It's all about social media. You want to reach your audience where they spend their time, and that happens to be on Facebook, YouTube, and other social networks. As you look to get your message to potential customers, do you even need to worry about a website anymore?
The short answer is yes. Even (and especially) in 2019, a website is as crucial to your overall marketing and business strategy as ever.
Of course, not any website will do. To truly be successful and drive customer and business growth, you have to build your online presence the right way. If you do, you have a solid foundation for lasting, sustainable success.
Don't take our word for it. Instead, let's dig in deep. Consider these 5 reasons why your business still needs a website in 2019.
Yes, social media has exploded in recent years. But so has another website that users around the world visit almost compulsively on a daily basis. Of course, we're talking about Google, the world's #1 ranked website in traffic by Alexa.
Unlike networks like Twitter and Instagram, Google is not a dead end. Instead, it's simply a conduit to get its users to the places they need to go. For you, that means building your website in a way that allows it to rank high on the search engine results page (SERP) for relevant keywords for your audience.
Yes, Google is the world's most popular website. But you might have noticed the number of social networks that also occupy that ranking, led by Facebook at #3. Fortunately, it's not an either-or situation. Your website is more powerful when linked directly to your social media efforts.
You can accomplish that feat in a multitude of ways:
Without a website, your social media - now an isolated island - will have limited success. Even if you believe in the power of social, you should prioritize a website that can accompany it.
The stats are in: it's almost impossible to survive in online marketing without effective content. Simply put, your audience is no longer looking for promotional messaging. They want to engage with content that's relevant and useful to them.
Enter strategic content marketing, designed as a soft sell opportunity. Through blog posts, eBooks, whitepapers, videos, and webinars, you can showcase your thought leadership while subtly promoting yourself as a leader in the industry.
That content, of course, has to live somewhere. Your website is by far the most natural fit. Here, you can create a content library designed to become a crucial resource for your audience. Beyond that, you can create sign-up pages for users to access content to help you gather your audience's contact information and create new leads for future follow-up.
When your audience is looking for a product or service like yours, they likely look for your website first. How you fare in that process can influence whether that potential customer ever makes it to the sale.
Just having any website won't do, either – website aesthetics are more important than ever when it comes to a site’s credibility, meaning you need the right online presence to attract and maintain your audience's attention.
Finally, don't underestimate your website's potential to drive sales prospects through the entire funnel. Both SEO and presenting yourself through a credible website, drives awareness and initial engagement with your brand. Long-form content allows you to generate better leads in exchange for relevance and value. Those leads will become return visitors to your website as they work through their decision.
It doesn't end there. You can leverage your website for direct sales, or reservations for your service business. The more you automate the process, the less overhead you'll have. In other words, the right online presence can accompany your prospects through the entire sales funnel, maximizing your business and opportunity growth.
Admittedly, not every website will be able to take advantage of the above. In fact, the reason you're even asking the question about the relevance of your online presence might well be connected to the lack of success you've seen from it. That doesn't mean your website is bad - it might just mean you need an improvement.
In many ways, a website represents the baseline of your marketing efforts. If it's good, you can build on it. If it's bad, many of your efforts on other channels won't matter much. Once you begin to treat it that way, you see its importance in the present and future of your marketing strategy.
To get to that point, you might need help. Your website needs to be relevant and of high value to your audience, but also technically sound with fast load times and an intuitive navigation. It takes pros to get to that point, but we can help you. Request a quote today to build a better website and leverage what remains among the most important marketing tools for any business.