Do I Need a Website For My Business?
Let’s get it out of the way: most businesses now need a website.
Australia is a nation of internet addicts. More than 90% of the population regularly uses the internet, and 81% of people now do research online before they make a big purchase. Truth is, the internet is hard to avoid! You’re carrying around a phone in your pocket that has access to every website from all over the world.
And, if we’re being honest, we’d say the temptation is hard to resist. It’s easy to pull out your phone and quickly use Google to find a lunch spot, or to see if a competitor has the same products for cheaper. Add it all up, and it means there’s never been a more important time to build a website and get your business online. Having a website is an investment that can provide a few huge benefits to any business!
Customers expect to find your business online.
Are you thinking about buying new clothes? Need to hire a trade to help around the home? We’re willing to bet that Google is one of the first places you go to research.
If that sounds familiar then you aren’t alone. Your customers do it too, and that means they expect to find you online. We’re living in a world where products, services and information are all just a few clicks away, and your business has to be in it to win it. The info on your website now forms an important part of the customer journey and helps people make their buying decisions. Having a website means your business will show up when people are searching, and it’s a good way to bring in a steady stream of new customers from sources like Google.
A website can help you find new customers.
A website gives your customers access to info about your products and services, even when you’re having the day off. Whenever they’re searching for things they need, they can fire up your website and read about your brand.
And that’s great, because a good website is usually the centrepiece of your digital marketing campaigns. It’s the place that your digital marketing activities send customers back to. Whether you want to do SEO and drive traffic from Google, or use social media advertising to find customers on Facebook, a website is the final piece of the puzzle. When you set up your SEO, social media and paid ads properly, your website can passively work on finding new customers and driving conversions 24/7.
Isn’t my Landing Page good enough?
This is one of the most common objections we hear! It’s possible to run ads through Google or other paid platforms using just a landing page – but they’re nowhere near as powerful as a full website.
The main purpose of a landing page is to capture leads or drive conversions. To be effective, they need to be dedicated to one particular task. You want to give your customers the info they’re looking for and then encourage them to convert. That’s it. As soon as your landing pages get too complicated, you start seeing a decrease in conversions.
On top of that, landing pages tend to be a single piece of the puzzle. In the marketing funnel, landing pages usually exist in the middle. They’re aimed at generating leads that can later be turned into paying customers. In the meantime though, your leads are interested in the business, and that makes them more likely to go looking for a website and research your brand. By building a strong website that showcases your business and its products, you’re helping potential customers make up their mind about whether or not they want to buy from you.
Build better marketing funnels with a website.
Like we said above, websites play an important role in your marketing funnel.
Marketing funnels are key to digital marketing. They help break up your digital marketing activities and define a strategy that finds, attracts and converts new customers. The marketing funnels Gordon Digital builds are the three-tier kind, with Top, Middle and Bottom sections. But, whatever section we’re working on, marketing campaigns are way more successful when the business has a website to work with.
Your website feeds into each individual stage of the funnel to help you attract customers and make sales:
- At the Top of Funnel (TOF), a website ties into your SEO and is the perfect tool for attracting people from Google. Other TOF activities like paid ads on social media or Google can also point to your website, making them way more effective than they would be on their own.
- For the Middle of Funnel (MOF), your website supports your landing pages. If your landing page can capture a lead, directing that person to your website can build their interest and help develop remarketing lists.
- The Bottom of Funnel (BOF) is where you drive home the point and make the sale. A website that has clear and persuasive product and service information is the best BOF tool around!
If you’d like to read more about using your website to support marketing funnels, you can check out our post about building effective funnels.
Future-proof your business with a beautiful new website by Gordon Digital!
Having a website is all about giving your customers every reason to buy from you. Building a website opens up a world of possibilities for using digital marketing to make your business more competitive and drive the conversions you need to thrive.
At Gordon Digital we’re proud to build websites that help our clients reach their customers and expand their businesses! As digital marketers we’re obviously pro-websites, but that doesn’t mean we’re biased. It just means we’re well-versed in the industry and that we’ve seen the difference a good website can make to a brand. We specialise in building sites that support our clients, tying into their digital marketing strategies and helping them kick their long-term goals. If you’re interested in seeing those benefits first hand, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch! Our in-house web development team can put together a stunning site that showcases the very best of what your business has to offer.