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Customers expect businesses to have websites, not just social media accounts. According to digital consumer studies most customers primarily turn to a company’s website to initially engage with it.
Websites provide potential fans with a greater opportunity to discover your business. A website’s wider range of search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities positions you to rank higher on relevant search terms and attract more site visitors.
Websites give you more control over your online presence. You’re fully in charge of how your site looks and works, so there are no surprises along the way. Social media platforms, however, can make changes to their layouts or algorithms at will, so you’ll never fully know what changes are coming down the line, and whether they will negatively impact your brand’s visibility.
You can add functionalities to a website. By using widgets or plugins that align with your content or marketing strategies, your website can grow alongside your brand.
Previously, it was expensive to build a website and required some technical skill. But modern platforms like Wix and WordPress make professional-grade sites accessible to everyone, even if you’ve never built one before.
Website vs Social Media: Why Your Business Needs a Website
Be a Control Freak: You Need to Be in 100% Control of Your Online Presence
As a business owner, would you rather:
A) Set up shop in someone else’s store (without a lease) OR
B) Own or lease a dedicated space for your business?
With the first option, you’re at the mercy of the store owner. If they don’t want your business in their store anymore, then you’re now out of business until you find a new location. If they decide not to open up one morning, your business can’t reach its customers and your revenue will be affected.
However, if you own or lease then you have much more control over your situation. The changes in someone else’s business won’t affect whether you stay in business or how much it will cost to stay in business. The same is true for having a website that you control, rather than building your online presence solely on a social media platform.
Don’t Be at the Mercy of Someone Else
If you setup shop solely on one or more social platforms, your business is ultimately at the mercy of those platforms. They can make changes whenever they want and you don’t have a voice, even if it impacts your business. If that platform gets acquired and changed or shut down, you may no longer be able to reach your customers.
A great example of this is when many business pages were recently hurt when Facebook updated its algorithm, decreasing the reach of business pages. There was nothing business’s could do except complain. At the end of the day they had to accept the new rules and move forward or move on.
The same thing could happen on another social platform at any time. YouTube could start charging you to store videos on their servers. Twitter could decide to become a premium platform where business’s have to “pay to play”. In either of these circumstances if you don’t pay then you no longer get to communicate with your customers.
You have NO control on these social platforms.
Your Website is the “Hub” of Your Online Presence – Social Media is a Marketing Tool
If you have your own website, and it’s the “hub” of your business, then you have 100% control of your situation.
Like the store analogy above, you can have your own store and still setup a rack of your items in someone else’s store. Why wouldn’t you? Especially if they offer the space for free. Not only do you control your store, you also get to use someone else’s space to market your items and make some sales. If they close down then you might lose a great marketing space, but you aren’t out of business.
This is how you should treat social media.
Use social media as a marketing platform to drive traffic back to your website. Use that traffic to grow your email and customer list so you can communicate with them any time, any where. On your own terms.
At the end of the day, it’s much smarter to invest in something you own than to build on land that doesn’t belong to you. Some day the rules are going to change and it could have a major impact on your business, if you aren’t in control. This is why we highly recommend to our client’s that they invest in a website that they own and then use social media – and it’s many benefits – to reach new audiences and grow their business.
If you are ready to build your new website from scratch, create an account with Wix and sign up to one of their premium plans, so you have access to the tools to build a complete website from portfolio to e-commerce and more. Click here to get started.