You’ve probably heard that once you’ve launched your business, you MUST launch a website as well. But is it true for any business, and at any stage?
Our recommendation, for any early stage businesses is to measure their resources and only invest in marketing tools (such as an website) only after answering these answers:
Once you’ve reached the point where it does make sense for you to launch a business website, you should be aware of all the advantages it can bring to you and your business and use your web platform as the powerful conversion machine it can be!
According to a survey from 2019, more than 80% of consumers think that companies that also have a website are more trust worthy. Having a professional website that follows Growth Driven Design rules shows that you are willing to invest time and money in order to offer your clients a great experience in term of UX, UI and communication.
Displaying high quality pictures or videos or uploading customers’ testimonials can also make your users feel confident about the quality of your services.
According to Statista, in 2020, almost 4.54 billion people (59% of the global population) were using the Internet. That is a large pool of potential clients you want to address and of course, you can do it through social media, but a well-optimized website can give them a better image of your business.
In order to open communication, you can consider installing (and constantly managing) a chatbot. Chatbots – which are basically a software program that uses AI to communicate – are expected to reach a worldwide market size of more than $1.3 billion by 2024, while 47% of organizations are expected to implement chatbots for customer support services, and 40% are expected to adopt virtual assistants.
But there are alternatives as well – you can have a forum or a comments section, an official email address where people can contact support, a phone number or you can even consider building email communities.
Your future clients expect it to be easy to get in touch with you, to be able to learn about your products or services, to buy at any time of the day or night they want, to have their questions answered as fast as possible.
A permanently updated website makes the whole buying process smoother, as opposed to an offline shop or to a social media account where, i.e., it can be harder to search for certain information.
Content marketing is one of the biggest trends in marketing in 2021, but at the same time, now is even harder to stand out through content. Given the crowded online environment where everyone has something to say, the content you develop must be professional, brand aligned and most importantly, it has to bring real value to its consumers.
Creating video, written, audio or photo content for your website has multiple advantages: your website will rank better, you will be able to tell your brand story and build a whole journey for your potential customers, you will give something back to your community and you will have a platform through which you can stand by your mission.
Of course, besides your more empathetic mission, your business is also profit oriented so your website should help you sell. And it does.
Starting with organic reach – people find your website or even better, it appears among the first Google results, if properly optimized – and going to Google Advertising, your growth driven website can boost sales. Did you know that 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine or that 74.87% of all desktop and laptop searches from January to December of 2019 occurred on Google (according to Net Marketshare)?
This means you must be discoverable on Google with your platforms and specifically with your website, as it can act as a one-stop-shop, where people can learn more about your products, read your content and buy.
In order to become visible, your content has to be of high quality (not necessarily long, but value-adding), you should have links in other publications as well, invest in SEO and be active continuously. If you want to learn more about SEO, here’s a useful guide we wrote about in-house SEO.
Has someone visited your website but abandoned the cart? Add them to your remarketing campaigns and remind them about their desire to buy something.
Do you want to stay in touch with potential clients? Write an eBook, ask for email addresses of those who want to download it and keep in touch through a newsletter.
Do you want to sell a more expensive product? Start with a cheaper or even free one and upsell!
Your website can work wonders in marketing campaigns and in order for you to see a progress, remember to constantly monitor the process – you can, i.e., install Google Analytics and track the most accessed pages or the sources people came from and landed on your website and invest more in those.
Over time, the website can become a very effective tool for generating demand. Unlike advertising that stops working when you stop investing, over time a website’s visibility in search results should increase(if you do SEO right), bringing your business in front of your potential customers when they look for products or services like yours. The visitors that convert to leads on your website are 1st party data that you can communicate with via email, without needing to spend additional money.
Of course you should be careful and get their consent to communicate and store their data first. But once you have their contact information you can reach out and establish a direct connection.
Besides the organic traffic you can attract – which is free traffic, you don’t pay for it – the website is a medium you own and control. So there are no limits to what formats you can play.