Everybody uses social media nowadays, so why bother with a website? Why would anyone want to build a website that has numerous costs, such as domains, hosting, design needs, optimization and upkeep? Social media, on the whole is free, after all. As well as being free, social media has millions of people just waiting to connect and interact with you. So, why bother with a website?
When you build a website, you need to buy a domain name which includes a recurring cost, as well as paying for hosting – where your website will live online. Most of us don’t have a clue about website design, so you’re probably going to have to pay for designer to build and update it for you. Even build-it-yourself sites require some technical knowledge to produce a site you’re happy with. Then there’s search engine optimization to help your site rank well in search engines. If you’ve no knowledge of this, then you’ll need to pay someone to do it for you. This is why so many businesses turn to social media. However, here is why you still very much need a website:
Be 100% in charge
The question is: Would you rather rely completely on another business accommodating you or would you rather have your own dedicated space? Building your online presence on social media is not something that you control. If something happens to that platform, you’ve got no way to reach your customers again. With your own website, nobody else’s business can impact yours, you are in complete control.
By setting up your presence on a social media platform, you are totally at their mercy. If they decide to make changes, it can affect your business and there’s nothing you can do about it. For example, when Facebook recently changed its algorithm, the reach of business pages was drastically reduced. The same scenario could happen on any platform at any time. If any decide to implement ‘pay to play’, small businesses could instantly lose their customer reach.
A website needs to be the centre of your online business presence, with social media used as a marketing tool. If anything changes on your social media platform, you might lose an advertising spot, but you’re not going to go out of business. For help building your website, contact a London WordPress Web Design company like https://happy2host.com
Social media is a great tool for driving traffic back to your website. It’s an incredibly useful tool for generating email and customer lists, but only so you can contact and interact with them any time you chose and on your terms. It makes better business sense to build on land that you own rather than building on land that doesn’t belong to you. This is why it’s still so important to invest in your website as your primary business presence and use the free benefits of social media purely as a useful marketing tool.