There are many reasons why small businesses think they don't need a professional website. Many of these reasons seem to make sense because they make it easier for a business to get started. However, there is one problem. None of them are really true.
It may be easier to skip a few steps. It can be more fun to make the parts you enjoy. However, poor strategic planning and a lack of appropriate marketing are two of the biggest reasons why many startups fail within the first few months.
Most business owners actually know that they need a website. They just don't know how to do it. Or they don't think they have the budget to hire a web agency.
It is very similar to branding in many ways. Business owners know that branding is the right thing to do. Still, they often end up making their own logo themselves or finding one online. They ignore defining a unique sales strategy, thus generally discounting the value of branding.
Why do business owners do this? Why ignore the critical pieces of the puzzle like having a professional website and branding? Most of the time, it's a lack of experience or understanding as to how and why these elements are essential to running a business.
We know that getting a website is easier said than done. Therefore, we will go through each area. We will explain why it is not as bad as it seems and why the alternative is even worse.
1. The business is just starting out and too small for a website
Many small business owners think that websites are only for larger companies. The truth is that businesses of all sizes need to have a website. You're never too new or too small to have a website.
Why not create a website later?
First, all of your potential customers these days are online. All of your competitors are also likely to be online with a professional website. If you're planning on competing and getting those customers, you'll need to create a website for your business early on in the process.
Thinking that you'll create a website later on, once you're more successful, is an outdated idea. Customers trust your website and other information they find online. It helps determine whether they want to do business with you at all or not. If they can't find this information from you, they'll likely end up somewhere else online, thus finding one of your competitors to buy from.
Keep in mind that procrastination rarely helps. It just delays the inevitable. The best-case scenario is that the company succeeds, but misses out on potential customers. The worst-case scenario is that the company fails, but would have been successful with a digital presence.
It is too expensive to buy a professional websites
Most new business owners don't understand website pricing. That's because figuring out how much a website should cost is complicated. There are many factors, including the complexity of the project and the skills of the website designers.
Some websites actually cost over R1 million. Fortunately, if you're running a small local business, your website will likely be significantly cheaper. Most small businesses can get a nice professional website for a few thousand rands.
If you need something tailor-made, it can get into the few tens of thousands.
If you're getting higher quotes than that, you may need to make sure you're talking to the right website designers. You may also need to make sure that you're not requesting a website that's more complicated than your business's needs.
At Big Web Media, our prices for a professional small business website start from R5,000. Here you get everything a start-up needs to become visible online.
Get the right website, within your industry and budget
Most small businesses don't need super fancy websites with a larger number of features. Consider what your website should contain that will directly help your business. If budget is a big constraint, don't ask for all kinds of fancy features. Keep functionality simple. Focuses on a simple user experience and a great design.
If even that is too expensive, you can try creating your own website and save a few thousand Rands. It is free in the form of money. But consider the opportunity costs. What else could you do with your time? It can run to over 100 hours if you have to learn everything from scratch, and if you get stuck because there isn't a tutorial online showing you how, you may still need to hire an expert to help you complete your website.
On the very low end, you can use a website builder to create your own business website. You still need to spend time learning how to use the builder. You will also take a closer look at the best practices on the website. These builders also often have certain limitations. But they can be better than nothing if you really can't afford a professional to help. However, most website builders cost more per month than a normal web hosting website, so it can be expensive in the long run.
There are options out there for every type of business to get started with digital marketing with a website. You just need to find the website that will help you achieve your business goals. This means that you need to find a website that matches your needs in terms of functionality, design, and price.
2. Will only use social media instead of your own website
One of the other things some companies do is only use social media accounts as a website replacement. Perhaps a digital marketing guru has told them that a Facebook page is all they need. This is a bad idea, and there are a few reasons why.
Rules can be changed on social media platforms
One reason is that you're now at the mercy of whatever platform you use. Facebook, Instagram, and any other social media platform may change the rules at any time. And they can change the rules in ways that seem capricious and arbitrary.
