Does my business need a website?

“Does my business need a website?” is a question many people ask themselves when they are looking to grow their business.

The answer is “yes!”

Websites are no longer just for the big brands that can afford them. Nowadays, businesses of all sizes and types have websites.

So whether you’re an individual with a side hustle or someone who is trying to grow their small business into something great, this blog post will help you decide if building your own website is right for your business and teach you how to do it too!

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Does my business need a website?

It can be hard to know if your business needs a website because there are so many reasons why you would need it, and the same applies for not needing one.

In this digital age where over 4.6 billion people have access to the internet according to Statinsta, it is important for any public figure, side hustle, or even small business to have an online presence.

An online presence will help your business to grow by:

• Increasing your web traffic and brand awareness.
• Building a database of leads from the website, as well as increasing sales by having contact forms on it.
• Sharing content across social media platforms to increase visibility if you are not utilizing paid advertising features.
• Encouraging future customers’ reviews online that will help with

Additionally, an online presence, which is a website and social media, will help your business to grow by:

Standard benefits:

• Build a stronger connection with your customers
• Increase your conversion rate. 
• You’ll have a place to share your story with customers.
• Your business will be more visible online. 

Emotional benefits:

• Grow as an entrepreneur and business owner.
• You’ll have your own website
• Social media will give you the opportunity to reach a wider audience, and it’s free!
• Your website is a place for people to find out who you are. 
• Social media can help build relationships with potential customers
• It’s time for you and your business to grow.

Why is a website is important for your business?

A website is a marketing tool, that can help you get more customers and clients. Your business needs to have an online presence in order for people to find your company, products or services.

A website also helps with branding – having a unique identity on the internet so that when someone types keywords into Google they are directed towards your site instead of

Today when your potential client needs your service they are more likely to pull out their smartphones and hop onto google with a quick search. The results Google gives out will determine which business, side hustle, or even corporation gets the business and the client.

This means that you need a website to not only establish your online brand but also to get clients or sales, generate consistent and ongoing business, and connect with your audience.

Your website will provide a way for your business to have an online presence and grow your market reach.

How will a website grow my business?

A website can act as a standalone business that is open 24/7 and serves your customers from anywhere in the world!

Some of the ways your website helps your business grow are by:

• Your website is your number one marketing tool
• It’s the best way to capture leads 
• Inbound traffic from search engines like google increase customer conversion rates by up to 200% – adding keywords and content that helps customers find you.
• A well-designed, easy-to-navigate site delivers higher quality leads
• It is open 24/7 and able to serve all your prospects and visitors with the highest possible value at all times

The benefits of having an Online Presence

There are many benefits of having an online presence.

A website and social media can benefit your business in sales, marketing, branding, product development, and design, and even building a relationship with your clients and prospects.

You can use your online presence to attract prospects, nurture them into leads, and even persuade them to choose you over the competition.

A website can be a hub of information for your business, and you have the opportunity to share everything about who you are. You don’t just need to be seen as an individual service provider but also an expert in your industry.

Including content like blog posts and articles on topics relevant to your expertise or audience is one way to help build a relationship with visitors, establish authority in your industry, build trust, and increase conversion.

Do I need a website if I have a Facebook page or other social media account?

It is easy to think that your business’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or other social media accounts are enough for your business’s online presence.

This is a very dangerous way to think.

The reason is very simple: You don’t own your Facebook page or followers. Facebook does.

You don’t own your YouTube subscribers or Instagram followers; YouTube and Instagram (owned by Facebook) do. That means that at any moment you can lose them all and be completely powerless in the process.

As a matter of fact, this happens quite often when algorithm updates force users to change the way they use the platform or they have to pay to have their posts seen by their audiences.

Another way this happens is when these social media platforms remove your account for policy violations, sometimes without verifying that you have indeed violated any of their platform’s policies.

If you’re a business owner, this is an unacceptable risk.

You need to be in complete control of your digital presence and the only way for that to happen is by owning it – or at least having some say-so over how it’s managed.

This means building (or hiring someone else to build) your own website with its own domain and building an email list.

An email list will be your business’s most powerful marketing asset. It gives you free, unlimited, and direct access to a warm or hot audience that is looking to do business with you.

