Websites Vs Social Media… You post on Facebook and LinkedIn three times a week, but when you stop, your business goes quiet… Sound familiar? Of course, because that’s what happened to me. Things in life got in the way, and I stopped uploading to social media. Next thing I knew, my business periodically subsided.
Now, social media is great for business. It is easy to use, free, and you get instant feedback and results from your profile analytics. However, social media is almost a ‘rented’ space on the internet. Once a post has been seen, it retreats into the black hole of posts and videos, and therefore is lost, not giving your business any online presence. A website is owned and it is permanent. A Google search result is your virtual shop door, and a website is your virtual shop window.
This blog will cover how you have full control over your website, a website showcases your professionalism and boosts user conversion.
The illusion of Social Media Ownership
Social media is a wonderful thing, in moderation, but setting aside its darker side, it is brilliant for quick business advertising, showcasing, and updates. However, it can be insufficient if you wish for it to be your only online presence. You are effectively relying on people to maintain their engagement, algorithms to keep spreading your word to new people, and potentially throwing money at a company that, quite frankly, does not care whether your business makes money or not.
Whilst having followers is a great attribute to your online business page, and shows that you have a core audience. They are not your customers; they are, in effect, a group of borrowed attention looking at a temporary stage. Social media feeds are always updated and are ever-changing. A website, on the other hand, is a more permanent digital home for your business that only requires small, infrequent updates to keep the site ranked as high as possible on Google. Visitors can easily return to your site, and they will see the same, consistent information.
Your Website, Your Control Centre
So, when you have a website, you own that. Sure, you may be paying a service and even someone else to store it for you on a server, and you are paying doe a domain. But that gives you the outright ownership of your online presence! You have full control over the design, development, content, and message you are trying to convey. You can drive internet traffic from multiple areas, social media, ads, emails and word of mouth.
Websites are highly important for building credibility, and customers take your business more seriously when you have a website. It’s a way of showing professional trust, especially if the website is high quality both visually and technically. The take-home point here is: a social media post will disappear, and your business profile is a temporary, rented space. Whereas your website is your permanent presence, sure it requires maintenance nd hard work, but so does anything in your life and business? However, I can help you alleviate some of that work by doing the bulky work for you.
Visibility and Conversion Beyond Followers
Your website is accessible from all over the internet, but mainly through search engines. Google rankings are the main source of how people find your website. The higher your website ranks, the more organic clicks your website will get. This is called SEO. I can help manage your SEO and get your site ranked higher on the search engine results. I will also write a blog post explaining more about SEO in the coming months.
Moreover, conversions are a key metric for websites. Social media is good for awareness and quick conversions. But a website is where you can convey all the right information and get professional conversions. The conversions on a website pay for the website in its own right after a short period of time! Furthermore, you can combine the powers of both social media and a website. For instance, this blog will be featured on my website, where it will remain permanently, but it will also be shared as a social media post, where I will advertise the blog and provide a brief excerpt. Social media drives the attention, and a website converts that attention! Take this blog post as an example, again. I advertise the blog on social media > link to my website > click on the CTA to a contact form > new client is in my inbox. Now, it isn’t as black and white as this; the odds of my converting a client from this blog post are minimal, but you get the idea.
TL;DR
Social media is great for quick ‘wins’ and if your business needs to send out a quick update. It is good for advertising your business and trying to increase attention. However, it is not your own space, and you are sharing a smorgasbord of other businesses and people on the same platform.
A website is your permanent digital home, and it conveys your business message consistently. You can house more information and show customers what you have to offer, whether it’s a product or a service.
If you are looking to get a new website for your business, get in touch today by clicking here or the contact button below.