I first fell in love with the idea of making money online back in 2013. One thing was made very clear to me I would need a website. I purchased my first of many make online money courses, and I learned two things that would change my life forever.
- How to make a website
- Affiliate Marketing
That’s why in this article, we are going to discuss what a website is and Im going to give you 11 reasons why I believe you need one.
So what actually is a website? A website is a location on the world wide web usually consisting of web pages hosted on the internet. Theses web pages are easily accessible by going to a website domain, for example, Facebook.com or CNBC.com. A website is broken down into pages common ones are home, about, and contact pages. These pages a further segmented into posts both pages and posts are filled with content in the form of media like:
- videos
- text
- pictures
- audio files
How To Get Your Website Online
A website needs to be hosted by a server to be online. The most common type of web hosting for a website is known as shared hosting. Shared hosting is when you pay a website hosting company such as Blue Host or Green Geeks a fee for hosting your website on their servers.
With a trustworthy web hosting platform, you don’t need a computer server specialist, and you will receive automatic updates for all your sites. Having a reputable hosting company will ensure your website is online 24/7 and loads quickly! To learn more about website hosting and what options are available to you click here.
The next step would be to build your website using free software like WordPress, or you can use free website builders like Square Space and Weebly. I wrote an article about website building software you can click here to check it out.
The 11 reasons you need a website.
Now that we know what a website is and how you can get your online let’s jump into the 11 reasons why you need a website.
- Build Your Street Cred Online
- A cost-effective way to get prospects and clients
- High visibility even if you are the little guy
- Go head to head with Competitors
- Know thy audience (Market Research)
- Be available to customers 24/7 365
- Provide stellar customer service
- Global domination, be known worldwide for what you do
- The cheapest business model I know of
- Quick and easy to edit
- Be one of the cool kids
1. Build Your Street Cred Online
Tell me before trying out a new product or service do you research it online I know I do. We look at reviews and want to know our time and money are well spent before making a buying decision. The whole affiliate marketing industry estimated to do 6.8 billion dollars yearly relies on this.
Affiliate marketing relies on experts and influencers to help prospect and clients to make a wise, informed buying decision. Having an about me page, that showcases your knowledge or insights on a specific topic or niche puts you one step closer to being said expert or influencer.
Having a well designed and well thought out website makes you look so much more credible. The quality content you provide on your website will grow a know like, and trust factor this will drive visitors from your website to buy from you over and over again.
Reciprocity is an innate human bias when someone helps us, we are inclined to repay the favor. That’s why having a website with quality content is a win-win. Because not only are we getting paid to help our audience, we are also building our authority at the same time.
Let’s face it people want to by from someone they like and who knows what the hell they are talking about so build a website and become that person!
2. A cost-effective way to get prospects and clients
Having a website allows you to gain new customers cheaply and easily using two main Methods.
-SMM (social media Marketing)
-SEO (search engine optimization)
SMM
Social media marketing is leveraging platforms like youtube facebook Instagram to drive traffic into a sales funnel or process. Yeah, you can use paid traffic to advertise on these platforms, but that’s an advanced method, so let’s leave it for another article. Why I use social media is it’s completely free to create content that over time will build a fan base that can generate sells on command.
Okay but if social media is so great why don’t I just build a brand on social media platform by its self? I get this question all the time, and I answer the same way every time. I am not risk-averse enough to leave my financial future in the hands of someone else. If facebook tweeter or any other platform decides to change its algorithm or terms and service, you could lose your business overnight. I prefer to have control over my business, and a website allows me that freedom.
SEO
Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website and content, so it ranks well on search engines the most popular of which is google. The reason you want to rank well (on the first page of google) is so your website can get organic traffic. Organic traffic is people who search for specific keywords that relate to the topics you create content about.
An example would be you have a website all about yoga, and you recently wrote an article titled “the best yoga mat for newbies.”In this article, you have affiliate links to Amazon that sell the yoga mat you suggested. Every time someone buys the mat on amazon, you get a commission. Knowing all that would you want your article to be on the first page of google or the 50th?
You might have heard that seo is complicated and not worth your time this sediment makes me want to pull out my hair. It isn’t difficult in the slightest just write quality content that people who are interested in your topic would search. Do this repeatedly, and you will get better over time. Trust me Search Engines are continually looking for the best pieces of content out there, and you can provide it for them. High-Quality content can receive thousands of free website visits to your website.
3.High visibility even if you are the little guy
Over 1 in 2 people around the world use the internet, so having an online presence in this modern-day and age is a must. Without a website, your business in the eyes of the global market won’t exist.
Having an online presence allows you the opportunity to compete with the big dogs. You, as a solopreneur or small business, can speak on a very narrow branch of a broader topic and thus fulfill customers needs to a greater extent this is known as niching down.
An example of niching down is if your competitor has a massive blog about extream sports. You think man there is no way I could compete but you could if you niche down. What if you only wrote about one specific extream sport like BMX. You could write about BMX this would make hardcore BMX fans floc to you over the guy who has BMX as a footnote on their website.
4. One-Up on Your Competition
Another great reason why you need a website is you can stay ahead of the competition. Let’s go over so hypotheticals so I can make my point.
