Why your small business needs a website? Around 97% of customers do their online research before buying a product or service. Despite of this fact, only 51% of small businesses have a website. Your competition might already be there in the online sphere. And your future customers are, for sure! You can’t miss them out.
How a Website Can Help Your Business?
Before I dive in more details, let me tell you a story. I am not that kind of a person who wants to do every important thing in their home country. But it took me for approx. three years before I set foot in a hair salon in Finland. Not because I don’t trust Finnish hairdressers. Simply because of the high prices. Getting a haircut and refreshing my hair color cost around 15 euro in my hometown in Hungary. And that’s a very good service, not the cheapest option I jumped on.
Here, in Finland I would end up paying minimum 80-100 euro for the same thing. Not that I can’t afford paying that amount of money. I simply couldn’t force myself to pay 4-5 times more for something like that. I just couldn’t. It felt so overpriced. So I decided to do the hair coloring by myself, and visited my old hairdresser every time I spent time in Hungary.
It worked very well for me till we moved up north to Rovaniemi. That’s when I stopped traveling home regularly, and found myself in need of a hairdresser. I knew that there was a hair salon in every corner but they were too pricey. So I decided to ask help from my best friend, Google. I wasn’t sure that I would succeed because it sounded so unreal. But I tried it anyway. I typed ‘cheap haircut Rovaniemi’ and I hit enter. I didn’t wanna believe my eyes when I saw that something actually came up.
One Search, Two New Customers
It was only the cherry on the top that the website had an English version too. Everything was there, clear and simple. Services, prices, opening hours and the address. I also found them on Facebook and I liked their page immediately. The next day I went there. It took me a while to find the salon. It was kind of hidden inside a yard, under the street level with no shop window at all. If it wasn’t Google, most probably I would have never discovered them. But thanks to their online presence, not that I found them but I became their regular customer for years. So did my husband.
For me it was just a small thing. But one Google search resulted in two new customers for that hair salon. I think this story speaks for itself. If you still need convincing, here are the top reasons why it’s important for your business to have a website.
Your Credibility Grows
It’s important to stand out and differentiate yourself from your competition. One way of doing so is having a professional looking website what provides quality information to your customers. Having a website is a good opportunity to make a great first impression and convince people that you are a real business. This is extremely important nowadays, when 50% of smartphone users discover a new company while searching on their smartphones.
Studies show that 55% of all people search for online reviews and recommendations before making a purchase decision. If you don’t have a website then over half of your customers will move on to another brand with a strong online presence that they can check out.
Helps Local Customers Find You
As my example also tells, more and more people are using Google search to find local businesses near them. In fact, sources show that 46% of all Google searches are seeking local information. By having a solid website, Google is more likely to index your business on searches triggered for your specific niche and location.
Collects a Wilder Audience Through Organic Traffic
Once you have a SEO-optimized website, you have a chance of showing up in Google search results. This means that when people are searching for a product or service, there is a chance your website will show up in the results. This gives you the opportunity to increase your customer base.
Never Build a Home on a Rented Land
Even if it feels handy, never build your business only on social media platforms. I strongly suggest you have a website. Social media is not your own territory. You are always just renting a place over there. Rules can change, your account can be hacked or deleted. Anything can happen. But a website is your own property. You dictate the rules and what is most important: you can build your own customer database if you collect email addresses. For free. If you have a website, you always have a direct connection between you and your customers. And most of all. If you have a website, you can have a blog on it and it can open up lots of possibilities to you to boost the online visibility of your business.