By Grace Lau – Director of Growth Content, Dialpad
Every small business needs a website—yes, even local businesses that aren’t selling online.
Your social media accounts are great for engaging with loyal customers. However, they lack the visibility and credibility you need to achieve sustainable business growth.
Customers who go online to find information about your business may not find any information about your business at all. And even if they do, they’ll probably opt for your competitor if you don’t have your own website.
But just how many customers use the internet to research businesses? The answer might surprise you—according to Bright Local, a whopping 99% of consumers use online searches to find local business information. 21% admit to doing this every single day.
It goes without saying then that the best small business website examples are ones that lead customers directly to their door—whether that’s virtual or bricks-and-mortar.
So, in order to grow your small business, it’s essential to have a website. This article is going to explore the main reasons why.
Websites increase business credibility
First things first, customers expect businesses to have a website.
In a world where anyone can create a company social media profile and call themselves a business, you risk customers questioning your legitimacy if you operate solely through a Facebook or Instagram page.
A professionally designed website (complete with trust signals like contact details, reviews, and certificates) is essential for establishing credibility. Not only does it prove that your company exists in the first place, but it signals that you take your business seriously. So it’s important to find front-end developers and other specific coders who can develop your business and implement all possible ideas with a website in a real life.
They attract new customers through Google
Whether it’s to ask a question, perform product comparisons, or find local businesses, the majority of customers are using search engines as a starting point for their purchases. So if you want to increase your business’s visibility online, it’s essential that you’re as discoverable on Google as possible.
But how do you do it?
This is where websites reign supreme. Website content is rich with search engine optimisation (SEO) opportunities that are vital for securing top spots on Google’s results page. And the higher your Google ranking, the more organic traffic you’ll receive.
While social pages do show up on Google, they’re unable to compete with websites.
Organic traffic is essential for sustainable business growth. So if you want to consistently reach new customers, you not only need to create a high-quality website, but you need to promote your website using SEO.
They create a clear, streamlined customer path
Your customer path maps the steps that buyers take in their customer journey. Your website is a critical, logical step in this journey as it’s where customers go to learn about your business, browse your products, read reviews, and more.
If you don’t have a website, you risk customers abandoning their journey completely. For this reason, all of your PPC ads, email links, social media profiles, apps, and other marketing channels should direct users back to your website.
This should be the case even if you don’t actually sell on your website. People often research products on a store’s website before going to the physical store to buy them.
Investing in cloud-native application architecture can help you create centralised omnichannel experiences that put your website at the heart of your business.
Also, if you add screen sharing software onto your computers you can guide your potential customers through a live demonstration of your online products, while answering their questions in real-time.
You can improve your customer support availability
From managing high call volumes to monitoring calls across your customer service team, a lot of work goes into providing effective and efficient customer telephone support. The great thing about having a website is that you don’t need to be physically accessible to answer all of your customer’s questions.
By equipping your website with online self-service options, you can be there for your customers on a 24/7 basis. Powerful web-based self-service options include:
- An online knowledge base that provides customers with advanced information about your products and services.
- An FAQ page that answers common questions or directs users to the appropriate solution.
- Chatbots that can resolve queries and provide personalised, up-to-date information.
Have all these options accessible on the landing page whether it’s part of the website header or a small pop-up. This will help you reduce your bounce rate and encourage customers to continue their journey. Don’t forget to make it look good too!
Websites allow you to expand your reach
A website gives you the ability to expand beyond your local area. And we’re not just talking about your neighbouring city—we’re talking about potential global expansion.
There are over five billion internet users worldwide.
By setting up an ecommerce store, you not only make your business visible to these online users, but you can specifically target potential customers in different cities, regions, and countries using website localisation and global marketing strategies.
Although your social media pages are also globally visible, they lack the organic traffic and credibility needed to reach and retain customers outside of your local area.
You can attract more interest to your website through blogger outreach, making sure that you are putting out excellent content that your users will be interested in and will search for.
You can stand out from the competition
Having a website immediately gives you a competitive advantage over businesses that don’t. Remember, most consumers search for local business information online, making websites essential for your online visibility.
But that’s not all. Websites help you stand out from your competitors in other ways, too.
For example, you can:
- Take high-quality product photos to showcase your products.
- Create an attractive, on-brand website design that illustrates your business’s unique brand identity and raises your brand awareness.
- Offer social proof through customer testimonials
- Provide essential information or services that your competitors don’t.
In fact, providing essential details or delivering extra services through your website gives your business an invaluable competitive edge.
For example, a restaurant with a website that provides online menus, allergy information, and online booking options immediately cultivates a better customer experience. This can significantly boost customer acquisition, retention, and customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores.
Wrapping up
Your website is essentially your company’s digital storefront. It amplifies ecommerce capabilities for your online small business, enabling you to reach customers outside of your local area. This drives ecommerce shoppers your way and significantly increases revenue.
If you’re an offline, local business, having a website is just as important. A professional, updated website gives you a competitive edge by improving your visibility and allowing customers to access essential business information that influences their purchasing decisions.
