Living in this digital world, a website is essential for businesses of all sizes. However, when it comes to a small business, website benefits are innumerable.
When you create a quality website for your small business, not only does it help you gain a competitive advantage in your specific industry but it also enhances your professional image.
Surprisingly, regardless of so many benefits of a website, around half of small businesses don’t own a professional website, according to a recent study. So, if you own a small business, and didn’t create a website yet, don’t fail to take advantage of this opportunity.
Nowadays, with so many hosting service options, it is easy to create a professional-looking website without breaking your bank.
You can expect to pay around $2 or less for a month. With several hosting providers, you get an easy-to-use website builder tool as well; even if you have no prior knowledge of working with it, you can create a stunning website single-handedly.
To cut the cost of website building, it is advisable to choose WordPress, which is the most extensive open-source content management system (CMS) in the world. Around 34% of the total websites use WordPress.
Now let’s find out what your small business is missing out on without having a website.
5 Benefits of Having a Website for Your Small Business
1. Cost-effective Way to Market Your Business
Have you ever advertised your business through television, radio, or printed media? If yes, you must know how expensive it is to promote through these channels. Investing in advertising is essential for a small business, but it takes a lot of funds.
Creating a website for your business makes business promotion exceptionally pocket-friendly. Your website acts as an online brochure or catalog that you can update or change anytime. With CMS like WordPress, it is easy to make changes to your site – and that at no charge.
When you place your website address on all of your promotional material, you gain more exposure. To make your business marketing more effective, you can promote your site over social media platforms and submit it on local citation sites such as Google My Business, Yelp, Yellowpages, etc.
Since 56.1% of the world’s population has internet access, a website should be your most powerful tool to communicate with the target audience.
2. Enhances Your Online Presence
Remember, building an online presence is the primary purpose of a website.
This might come as a surprise to you that the number of active internet users as of April 2019 was around 4.4 billion. This number is expected to grow as people are becoming more dependent on mobile devices to use the internet. So, if your business does not have a website, you will be weakening its ability to generate revenue.
Since most of the website traffic is generated through mobile devices, make sure to develop a mobile responsive website. A well-built responsive website helps you capitalize on the opportunities available on the world wide web.
To enhance the visibility of your site, ensure it is search engine optimized and delivers relevant, unique, and quality content to your visitors.
3. Improves Business Credibility
Credibility is a crucial element to build a lasting relationship with your clients. When you establish business credibility, your customers respect you, support you and continue to use your products or services.
One of the key benefits of a website for a small business is, it helps in improving business credibility. Your website is an online business address that helps customers find you on the internet.
The Homepage of your website defines your branded value proposition while the About Us page informs the visitors all about your business. The Contact Us page tells everyone how to get in touch with you. In simple words, your website legitimizes your business and enhances your credibility. It provides your small business a professional identity and is a virtual proof of your business presence.
A survey reveals that around 84% of people believe that having a website makes your business credible.
4. Builds a Strong Relationship with Your Customer
It is another way your website benefits your business. A well-built website helps you achieve loyalty by building a strong relationship with your audience.
How does your website help with it?
- You can set up a blog page on your website to share your ideas and thoughts with your customers.
- Your website helps you address the needs of the market. You can invite the audience to engage with you by encouraging them to post comments on your blog.
- Along with email and phone support, give your customers an option to chat through the website. This will give your customers more opportunities to raise their concerns and inquiries and stay in touch with you.
5. Keep Track of Your Business
One of the most substantial benefits of a website for a small business is that you can track its performance in real-time with the help of Google Analytics.
Google Analytics helps you get useful data on how your business has been moving within a period of time. Some of the primary indicators of business performance include:
- Number of people visiting your website.
- Number of “unique visitors” coming to your site for the first time.
- Page views: They inform how many times a particular page has been visited or read.
- Bounce rate: It defines the percentage of people leaving your website without exploring any web page.
- Average time on the website shows how long a visitor views your website content.
Conclusion
In the modern age, when the internet has influenced how we live and work, it is shocking to know that very few small businesses have a website. A website has a myriad of benefits for small businesses, ranging from enhancing online presence to improving business credibility to making a better relationship with customers. So, if you operate a small business and don’t have a website yet, consider building one right now.