There’s a trend lately where people have built their businesses on Instagram or another social media platform. While that might be working for you now, I wanted to share a few reasons why an actual website is necessary for your business and its long-term growth.

Social media is rented space. If any of those platforms were to go under tomorrow, how would you reach your audience? How would they find you again if your only storefront was your IG page? Chances are, they wouldn’t and by the time you scrambled to get a website up, they’re long gone. Plus, you wouldn’t even be able to tell them, “hey, come check out my great new site!”

In all honestly, I don’t see these platforms going away anytime soon. But, what we do know is that algorithms are ever-changing and making it harder and harder to get your content seen—even by the people who do see you. That’s exactly why I recommend every business owner has some sort of web presence.

Related: Everything You Need to Know About Showit Website Design

Do I Need a Website for My Business? 9 Reasons Why That’s a YES

Instantly Gives you Credibility

A website, especially a well-designed one builds brand recognition, validates your business and instantly gives your credibility. Simply put, an online presence makes you look legit. If you’re searching for someone’s business and can’t find them anywhere on the internet, doesn’t it make you less comfortable purchasing from them?

Give your customers and clients more peace of mind by creating a website. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy or wild, but if they can search for you and find you, you’re more likely going to be perceived as trust-worthy.

It’s Your Online Storefront

Your website is like your own online storefront, people can land on your page at all hours of the day and browse your products or services. It’s their first impression of your brand and it can be the thing that really draws them in, or makes them say, “nevermind!”

Does the Hard Work For You

If you sell products, services or digital products or programs, your website can do the heavy-lifting for you. You can set up sales pages, product description pages and even have a simple way for people to purchase instantly, or sign-up while you’re out living your life. Think of your website as a sales machine that runs while you’re not actively working. Why wouldn’t you want that?

People Can Find You By Searching

As we all know, the internet is searchable! With good SEO practices, you can start coming up in Google rankings and have new customers find you simply by searching the internet. This is another reason why I highly suggest every business have a blog. Blogging allows you to create more content on a regular basis and builds your SEO and traffic in a big way over time. It’s a great marketing tool that I (obviously) love!

You Own It

Unlike Instagram or Facebook, you own your website! The content that lives there will stay there as long as you pay to have your website on the internet. There’s no algorithms and endless opportunities for how you can use your website. That ownership piece is crucial, especially if you’re looking to grow your business.

You Get Data on What’s Working

Sure, we get some analytics with our social media pages, but the data you can get from Google Analytics on who is coming to your site and what they’re clicking on is priceless. This information can help tailor your site design so that it better converts, and give you valuable insights on what type of content people are reading, so that you can created products and services that are perfect for your audience.

Easily Collect Payments

Thanks to carts and payment processors online, you can set up for customers to pay for your products or services online. It’s safe, secure and you don’t have to wonder if and when your money is going to arrive. It makes managing your finances a breeze too. If you’re currently getting paid through Venmo or Paypal and having to send clients to a link each time, you should really consider how this could massively make your life easier!

Sales Can Happen 24/7

If you’re currently selling through IG, you have to manually manage each of those orders, manually put them into a spreadsheet or some order form, manually add their address for shipping, etc.. Essentially, it’s just a lot of extra work that you don’t have to do if you have a way to accept payments on your website.

When you have this set up, you can direct them to a single page, where they drop all their info in, pay for the products and you get a nice tidy order email. If you’re shipping products, you can tie in a shipping platform that automatically pulls in all the data! Sounds much easier, right?!

And, when you have the ability for people to purchase through your site, they can purchase instantly, in that moment, rather than waiting for you to respond to their message.

Makes it Easy to Grow an Email List

Growing an email list is another thing I think every business should have. Even if you’re not doing anything crazy with it at the moment, having the ability to email your customers at any point is pretty awesome. You also own this list, so another perk.

On your website, you can easily add sign-up forms, offer freebies and opt-ins to build your list in a totally organic and natural way. You set these up and they can run all on their own—no grabbing email addresses and manually typing them in again.

If you’ve been running your business from a social media platform or even through your email, I hope this gave you some insight into how beneficial a website can be for your long-term growth. Best of all, you can launch a websites for a really reasonable price! My website templates are a great place to start, and if you’re selling a larger inventory of products, Squarespace or Shopify are ideal platforms for retail.

If you need some advice on what the heck to include on your website, watch my free training on creating a high-converting homepage that will set you apart in your market!

BTW,