If you are reading this article you are probably a business looking to create a website for your business but don’t know if it is worth investing your time or money into it. Here are 15 reasons why you should start a website and how each can help your business grow. If you do not have a business but want to create a website for personal needs check out our article on Why should I start a Personal Website, a lot of the information applies to both business and personal so that list is a little shorter than this one.  

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Expanded reach:

If you do not have a website, you are probably running your business out of a physical location. The downside of running a business with a physical location is that you will attract customers that are willing and able to physically go to your location. A website allows you to reach a global audience, expanding your customer base beyond this location's limitations.

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24/7 availability:

If you build your website correctly it is like having an extra employee to answer questions, take orders, and process payments. Some people may want to make an impulse purchasing decision at 3am at night, and typically they wouldn’t be able to do that if you didn’t have a website. Having a website allows your business to always be accessible, allowing visitors to learn about your products or services at any time, even outside business hours.

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Cost-effective marketing:

You can spend less money and target your audience more effectively with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Analytic tools allow you to monitor the performance of marketing efforts to see how successful a campaign is working and you can pivot immediately if you are not getting the results you want. Overall compared to traditional advertising methods, a website provides a cost-efficient platform for promoting your business.

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Search engine visibility:

You can get more monthly visitors to your website than you can get to your physical store. Using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get your website on the first page of Google will dramatically increase your company's awareness. Optimizing your website for search engines helps you appear in relevant search results, increasing your online visibility and attracting organic traffic.

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Showcasing products or services:

Even if no one buys anything or hires you for a service, there is a huge benefit to having that information handy at a touch of a button. It enables you to showcase your offerings with detailed descriptions, images, and even videos, helping potential customers make informed decisions for future purchases. If they don’t have that information it may make it harder to make purchases in the future. 

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Customer engagement:

Nowadays artificial intelligence (AI) is getting scary good. But there are many simple non-AI tools you can use to have your website interact with your customers just like a human would. Interactive features include contact forms, live chat, and comment sections on your website that creates direct engagement and feedback from customers.

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Building a brand identity:

According to questionpro.com, Touchpoints are “Any engagement or communication between a company and its customers''. To have a well-established brand, you have to put the brand out to the world so they can learn what you are all about. A website is one of the biggest touchpoints you can have for your brand. It allows you to establish and reinforce your brand identity and is where all other touch points can lead your customer to. 

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Online sales:

If your company sells physical or even digital goods, you can create a website with e-commerce functionality to make more sales to people without them having to come to your physical store. It is a great idea to let your website become an income generating source and sell your products and or services directly to your customers.

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Lead generation:

This one thing that I am going to focus on in the later half of 2023. It’s kind of a no brainer to try to establish a website to be a source that brings people that are interested in your services and that might actually hire you or make a purchase. You can do this by creating a sales funnel and offering useful resources, newsletters to help turn the interested view to current customers. One of the useful resources I am implementing is this blog. 

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Customer data collection:

You can use customer data to fine tune how people interact with your website. For example, users may not be clicking on the link that is really important in your sales funnel. If that is happening you will know from the data, and now that you know that their is an issue, you can change things to make clicking on that button more enticing for the users. You can try to change the call to action (CTA) copy above it, say something that will get them interested in where that button leads to. 

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Competitive advantage:

It used to be to make a website to have a leg up on your competition. It is 2023, and all of your competitors have websites of their own. So this is more like not letting not having a website become a disadvantage. Not having a website gives your competitors an edge over your business. When starting a website you can do some competitive analysis and study your competitors websites and try to offer a better user experience and overall value then they do. 

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Educational resources:

I mentioned earlier that this blog and this article you are reading now is my way of providing a useful resource. I hope that this resource is educational for you and I hope you are getting value from it and finding solid reasons why you should start a website for your business. . If you have any suggestions please send me a message and I’ll try to make these better in the future. Most websites provide educational resources in the form of blogs, a resource section that allows you to share industry insights, tips and tricks, and informative content. This helpful content also helps positioning your business as an authority in your field, which is great for SEO.

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Mobile accessibility:

I think we all know the importance of having a great website for mobile phones. It is kind of a problem, everyone is on their phone more than they should be, me included, so your business should take advantage of that. A mobile-responsive website will let your business website be viewed easily on smartphones and tablets. 

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Customer support and FAQs:

As a business owner, you get asked the same questions over and over. WIth a  Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section on your site so you can direct people to all of the answers they are looking for, offer support documentation, while reducing the work you will have to do and improving customer satisfaction in the process.

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Looks Cool

All of the prior reasons for building a website are great and can bring in some form of Return on Investment (ROI). But when I first started building websites, I was building this same website over and over. I didn’t stop until I got it to a point where it just looks cool. Honestly, I only implemented one or two of the things listed above. That's probably why this site isn’t driving traffic or revenue for me, and I am ok with that. I don’t need all of those things. I just need it to look good, and that is enough for me, or at least it was. 

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I am starting to learn what the potential of this site can be. So check back periodically and check my progress as I try to accomplish some of these items myself. If this article has helped educate you on how a website can benefit your business and you want to take action on starting a website but do not know where to start, take a look at my blog ‘Things to consider when building a website’. 

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