and conversions.
To get an idea of what your website visitors are interested in, set up polls or use online tools to create surveys. Additionally, you can track your site’s analytics to gain detailed insights into visitor and consumer behavior.
9. Create a Supportive Network and Community
A perk of having a website is that it can become a hub for community discussion. For example, if you have a blog attached to your site, you can enable comments so readers can ask questions and engage with each other about your content.
If you want to go the extra mile, some platforms offer complex community features like forums and public chats. If that doesn’t sprout any engagement between visitors and customers, then what does?
10. Monitor Your Business in Real Time
A website is an important asset for any small business because it provides analytics that allows you to track the success of your site in real time.
Business analytics will give you priceless feedback on how your company has been advancing recently. Some primary KPIs of business progress are:
- The number of people visiting your website.
- The number of “unique visitors” who visit your website only once.
- The number of page views or impressions indicates to you how often a certain page has been read by visitors. From this, you can ascertain what type of content interests your average reader.
- The number of visitors who leave your website without exploring any other pages is called the bounce rate.
- The average amount of time a person spends on your website is an important metric to monitor. A longer average time on site usually indicates that visitors find your content useful and engaging.
How to Create a Small Business Website
Now that you’re aware of the advantages of creating a website for your small business, it’s probably clear that you should have one.
While you understand the benefits, you may be hesitant to start building a website because you’re concerned about the resources required to get started.
If you try to do everything on your own, it can definitely become very expensive and time-consuming. However, if you’d like to start reaping the benefits of having a website for your business, you can launch a professional website quickly without breaking the bank.
At Aspiring Bloggers, we offer professional yet affordable web design services for businesses of all types. Get a quote today.