You own your email list and never have to worry about policy changes affecting your ability to use it.

In addition to just an email list, a website will also give you access to your customer’s information (like their name and contact info) as well as the ability to track what kind of things they like.

This data can then be used in conjunction with other digital marketing strategies and tactics for maximum ROI.

Lastly, it doesn’t cost you anything to utilize and is the most profitable marketing channel available with a return ratio of approximately 40:1. That means that on average, for every dollar you invest in email marketer you will earn $40 in return.

Additionally, you should average $1 per month for every email subscriber in your list. That means that an email list with 10,000 subscribers should get you an average of $10,000 per month.

Can you run a business without a website?

I know we have made a fair few points about why you need a website for your business. At this stage you might still be wondering if you can run a business without a website.

The answer is that you can.

The follow-up question that is most important at this stage is if it is worth it to run a business without a website? The answer to this is also straightforward – no.

To run a business without a website will mean to:

1. Give up massive marketing potential and ability
2. Give up on serving your customers, give up on building your audience
3. Not being able to build a relationship with clients
4. Overpaying to market your business on the radio on tv that is not as nearly as profitable as they once were with the growth of social media marketing
5. Worst of all you will be giving up all this potential market and client to your fiercest competitors who have a website, even if it is poorly designed.

A website for your business is an investment that will grow your business and opportunities at no cost.

Any entrepreneur serious about their business or side hustle knows that the more you invest in your business today the more you will earn from it for the rest of your life.

Your website is one of the cheapest investments you can make and will turn out to be the most profitable.

Is it better to build your own website or use a website builder?

There are many ways to build a website today.

You can use coding languages like HTML, CSS, and Javascript or you can use a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla. You may even use other standalone website builders like Wix, Shopify, and Big Commerce.

It is rather tedious to build a website using coding languages if you don’t already know them.

Today, there are easier ways to build websites without any coding knowledge. You may use Drag-and-Drop WYSIWIG (What You See Is What You Get) page builders and even get prebuilt websites from templates.

You may now be wondering which is the best option – use a website builder where you are hosted and managed on a platform like Wix or use a CMS where you own the website and everything like WordPress.

The answer is simple – Just like your social media accounts that are owned by Facebook and YouTube and carry with them significant risk, you also don’t want to do anything with a website unless you own it all.

That means you will want to get a website that you own the domain name, the entire website, and everything else.

A CMS like WordPress makes it easy to design your website, host, and manage your website.

Types of websites – What to consider before making your decision

There are many different types of websites with each solving a specific business need.

The main types of websites you will come across are:

1. Business websites – Representing small and large business, even side hustles such as our personal website or our website hosting partner at Lite Phoenix or Aurora Cloud Web Services
2. Blogs – Including personal and business such as CNN and my personal blog.
3. Social Media – Much like Facebook, Quora, and LinkedIn
4. E-Commerce – Where products are sold online like Expressive Teez and Amazon
5. Non-Profits such as Janet Roberts Foundation
6. Search Engines such as Google and Yandex

The type of website you should have will depend on what your business does and the goals you want to achieve.

A blog is a great place for an entrepreneur or small business owner because it helps them grow their personal brand, share new content with their audience, and connect with potential customers by providing helpful insights into their products and services.

A blog is helpful for almost all kinds of businesses and websites. We will discuss this more in the section below on Content Marketing.

How do I get a website that will grow my business?

There are two ways to get a website that will grow your business.

The first, easiest, and safest way is to hire a professional team that will help you design your website, identify your ideal customer, and build a marketing strategy that will help you to attract leads and clients.

You can have our team help you successfully launch a fully managed, secured, and marketed online presence for your business.

This online presence will grow your business for as little as $1,200 per month using our Cyber Sites Online Presence As A Service.

You may also have a professional and conversion-optimized website designed and developed for a one-time fee as well. You can then signup for ongoing marketing, lead generation, and conversion rate optimization.

You may learn more about our development process here or read some of our case studies, see some of our recent projects, or schedule a free consultation by following these links.

The other way you can get a website that will grow your business is by designing and developing your own website and online presence.

You can get tutorials and free website files to learn how to do this by subscribing to our YouTube channel.

