4 Ways a Website Can Help Your Business

Apr 5

The digital world is normal for businesses these days. Every business you can think of is online, be it an artist, restaurant, real estate agency, or even a grocery store. In 2019, businesses were estimated to have spent $2 trillion on digital transformation. That’s money well spent, considering a strong online presence improves operational efficiency, growth opportunities, and ability to meet customer expectations.

This is especially true for small and medium businesses with under 100 employees. Smaller businesses were 2.7 times more likely to report success in digital transformation than larger companies with over 50,000 employees. Digital transformation is using technology to improve a business process, find efficiencies, and improve customer experience.

One way to do this is through social media. With platforms like Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, businesses are able to reach tons of potential clients to market their product. But, social media isn’t enough. To leverage technology, reach more clients and improve your customer experience, your business needs to have a website - plain and simple!

We’ll run through why it’s especially important to have a website during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 4 ways a website can help your business where social media can’t.

How does COVID-19 affect my business’ online presence?

The pandemic has had an immense effect on consumer behaviour this past year. Just from February to May 2020, retail e-commerce sales in Canada nearly doubled, reaching a $3.9 billion sales count in May! That’s a lot of Amazon purchases!

Canadians are online now more than ever, with pandemic restrictions, and forcing us to change our shopping habits from in-store to online. Keeping an up-to-date website will give you more access to the thousands of potential clients surfing the net every day.

Credibility and Brand

Credibility shows your customers that you are a safe, trustworthy entity to purchase from. A survey conducted by Verisign indicated that 77% of respondents thought a website makes a business more credible, and 84% of respondents thought a business with a website was more credible than a business with only social media.

Are you really going to trust just anybody with a Twitter account? And with all those bots out there? No way. Anyone can create a social media account - it takes an extra bit of effort and time to create an appealing website. Seeing a business go through that extra bit of trouble enforces more credibility in your customers’ eyes.

Another credibility perk of a website is that you can make your email correspondence more credible by having your website in your email address. It’s time to say goodbye to the hotmail account you made in 2007! Business email addresses always look more legitimate than a hotmail or gmail account, as your customer will feel they are communicating with a representative of your brand.

Branding allows your customers to know what to expect from your business - you have more flexibility with branding on a website than through social media.

SEO Can Bring You More Business

Can you remember the first thing you did when someone last recommended a cool new restaurant? Chances are, you googled it! Did you know that 46% of google searches are for local businesses? If a consumer hears about your company through word-of-mouth, there’s a high chance they’ll google you. Similarly, if a consumer is interested in paying for a service, they will likely google the service to find a provider. Additionally, 28% of local searches result in a purchase.

While your company’s social media pages might come up in a google search, having a website increases your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) more than social media does, which heightens the chance of your site coming up before your competitors.

Having a SEO strategy in place, and having SEO principles implemented on your website helps you reach more clients through google-generated SEO traffic .

More Freedom in Creativity

Social media channels allow you to interact with clients, share information, and post photos within individual posts. Feeling a bit limited? So do we. When you limit your online presence to Instagram and Facebook, the way you display your information and message is up to the social media channel. You’re bound by their guidelines, format, and size restrictions.

A website allows you to display information any way you’d like, allowing your customers to see more of what you feel is most important right when they visit your home page. This is especially valuable for businesses that offer creative services, like graphic design, photography, blogging, motivational speaking, real estate services, virtual assistance, and more!

If you like the idea of individual posts, you can still have that on your website in the form of a blog. The possibilities for creativity are endless!

Accessibility and Easier Access to Information

Being accessible means being seen and understood by everyone, including people with disabilities. Social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are not inherently accessible on their own. The timeline layouts and feeds can be confusing to follow for people with visual impairments using screen readers, for example. As a new business, you want to make sure that everyone can access your service! Limiting your online presence to social media could exclude people with disabilities from your audience.

With more freedom in layout, you have more freedom to make your website accessible. Make sure you check out the Government of Ontario’s tips for accessibility to ensure your content is available to everyone.

Final Thoughts
Having an active social media presence is great for your business. You can reach your clients with consistent communication, and post new content daily. But social media without a company website isn’t enough. Making a website is easy with a Simply Create template, and can increase credibility, accessibility and creativity.

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