7 POWERFUL Reasons Why Your Small Business Needs A Website In 2021.
If you are a small business owner debating whether or not you need a website, the answer is emphatically YES. In the digital era we live in, the first point of contact your business has with a consumer is absolutely crucially important in converting leads, increasing sales, and differentiating yourself from your competition. Although you can build a site on your own through various different providers, it is BEST to get one professionally built and optimized for search engines and user experience (UX). Nonetheless, having a strong online presence is absolutely vital to your business’ success in 2021 and beyond.
Here’s why:
1. You control what products, pictures, and reviews are shown!
Having creative freedom is absolutely crucial for displaying your brands products and services in a way that truly represents the values of your business. When you build and design your own website, or have a professional do it for you, you have the power to display only the BEST images, descriptions, reviews, and basically whatever you desire. If done correctly, this provides the necessary social proof for your small business to convert a user into a consumer.
2. Your website stays open 24 hours per day and is easily accessible.
This is one of the MAJOR benefits of having a website for your small business; being able to have an online, digital business card that can be viewed any day and time of the year. Having a good design for your online profile is crucially important to gaining credibility from users. According to web credibility research from Stanford, 75% of users admit to making judgments about a company’s credibility based on their website’s design.
3. Your competitors most likely have one.
Let’s be real, it’s the year 2021; absolutely anyone and everyone with an idea can easily make a website. Your competitors, both locally and nationally, have websites. Ensure that the design and searchability of your site is better than your competitors, be on every level by hiring a professional team to optimize your site!
4. It develops your brand more professionally and provides much needed social proof.
One of the main reasons you should have a website for your small business is to increase the credibility, or social proof, of your organization. In an economy where consumers typically search the internet before making a decision, a website is often the first impression a prospect has on a business. As already stated, your competitors most likely have a website providing similar products or services to yours; one way to ensure you stand out and differentiate from the competition in 2021 is to have a well designed website that clearly communicates your brand’s information to prospective consumers. For further proof, roughly 94% of first impressions are design related.
5. Online searches are SKYROCKETING in 2020 and 2021.
According to modern research, there are over 79,000 searches per second on Google, and about 91% of customers have visited a store because of an online experience. In the digital economy that is consuming small to medium sized businesses, the searchability of your business is going to play a MASSIVE role in the amount of leads and sales you will ultimately receive in the future.
6. Google rewards local businesses in Search Engine Results.
When consumers are searching for something on Google, it is very likely that they will stay on the first page of results. This is why it is crucially important for your business to show up on the first Search Engine Results Page (S.E.R.P). In fact, 90% of survey respondents said they were likely to click on the first set of results. It just so happens that Google rewards small to medium sized businesses in local search results through various different ways, such as Google My Business listings, so make sure you take advantage of every possible option to appear on the first page of Google.
7. You can get extremely detailed information about your website visitors to improve marketing efforts!
By taking advantage of Google Analytics services, you are able to access an abundant amount of useful information on how users actually use your site! This provides us with the information needed to optimize the layout and content on your site – leading to more conversions and a better user experience.
Conclusion: EVERY business needs a high quality website.
After reading this article, we hope that you are thoroughly convinced that every business, small or large, absolutely needs a website in 2021 and beyond. We also learned that just having a website sometimes is not enough and that we should optimize our site in order to better serve our consumers and to increase the amount of sales and conversions we see. If you would like to stay up to date with insider business tips from Vivifi Media and receive high quality content, make sure to subscribe to our email club and follow our social profiles!