How to create a website that will stand out from the competition

Whether you’re a small business owner or an entrepreneur with big ideas, it’s impossible to go wrong by starting your own website.

Not only does building and maintaining a website cost less than employing someone else to do the work for you, but having control of your site means that every detail is under your supervision – from content development and design to marketing and client acquisition.

We recommend you hire a professional to design your website so that you can avoid all the mistakes that can cost you time, money, and clients.

However, to help you create a website that will stand out from the competition and get you leads, sales, and customers we have two very powerful resources to help you.

The first is our free eBook ‘Your Website’s Conversion Mistakes: 26 Reasons Why Your Website Is Scaring Away Your Customers.’

This eBook will help you design a website that grows your business and attract consistent sales and clients. You will also be able to use the eBook to learn why your current website, or some website you’ve had before, failed to grow your business and generate leads and clients.

The second resource we have is our YouTube channel where we post tutorial videos on all things website success and WordPress.

On top of teaching you how to design and develop your own website, we will also make the website files available for download after we’re done. Check out our YouTube channel to learn more.

How to get started with building your own site

I hope you’ve found this post helpful in determining if your business needs a website. Now that we know why and what websites are, let’s look at how to get started building one for your business!

The first step is deciding on the type of site you want. You are most likely to need a business website or e-commerce website. We will give you quick tips on how to get both on our YouTube channel.

Now that you’ve decided which type of website you need it is time to move onto getting your website online. The first thing you will need to do this is a domain name and website hosting.

We will discuss both in the next section.

How to choose a domain name and hosting plan

A domain name is the unique web address and name that identifies and locates your website. It is found by search engines and will be the way most of your visitors remember and search for you.

Therefore, it must adequately represent your business and can be as simple as your business name.

Our company or business name is CyberDream Developers and our domain name is cyberdreamdevelopers.com. We recommend you use a similar format for your domain name or use something similar to your business name and memorable to make it easier for visitors to find you.

Now that you’ve chosen your domain name it is time to register it and get website hosting while you’re at it.

Website hosting is the practice of making websites and web pages available online.

A website host is a company that offers website hosting and does this by storing your website on a server – a computer that is on 24/7 and is built specifically for making your website available to the world.

We recommend using our partners at Lite Phoenix (for high-performance, mid-tier hosting) or Aurora Cloud Web Services (for professional, high-performance, secured, and reliable hosting) for your web hosting.

Our website is hosted at Aurora Cloud Web Services. They also provide valuable support for marketing, optimizing your website for conversions, and generally help you with being successful online.

What are the most important pages to include on my website?

Every business website will need to have a Home, Contact, About Us, Services, Reviews, and Blog page.

Every e-commerce or online store will need to have a Home Page, Store or Shop page (this can sometimes be your Home page), About Us, Contact page, Blog and Reviews page.

These pages all solve a specific need and will help you to best serve your prospects and clients. In the next section we will discuss the purpose of these pages and how best to design them.

What should be on my homepage?

Your home page is the most visited page on your website. It sets the tone for your website and business.

Your home page should have:

1. Links to all your pages
2. Your Unique Value proposition
3. A list of all your products or services
4. Reviews and feedbacks from past customers
5. Pictures of your previously completed projects
6. Your company name
7. Your company brand such as logo, brand colors, and slogan
8. Contact information for your business
9. Key business information
10. An email subscription form
11. Any important upcoming event or news

Basic design principles for the Home page – layout, typography, imagery, color scheme 

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To design your home page you need to:

1. Establish your brand colors
2. Establish your brand font
3. Have excellent above-the-fold representation
4. Display your log
5. Display your contact information
6. Include a navigation bar with links to the most important pages on your site
7. Create introductory copy about what this page contains
8. Consider including social media icons in order to encourage readership and sharing across networks. Social Media accounts can be linked for easier interaction from one place

To design an effective homepage, it’s important that you build a relationship with visitors by making it as easy as possible for them to decide they’ve come to the right place and quickly deciding that you are able to help them.

They must be able to determine who you are, what you do, and how you can help them in less than 5 seconds of reaching your website.

The design of your home page will go a far way in determining how your website visitors view your website and business.

What should be on my Contact Us page?

The contact page is the shortest and most important page of your website. It offers the ability for your website visitors to contact you to set up an appointment, make a purchase, or have their questions answered so they can decide to do business with you.