The reality is that all of these platforms are for-profit companies similar to your small business. They have a duty to the shareholders of their company to maximize their profits. This means that if they can change their platform to make more money, they likely will, regardless of how it negatively affects your business.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't still use these platforms for your business. The best solution would be to use social media to work with your website. Just also realize that unless you pay them, just like with ads, they have a very minimal incentive to ensure that you get enough exposure.
Organic reach decreases
In October 2021, Facebook announced that it would change its company name to Meta, the platform has now adjusted its goals and vision. The change has resulted in reduced time spent on Facebook by millions of hours per day. Since October 2021 and the end of October 2022, Meta's share price has fallen by more than 70%, which now stands at its lowest since January 2016.
That certainly doesn't mean fewer ads. Competition and pricing for ads are still the same, but this can mean less organic reach for content from brands and other publishers. This means that it's getting harder and harder to reach your followers without spending money on social media.
Ultimately, without a website, you'll become more and more separated from your existing and potential customers.
Social media platforms are not invincible
Facebook and Instagram have been down during a major power outage in the past. What if you had a major announcement and no other method to reach your followers?
Basically, you'd be out of luck. This is yet another reason why social media accounts are not a digital marketing wonder. You should strive to have techniques and methods to reach potential customers that don't rely solely on one platform or one company.
However, it's not just that the platform can crash for a day or two. Imagine if you were using MySpace in the early 00s. It seemed like the greatest place to be at the time, but it wasn't long before people forgot all about it.
The same can happen with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, or any other social media platform. Will it happen and when will it happen for a given platform? No one knows for sure, but as a business owner, you should keep this in mind.
Don't rely too much on a single platform. Use social media platforms to complement your digital marketing efforts, including your website. If a platform crashes or goes out of business, your business will be more likely to survive.
You don't own your own data
The problem is that you don't own all of your own data. When someone becomes a follower of yours on a social media platform, you usually get very little individualized data about that person. This is for a number of reasons, including privacy and security, but it has a huge downside for you as a business.
When you get followers on Facebook or Instagram, you don't have 100% access to them. You can view their names in some limited ways, but you can't export them for use elsewhere.
For instance, you can't send them all an email with a new product you've launched. You can't even send them all a group message on Facebook. You need to make a promoted post and pay Facebook to make sure that each of your followers eventually sees it.
When you own your own website, you control all the rules for how much information you collect. You can use tools like Google Analytics to collect basic information about your visitors. You decide what information you want to collect and use for your marketing.
You do this by adding web forms to your website to capture specific information. The form can either be something like a contact us form, or it can offer something of value in exchange. This could be a subscription to a newsletter or something third.
You usually can't do this kind of thing on a social media page. Even when you can, you can't necessarily do what you want or the way that's best for your business. The only foolproof way to collect the data you want and own it is with your own website.
Without a website will limit your brand
It also diminishes your brand, and it makes your brand too dependent on the social media platforms you use. If one of these platforms changes, the changes can hurt your brand. Or what if the unthinkable happens and your chosen social media platform shuts down, like Vine did in 2017.
Think of super-strong brands like Apple, AT&T or Coca-Cola. And think about who and what they are as brands. What is their brand voice and how do they use it? They all use social media, but they use social media to engage with people who are already on social media.
They use these platforms to further increase their brand reach, which is completely separate and not dependent on any specific platform. If you visit Apple.com, they don't even link to their own social media accounts. Most other big brands refer these icons to the footer of their website.
Now, small businesses don't have the same brand equity as Fortune 500 companies. Therefore, you will have to do some of the things a little differently. You should still follow their trail to some extent. Build your own brand, both offline and online. Then, use social media platforms to grow your brand.
You can't be your own hub
Finally, if at all possible, you always want to be your own business. You then use most or all of your marketing efforts to drive people to your site. In the physical world, this can mean that people are driven to a storefront. In the digital marketing sphere, this means directing people to your website.
If you count on Facebook or Instagram to be your focal point, then you are forced to drive people to your account on that platform. This isn't nearly as strong, and you also lose control. You're limited to what each platform allows you to do.
