Author: Tom Cottrill | Date Posted: Feb 22, 2022
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and whatever other social media platforms you’re on all give you the opportunity to create brand awareness and showcase your company in a variety of ways. With all these platforms on which to share your company’s story and to show your customers what you’re all about, you might be asking yourself, “Do I need a website?” It’s a great question, and many factors play into the answer.
The short answer: yes. You really do need a website. Even though your company information is all over social media, and you’re sharing your portfolio images or case studies or testimonials there, you still really need a website.
Don’t get us wrong, having social media is still a really crucial part of networking, but it’s not going to get you quite as far as you may hope if you don’t have a website to back it all up—and add to your marketing in ways social media cannot.
We should note that our stance on having a website in the age of social media isn’t because we literally develop the websites we’re telling you to get. It’s actually the other way around. We develop websites precisely because we know what a huge impact they can have on a business and its marketing efforts. We know the benefits of a website, so we decided to make a company that helps companies reap those benefits.
But why is a website necessary for a business’s marketing? Why is it that every time you ask fellow business owners, “Do I need a website…really?” they answer with a resounding yes? Well, that’s not a short answer either.
Think about MySpace, AIM, Vine, Friendster, all the social media platforms Google has attempted over the years…they once housed a ton of information from a large array of users, some for business, and some to connect with friends and family. All that information, though, is gone now. It disappeared along with the platforms themselves. Well, if you search yourself on MySpace (if that’s something you really even want to find), you can find your own profile. But nobody is seeing that information anymore, and nobody is going to that site anymore—nor can it be updated. A website allows you to own real estate online, own the URL for your business so nobody else can take it, and organically rank if you do your SEO right.
People are still using Google. A lot. Like two trillion searches annually a lot. Around 97% of these people are using online search to look for businesses, and about 49% of local businesses end each month with 1,000 Google My Business listing views (99Firms). All of this comes together to mean that if a potential customer is trying to find you, there is a strong chance they’re using Google to do it. If you’re not there, in the right place where they will look, you’re not going to get the call—and therefore, not the job either.
While social media profiles will show up in search engine results, they’re not going to compete against your competitors’ well-built and well-optimized websites, and your posts on those sites are no-index and will not rank individually. So, unlike the blog posts you can update regularly and use to rank higher on search engines, these posts will not come up when customers search the keywords that match those posts.
Social media allows for zero customization outside of a branded cover photo and photos, and it doesn’t allow for much content at all. The About section is short, it doesn’t help anyone find you anywhere unless they receive the link directly, and it provides them with very little information about your company. Social media platforms are great for engaging with customers and sharing portfolio content through photos, but even that cannot be organized in a way that works well for user experience, and it often leaves people wondering what you do, where you do it, when you’re open, and just about everything else. It gives people very basic contact information and short company descriptions, but that’s about it.
A website gives you the opportunity to share anything and everything in whatever layout you choose that makes the most sense for your visitors’ journey, and it will answer more questions rather than create new ones. This customization includes being able to add exactly what features and apps you need for functionality.
Social media advertising has come a long way, and Facebook now has an option to install a Pixel on your site and run advertisements to people who visited your website. Because you know they already have visited your site and are interested in what you do, your ad dollars can be more effectively spent for a better return on investment. This Pixel essentially acts like a cookie reading your visitor history, and it can’t be used without a functional website to track.
Our previous point leads us right into our last point on why you need a website even though you have social media. While social media offers analytics to show you the number of visitors and engagement on your pages, the analytics fall short on getting detailed information on who’s visiting, where they’re converting, what they like and don’t like, and where they’re coming from. Website analytics, however, can essentially be set up to tell you whatever information you want to know about your website visitors depending on the level of detail you want. You can even use heat maps to tell you exactly what people are reading, where they’re reading the most intently (not just passively scrolling), whether they keep scrolling, or if they stop reading at a certain spot and bounce from the page. This is all incredibly helpful information to make sure your marketing efforts are paying off and to determine what needs to be tweaked or completely revamped.
Since 2013, Ignitro Studios has been working to blend marketing and technology in support of agencies and other marketers. By understanding both sides of web development, we have a unique perspective and advantage within the industry. We provide design, development, project management, QA, and strategy, driving the bus so our clients don’t have to. We will work with our clients to get results while also empowering them to do their job better. Learn more about Ignitro Studios.
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