It should include all of the basic information about your business, such as name, address, and phone number so that visitors can easily find you if they need to speak with someone in person or ask questions.

It can also include a map to make it easy for local clients to find your brick-and-mortar store. This can be useful for in-store offers, attending appointments, or even visiting your local branch.

Basic design principles for the Contact Us page- layout, typography, imagery, color scheme 

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The contact page should be designed simple and with no fluff. Make it as quick and easy for your visitors to contact you using several means including contact forms, phone calls, direct, or live chat.

The design of your contact page should follow that of all the other pages with font, font size, color, logo, branding, and UVP.

Some things to include on your contact page include:

• Contact form
• Phone number
• Live chat with a live representative (if available)
• Direct contact info, such as email address and mailing address. This will allow customers to reach you without going through an online form.

The page should be designed cleanly and the user experience should not be hampered by unnecessary content, information, or features.

We’ve also found adding a FAQ to your contact page to be particularly helpful to visitors who need quick answers to their questions.

What should be on my About Us page?

Your website’s most important page is your About Us section. That’s because this is the place where you will define your company to potential clients and customers as well as give them a place to learn more about you.

Your About Us page is where visitors who are closest to becoming loyal, long-term customers and raving fans will go to connect with your brand on a personal level.

To help them connect with you this is where you should tell your personal story, share a personal secret to build a relationship, and most importantly, ask for an email subscription.

It may also be worth it to give a discount or special offer to visitors on your about page.

Your About Us page will help your website and business by :

• Building a personal relationship with customers and potential clients
• Offering them an incentive to subscribe to your email list
• Establishing your brand as knowledgeable, trustworthy, and reputable.

Some of the key information to include on your about page include:

• Introducing your company
• Explaining what you do and why it matters to the world
• Sharing who you are, what inspires you, and how customers can support your work
• Sharing your personal and company history including milestones and achievements
• Introducing the team from your business to build a personal relationship and ease identity
• Offering specials or discounts for potential clients.

Basic design principles for the About Us page- layout, typography, imagery, color scheme 

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The design of your about page is really easy and straightforward. To design your about page:

1. Keep the color palette from the home page consistent
2. Keep the font from the home page and the rest of the website consistent
3. Start off by saying why you’ve started your business. You may share a personal story here
4. Share who you are trying to serve
5. Continue by saying what problem you are trying to solve
6. Give them a reason to do business with you by saying how you are different

This is also the place to add pictures direct contact for staff. This can help to build trust with clients.

For example, a plumbing company that does home visits might need to add staff pictures here to make it easy for clients to identify staff before letting them into their homes.

What should be on my Services/Store page?

The page you create for your store or services should have these elements:

• Your main logo or brand image, which is usually at the top of the home page.
• A list of your services
• Your Unique Value Proposition
• Some testimonials or reviews from past clients
• Pictures and videos of your completed projects
• A list of your products with their prices and availability

First and foremost, a brief introduction to what your company does. This can be non-technical in nature such as “We offer plumbing services for residences and businesses in Tampa, Florida”.

Lastly, you should add a link to your Contact or signup page for visitors to get started with using your business.

Basic design principles for the Services page- layout, typography, imagery, color scheme 

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The Services page should be designed much like your Contact Page – Sharp, succinct, to the point, and helpful.

You should remain consistent with the font, font size, and branding across the website. When designing your Services page you should also include links to the other pages of your website including individual service pages.

Take a look at this services page we designed above.

Basic design principles for the store page – layout, typography, imagery, color scheme

The design for your store page is quite simple. By using WordPress and Woocommerce you will have a professionally built store page that is ready to display your products and offer all the key e-commerce functionality.

It will also adapt all the branding such as colors, logos, fonts, and font sizes from the rest of your website.

Woocommerce makes it easy to establish an online store and start selling products. You can manage your inventory and offer discounts, just like any traditional brick-and-mortar store would do in the physical world.

Why do I need a blog for my website and business?

“Build it and they will come,” no longer works in website development.

In order to get traffic to your website, you will need to have some way of attracting visitors. Your blog is the primary way you will do this by offering helpful content that will be found in search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques will help to make your content more visible, higher quality, and attract more readers. By posting search-engine-optimized content that is highly relevant you will attract website visitors.

