Company Website in 2020? 9 Reasons Proving that Your Business Needs This Solution
Do you remember that at the turn of the first and second decade of the 21st century marketing specialists believed that the era of websites was coming to an end and they were persuading business owners to “move” their content to Facebook and Instagram? Social media were predicted to take over the legacy and effectiveness of websites. Larger and smaller companies stopped paying for domains and decided to invest in their Facebook profiles. Did they back the wrong horse?
Websites – a handful of statistics
Various research clearly indicates that 90% of users search for a company, services, or products’ reviews online. You do it too, don’t you? So where do you look for information? Do you use the “search” bar on Instagram or Facebook? No, naturally you, similarly to 98% of Polish Internet users, take advantage of Google!
67% of the B2B clients’ decision making processes take place online. An average B2B decision-maker needs from a few to a dozen interactions with the brand and its online competitors to make a choice. Most of us perceive companies that don’t have websites as unreliable. For some people, a company website is a critical element deciding about potential cooperation. Do you want to risk losing potential customers?
How much does a company website cost?
Do you hesitate whether it’s worth running a company website because of the high costs of developing, running, and optimizing the site scare you out? Let’s scrutinize this aspect!
Moreover, you’ll also need a domain, a server to publish texts and content – product and service descriptions – that you can prepare for free by yourself or commission it to professional copywriters.
However, if your company doesn’t have its online space, you should start by creating a website.
To sum up, running a company website equals a one-time investment of a few thousand dollars for website development and a few hundred dollars a year for page maintenance. In the case of B2B cooperation, the efforts usually start to pay off after a few lucrative leads and successful transactions that probably wouldn’t be finalized without a website. On the other hand, online stores offering budget products and/or lower margins have to wait a little longer until their websites start earning, but then it’s all downhill.
If it’s not the costs that stop you from making the decision to set up a company website, see the objectives and purposes your page can serve!
Why do I need a company website?
Below you can find a list of 9 reasons proving that a company website is a crucial element of every business marketing plan and operating budget. If you’re just devising your business plan and starting your company, remember to include the costs of website development in your calculations.
1. Bigger passive income of your company
Imagine that you’re sleeping and your website earns money for you. It’s not a utopian scenario, after all, today we shop online day and night. We send contact forms anytime we want. It doesn’t matter whether you run a B2B or B2C business and whether you operate in the eCommerce, logistics, IT, or HR industry. A properly designed website supported by appropriate SEO activities can effectively increase the passive income of your company.
2. More organic traffic customers
Organic traffic can be compared to a good location of a brick and mortar store. If a shop is properly situated, many passers-by enter it on the fly and frequently leave it with newly purchased goods. Quality website content attracts organically Internet users that convert, become your potential customers, and part of your database marketing.
Winning a customer is always the most expensive process in the whole sales cycle. Thanks to a website, potential buyers can accidentally and organically visit your page while searching for useful content provided on, e.g., a company blog. Consequently, there’s a chance that during such a visit they’ll become a lead and purchase something in your store. Running a website is a great 24/7 brand advertisement that you can fully control. It also effectively attracts new leads.
3. Greater credibility
A website or at least a Google My Business profile increases the credibility of your brand. If you were a customer, would you choose a company with or without a website?
4. Extra advertising possibilities – remarketing
Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn advertising systems enable placing special tags – short pieces of source code – on the website. Thanks to them, you can continuously display your ads to users who have visited your website and clicked on a specific tab. In a nutshell, Google Remarketing is always an appropriate, effective, and at the same time profitable form of advertising.
5. Greater customer-friendliness thanks to website traffic analysis
There’s never too much analysis. Google Analytics implemented on your website will provide you with a vast amount of knowledge about your customers and products. You won’t be able to find out what types of users visit your store, how they get there, and what they’re looking for without having a company website.
6. A useful supplement to offline commercial materials
Maybe you have a team of salespersons who hand out your catalogs and maybe you also prefer paper, traditional offers. Well, that’s great! But what if your potential customers will want to expand their knowledge not only with paper materials but also with online guidelines, tutorials, or product reviews? Obviously, you should do your best to guarantee that Google redirects them to your company website. Imagine a situation that potential buyers aren’t able to access your website and instead find well-developed pages of your market rivals – well, traditional paper materials may not be enough.
7. Contact and sales automation
A company website is the best tool for customer service and sales automation. You can use it to publish a FAQ or Q&A section resolving the most popular customers’ doubts. Install a chat box that will answer users’ questions any time day or night. Provide a simple contact form to access buyers’ contact details. Your company website is your piece of the online world so you can do there virtually anything you wish.
8. Private content marketing space to position yourself as an expert
As customers or clients, we want to buy products or order services from people who are experts in given industries. Thanks to case studies and professional blog posts on your website, your visitors will sleep peacefully knowing that they found a real expert in the field.
9. Access to global customers
The Internet provides access to the global village and customers from around the world. Offering several language versions of your page (today, the English one is a real must-have) can do wonders. Combining this element with appropriate SEO activities will guarantee that soon you’ll be sending your products off to the most distant corners of the globe. Without a company website, even stores in strict city centers aren’t truly likely to conquer foreign markets, are they?
Company websites – let’s debunk the myths!
How many times have you heard someone saying “My company doesn’t need a website”? So, is it worth being so stubborn in 2020? Why are people still so reserved when it comes to company pages?
- Customers can find me without a website
Regardless of the industry, you operate it, the competition never sleeps. One can be stated for sure, your market rivals already have or are likely to set up company websites and stores. The whole world, especially in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, has moved from offline to online reality. Do you want to be left far behind the greatest market tycoons?
- Today everyone is on social media
This is both true and… not true. We browse the net for diverse purposes with the use of various devices and applications. Very frequently we don’t scroll social media platforms to buy. As Internet users, we usually start our shopping path in Google. That’s why, a company website should be a real starting point, whereas social media profiles of your brand should merely lead and attract users to your landing page.
- A company website is a big waste of money
You already know that it’s not true. Spending a few thousand dollars is enough to create your own online space that will allow you to develop your business. Your company website is a long-term investment that will keep paying off forever.
- I don’t need more customers
Things change. A company website is a great source of new contacts that might be needed especially if your revenues decrease or if you’d like to expand your business one day.
Company website – to run or not to run? That is the question
For us, everything is clear. After all, if we hadn’t had our Delante company website, you wouldn’t have spent a few minutes reading this article. So, once you’re a proud owner of a company site, don’t hesitate and contact us to discuss possible SEO and marketing strategies. Quality SEO does wonders! 🙂