Instagram, for example, doesn't let you link to other websites in your posts. It's not very useful if you want to link to an article in the local newspaper that mentioned your business. You also have limited control over how they present your information. And as we mentioned earlier, that can change at any time.
3. Not worth the money
The third reason we hear from small business owners is that it's just not worth the cost. They don't want to waste money on digital marketing, like paying for a website. They realize that social media is not an ideal connection, but they accept the drawbacks or skip it as well.
Why websites and digital marketing are worth the money
A study with Google showed how companies use digital marketing. They found that 38% of companies believed that digital marketing "was not effective for [their] business." Conversely, 38% believed in increased sales and revenue, and 31% said it improved brand awareness.
The survey divided companies into four groups: basic, intermediate, high, and advanced. The groups were based on the companies' level of digital engagement. The bottom 20% only used traditional marketing and did not have websites. The top 20% used all the more sophisticated digital marketing techniques.
The study found that being in the advanced group had huge benefits over being in the basic group. The advanced group of companies:
- Earned twice as much revenue.
- Achieved 4X higher year-over-year revenue growth.
- So 6 times higher employment growth.
With these kinds of benefits, it's clear that a website and other digital marketing is worth the money. Yet, the survey found that 80% of small businesses underutilize digital marketing efforts to their determinant.
One of their most important things was that these companies need to start by being informed about digital opportunities. They say it's the "important first step."
Having a website is the first important step to go from the basic to the intermediate step. Once you've taken that step, it becomes easier and easier to embrace more and more advanced digital marketing efforts.
Options for companies that still think a website isn't worth it
Some business owners will still think it's not a good idea. What do these business owners do? They usually skip engaging in digital marketing altogether. Or they end up running digital marketing campaigns that generate very low or even negative return on investment (ROI).
Let's take a look at these two options that a business has if they are not willing to get a website.
Skip all digital marketing
This may seem like a terrible idea, but it can often be the next best option. This may seem like a contradictory idea, and especially crazy to come from a marketing agency.
If you don't want to create your own website, developing successful digital marketing campaigns will only be an uphill battle. Since you can't control the entire experience for your potential customers, it also becomes difficult to optimize your efforts. And it's only getting harder as competition grows in every digital marketing area.
Instead of spending a lot of time and money on incomplete and haphazard digital marketing efforts, you can skip it all, as well as do the bare minimum instead. It's not something we recommend, but marketing is an investment, and if you don't believe in your own investment, then why waste time thinking about it?
Digital marketing without a website
The other option is to invest in other digital marketing initiatives without a website. Having a website is the foundation of digital marketing. It is really the first thing you need to do after creating a digital marketing strategy. For that reason, this is a terrible idea for so many reasons.
Of course, there are ways to engage in digital marketing without a website. You can use your profile on a social media account as your hub or landing page. We discussed why it's a bad idea, but it's possible.
You can also try driving traffic directly to a physical storefront with digital ads. You can do this on social media platforms. You can also list your physical address and phone number in digital ads across the web.
The main problem with any of these unorthodox solutions is that it will make everything else more difficult. With everything you do online, you'll be competing with others who have a solid foundation for digital marketing, including a website. This means that you will have to pay more and you will always be behind.
Reasons Why Business Owners Think They Don't Need a Website
Every business needs a website, and it's something you should get as soon as possible. Ideally, you'd think about it when creating your first business plan.
If you're not sure how to integrate your website into your plan, consider looking for a digital marketing expert. They can make sure that your website and digital marketing efforts get the proper consideration it deserves.
No matter how you decide to proceed, remember that having a website is a crucial part of any business. Think of your website as one of your first digital marketing expenses. As such, it really should also be part of the marketing budget of your startup.
If you're planning to take digital marketing to the next level, start with a website. It will also increase the ROI of your other future digital marketing campaigns. Don't try to skip ahead to the next step first, you really need a website first.
Are you interested in what a tailor-made professional website for you will cost? Send us your details and get a non-binding quoter. Or maybe you have more questions about marketing, etc. Either way, you can always contact us for help and free advice. We'd love to see what you have to say!
