GOOGLE/FACEBOOK PROBLEMS HIGHLIGHT WHY YOUR COMPANY WEBSITE STILL MATTERS (A LOT)

Surprising at it might seem, I still have to convince some business owners that they need a website. A recent shut down of Facebook and Google highlights why your company needs a website. Here are five reasons why.

Last week two of the biggest websites in the world were down for about half a day. If you’re wondering why, this article explains what happened to Facebook and Google (sort of).

The sad truth is that those companies probably won’t explain what really happened, and do you know why? Because they control the news they share! This, you guessed it, is reason number one for why you need a website now more than ever.

This may seem obvious, but you don’t own your Facebook company page, Facebook does. Maybe you’re a very trusting individual, but even then, giving control of how the entire world perceives your business to Facebook is not a good idea.

What if Facebook goes down? What if they decide that a fanpage should cost $50 a month (instead of being free?). What if they change their search or advertising algorithms (they just did) and all the work you put into a marketing system goes down the drain?

With that said, here are five simple reasons why you need website:

#1: INDEPENDENCE

If you have a good website and an email list of your customers/prospects, you’ll no longer be reliant on Facebook or even Google searches. You’ll control your communications and be much more independent than you are now.

#2: SECURITY

If you have a good host (we use Siteground.com for our website and all of our client’s websites), you’ll have independent security and the ability to backup your website/emails/databases whenever you’d like. Siteground keeps a backup of your website every day for the last 30 days that you can revert to if anything goes wrong.

#3: ASSET BUILDING

If you’re spending your time building your website and traffic, you’ll be on your way to owning an asset that you can later sell. Whenever you direct people to Facebook (or any social media platform), you’re directing them AWAY from your website and therefore your business. You should be capturing those visitors yourself!

#4: EXPANSION

Good websites platforms (like the ones we build on WordPress) are expandable, both in the amount of content they present and the capabilities they feature. I’ve worked with companies making as much as $25 million on WordPress, and each of our websites (no matter how simple they start) can be expanded with portal functions, ecommerce components, booking capabilities, and more. If you’re reliant on Facebook to start offering what you need to provide, you may be waiting forever.

#5: IT TAKES WORK OFF YOUR PLATE

A good website will actually take work off of your plate. Now, the set up process is involved and will take some time, but once it’s done, it’s done. Moving forward, the time you spent creating the website will pay off a millions times over. Here are just a few ways it can do that:

• Entering information into a comprehensive FAQ page will answer customer questions that would have required individual attention.
• Putting your products online will generate sales while you’re sleeping (there is not better feeling than seeing the “sale” notification come in).
• Adding a capability like booking appointments could guide your entire organization both online and offline.
• Advanced form capabilities could digitize information that would have been input manually before, replacing the need for extra personnel.