Do I Need a Website for my Business?

Do I need a website for my business? This question is one of the most commonly asked questions in entrepreneur groups. I see many answers; some say yes, while others say no. I am 100% in the yes category. In today’s world, you need a website to be taken seriously in business. 

A Website Makes You Look Professional

Customers will try to find you online. If they can’t find you, they may find a competitor instead, and you just lost your chance at earning their business. A website is a minimum requirement for a local or online store today. 

What if I Build my Business on Facebook or Instagram Instead? 

Building your business on a social media channel is a BAD idea for many reasons. The most important reason is that you don’t control the channel. It’s someone else’s, and you’re borrowing their audience. Due to this, you have to play by their rules, and we all know that social media algorithm updates can (and do) frequently impact business pages. Building your business on a social media channel is like building your home on someone else’s land. You wouldn't do that, right? Why would you build your business on rented ground, then? 

Building a Website is too Hard.

I hear this over and over, and I get it. Creating a website is time-consuming and difficult, but there are so many easy-to-use website builders today that this shouldn’t be a limitation. Start with a website builder and go from there. You can always upgrade later on. Your first website isn’t going to be your last or your best. It will be your first website and help get the job done. 

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I Don’t Know What to Include on a Website

Your first website can be straightforward. You should have a homepage that tells potential customers how you can help them. You want to address their needs and issues right away and show how you solve their problems. 

Having a contact page makes it easy for potential customers to find out how to get in touch with you. If it makes sense in your industry, have a company or about page. If you sell products online, you’ll have a product page. If you want to blog, set up a blog page, too. 

You may have a few different pages, but the simple website can be just a few pages and still provide value to your customers and help build your business. 

Does my URL or Email Address Matter? 

Register your website domain (URL) and set up a business email address. Don’t use your business name at Gmail or Yahoo! Or whatever; it doesn’t look as professional as having an email address set up as name@businessurl.com. Spend $5 a month with Google Suite and set it up, or have it set up through your website hosting company. 

Establish your website domain, too. Don’t do something like mybusiness.wordpress.com; go ahead and set it up the right way from the beginning and have mybusiness.com as your website address. 

Add a Little SEO to get Traffic.

If you’re going to go ahead and build your website and register your domain name, set up your email address, and everything else associated with setting up a professional business, then you need to complete the process and work on some SEO for your new site.

You don’t have to do everything today, but add Title Tags and Meta Descriptions for each page. Don’t use the default ones from Yoast SEO (if you’re on Wordpress), or even worse, leave them blank. This post highlights some basic SEO you can do when first starting out. 

Make the Right Impression on your Potential Customers

Setting up a professional-looking website with a professional email address helps your business look more legitimate to potential customers. Spend a little time and complete the process to grow your business. You don’t want your lack of a website to cause a potential customer to find the competition instead, which would be bad for business.