One question we still hear a lot of – Do I actually need a website in 2022? We know there are plenty of ways to share and sell online. You can sell directly through most social media platforms now, so is it really necessary?
YES. ABSOLUTELY without a DOUBT, YES.
But let’s talk about WHY and what advantages it can give you in 2022.
Why You Need a Website in 2022
- You don’t own your social media following. So, if ALL of your content is housed on social media, if it were to go down (like in the great SM outages of 2021), you’d be out of luck. If it were to get hacked – all that content? BOOM. GONE.
- You need a home base for your content. This is something our friend Michelle Gifford told us, and we love that phrase. You need a place where ALL your content can reside. You can’t control a third-party social platform, but you can control a website. All your leads, including lead magnets, should go back to your website.
- It helps build your credibility. It’s 2022, and a website helps build your credibility in your industry and legitimizes your business, no matter how small. Even if it’s just a website with some general info on it, that’s better than nothing! If we had to bet on something, we’d bet that most people would purchase something from a website over something that is only on social media.
- It helps with search results. Unless people specifically search your company’s social media handle on Google, it’s not going to turn up anything. But, if you have a website that talks about the products you sell and who they’re for and what problems they solve? When somebody searches those things, you’ll show up as a solution – which broadens the number of people who are seeing what you’re selling. And in the words of one of my favorite mentors on the internet – it all comes down to how many eyeballs you can get on what you’re selling. The more organically you come up in a google search, the better. This is actually something we started focusing on A TON about two years ago, and we are starting to see some HUGE payoffs now. SEO (or search engine optimization) is a tricky game, but it can pull out some huge rewards.
- Show off your SKILLS, your expertise, and your products. On a website, you can create a portfolio, a lookbook, blog posts, articles, product videos, all of it. And it’s all in one place and easily searchable. It gives potential customers a chance to look at what you’ve done and think “yep, this is the right business/product for me. They’re selling exactly what I need.”
- Analytics. As far as we’ve seen, a website gathers you the MOST in-depth information about your customer – which is CRUCIAL when making business decisions. You want to be able to confidently answer all of the questions about your ideal customer from our worksheet? You’re going to get that kind of info from digging into your website analytics.
- It can be a revenue source. If you’re a content creator, putting ads on your website can be another source of income. Last year we pulled back the curtain on our revenue sources for Six Sisters’ Stuff, and advertising from our website ALONE made up 45% of our revenue. Trust us, if you create content for a living, you should have a website – don’t just give it all for free on social media.
- A website is open 365 days a year. Whether that’s to get answers to questions they can’t easily access on a social platform. They can also contact you through a form, see what makes your product or service unique, or buy something from you at any time. When you have a website, it’s there all the time. And hopefully, it’s making you money while you sleep.
- You are your only competition on your website. When you get your customer off of social media and onto your website – you dim the noise of distraction and competition. On YOUR website, your customer is only thinking about YOU (and not skipping to the next story or scrolling to the next video). You also control the flow of information and the sale. So, you can add upsells, downsells, and decide where a customer ends up after a purchase. You can’t do that on social media.
In Conclusion
Yes, you absolutely need a website in 2022.
Is it one of your goals for 2022 to actually HAVE a website? But maybe you don’t quite have the time or money to create a brand new website by yourself? We have the perfect solution for you.
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