This will give you the opportunity to build a relationship with them, increase your email subscribers, and increase your clients and sales.

Blogging is the cheapest way to get traffic to your website. Increased traffic gives you the opportunity to increase leads, clients, and sales.

Now that you are generating traffic to your website the next step will be to convert that traffic to leads and email subscribers. After building a relationship with your leads and email subscribers you will need to be able to convert them into customers and clients.

We have written this post to help you convert more of your website visitors to email subscribers and nurture them into clients and customers. It gives you 1 Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses and Startups. You can read that post here.

Additionally, it will best if you improve your digital marketing efforts with a solid email marketing campaign. You can learn more by reading this post we wrote on Email Marketing to Grow Your Business: 15 Powerful Conversion Tips.

Improve your email marketing conversions by using the effective strategies we show you in the post 3 Effective Sign-up Drip Campaigns for Effective Email Marketing Conversions.

How To Create An Engaging Content Marketing Strategy To Generate Traffic, Clients, and Sales

A content marketing strategy is a crucial element in generating traffic, clients and sales for any business.

Whether you are a small business, side hustle, or a large company with many different lines of products or services to offer your customers, it’s important to have the right mix of content that will resonate with as many people across multiple channels as possible.

The easiest way to get a content marketing strategy that is helpful is to hire a professional content marketer or company as our team here.

It takes a lot of insight and experience to properly plan a long-term content marketing strategy. You also don’t want to waste valuable time and money on something that doesn’t work.

Bonus – Email Marketing Resources To Master Email Marketing Today

We have prepared a list of helpful resources to help you master email marketing today.

We want to help you on your journey to online success and so we have decided to link below some helpful articles and guides to help you on your email marketing journey. Feel free to use them to as much as possible.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to do all the heavy lifting you can get a free consultation from our team and we will help you on your journey to success.

Additionally, you can sign up for a Cyber Site Online Presence for as low as $1,200 per month. You will get a website that grows your business that is built with a 12-month marketing strategy for your business. It will be fully managed and marketed by our team.

You can get your Cyber Site Online Presence here.

Here is a list of those extra resources we mentioned

1. Email Marketing Benefits: 22 Powerful Email Marketing Benefits To Grow Your Business
2. Email Marketing Conversion Tips: Email Marketing to Grow Your Business: 15 Powerful Conversion Tips
3. Email Marketing Lead Generation: 16 Powerful Email Marketing Lead Generation Strategies
4. Digital Marketing Strategy: 1 Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses and Startups
5. Nurture Campaigns: Drip Campaign and Nurture Campaign: The Differences in Email Marketing
6. Drip Campaigns: 3 Effective Sign-up Drip Campaigns for Effective Email Marketing Conversions
7. Website Conversion Optimization: 10 Worst Reasons Your Website Isn’t Converting
8. Online Marketing Services For Small Business: 8 Best Online Marketing Services For Small Businesses: How To Market For Explosive Growth
9. Is Email Marketing Dead? Is Email Marketing Dead In 2021?
10. Marketing Tips For Small Businesses & Startups: Powerful Marketing Tips For Small Businesses In 2021: How To Get Explosive Growth
11. Email Marketing Tips For Dentists: 10 Helpful Email Marketing Tips For Dentists: Get Explosive Growth For Your Dental Practice
12. Lead Generation Complete Guide: Lead Generation Complete Guide: From Basic To 5 Powerful Strategies

We hope you find these articles helpful on you journey to online success.

Conclusion – Does my business need a website?

If you’re serious about growing your business, it is time to consider what type of website will best serve the needs of your customers.

What kind of online presence do you need? Do you need a simple small business website to serve more local clients or would an eCommerce site with multiple products and services work better for your company’s size and goals?

Contact our team today if this sounds like something you are curious about or interested in exploring further. We are happy to answer any questions you might have and walk through some options based on how much technical knowledge we think you have (or don’t).

Our goal is always to help grow businesses by creating online marketing strategies and solutions that grow your business online.

What type of business do you have? Do you know how a website can help your business and what type of website you should get? Comment below and we will offer you some quick advice completely FREE.