You own a local gym, and you have a site featuring your hours’ trainers and fitness classes. While the other local gyms don’t have a website, but they may be bigger and better or even closer to a larger city. What’s going to happen when prospects type into google “local gym in my area” that’s right you get the sign-ups.
You are an actor, performer, or artist; you have an online portfolio that showcases your talents and skills. Other actors performers and artist do the same type of work as you, but don’t have an online portfolio. Who do you think the talent scout or is going to hire? The person they have never seen before or the person they were introduced to online that shows their potential. That’s right with a website you win again because having a website gives you the edge in a competitive market.
Furthermore, when you consider all the people that have a well-built website that continually updates there site and provide their audience with quality info. VS the person who half-heartedly throws garbage at a web page and spams there audience constantly. Who out of those two will win in the long run?
Cliche, as it may sound being successful, a is no sprint but a marathon. Therefore, you need to do everything in your power to be better than your competitors, and one of those things is having a website.
5. Know thy audience (Market Research)
Having a website can give you a 360 view of the competition. Being aware of things such as keyword research and the other competing sites in your niche is yet another edge. Knowledge is a handy tool, especially when your most significant competitors are a click away. As you build your website, you will be hyper-aware of the quality and quantity of content or lack thereof.
Maybe you feel lost like what you are doing isn’t enough I’ve been there before. But by giving a look at other sites on my topic, I quickly became inspired. First, because I saw what they did well and it gave me a goal to aim for and secondly I saw their shortcoming and where I could beat them.
You should never copy another content, but modeling is a great way to stay motivated. You don’t need to feel dodgy about this its industry-standard people will buy products just to see what a successful sales funnel looks like.
You can also use a tool called SimilarWeb. SimillarWeb will give you info on how many views a specific website is getting and from what sources.
So, if you see that the most popular website in your niche is receiving the majority of its traffic from social media, then what would you deduce? That building up your presence on social media would be an excellent investment, or maybe you should take an SEO route and serve those who aren’t on social media. Either I would agree with your deduction because any action will bring you closer to beating the competition.
6. Be available to customers 24/7 365
When you sign up for a legit web hosting company like Blue Host, your website will be live 24/7 year-round. This allows anyone around the world regardless of timezones to access your website whenever they like. Having a website is like having a fantastic employee that works non stop for the cost of hosting.
Your website should win employee of the month every month because it is continuously promoting your brand informing your customers and making sells for you. When you think about it, a successful website will provide you income while you sleep and that’s real freedom.
7. Provide stellar customer service
Another reason why you need a website is that it gives your customers another way to contact you. When you serve an audience, you can bet they will have questions and problems that need answers. You can easily add a chatbox to your website. A chatbot allows people to message you or a customer service rep.
You can also use chatbot software to automate a large portion of customer service through predetermined answers to the most common questions you receive. Opening up a conversation with chatbots add to authority and usefulness of your website. A chatbox software I can easily recommend would be Pure Chat (https://purechat.com). Pure chat is easy to set up and will have your customer service leveled up in no time!
8. Global domination, be known worldwide for what you do
Regardless of your business is located in New York, or New Dubih, India. Website visitors all around the world can visit your website if they wish no matter where they are located. This allows you to build an audience from anywhere in the world. In the old days of doing business, you would have to spend a lot of time, and money to break into international markets. With a live website, you won’t have to spend a dime to break into these markets.
9. The cheapest business model I know of
The cost of having a website can initially be a hefty investment. That is if you start by hiring a website designer to create your site and spend money on premium hosting that your new website doesn’t warrant. I could easily show you how to set up and grow a successful website for less than $200 a month. But let’s say you went the expensive route and spent thousands on a designer and content creators. You would still be operating a business for less than any other business model I know of.
You decide to build a brick and mortar business or invest in a franchise. You are looking at at least a $50,000 just to get started. That sounds like a lot but makes total sense when you think about what goes in these types of business like:
- rent of a physical location
- hiring an attorney
- hiring an accountant
- promoting your business
- buying and maintaining equipment/ products
- Hiring Staff and payroll
- insurance for employees
With a website in most cases, you have two recurring costs, which will be the monthly hosting fees and the yearly website domain renewal fee. You can really go all out and hirer content creators or invest in software and plug-ins that make your website more robust but that entierly up to you.
I like to invest a few hundred dollars 3 to 6 hundred a month into my websites and can see returns on my investment in as little as six months. However, the total cost of maintaining your site will vary depending on your needs. In most cases, a blog can be built with as little as $100-$300 per year. While an e-commerce website can cost $100 -$300 a month. Either is a good investment when you consider how much other business models cost.
The truth is the more resources you pour into your site, the sooner you will see results. Find what website suits your budget, create a plan, or find a mentor, and you will find the results you are looking for.
10. Quick and easy to edit
- The beauty of having a website is the ability to quickly and easily edit your site. This can be done thanks to online website builders such as:
- WordPress (Blogs)
- Squarespace (Blogs & E-commerce)
- Shopify (E-commerce)
Click here to learn more about website builders.
The thing that prevents most entrepreneurs from succeeding is a slow feedback loop. A feedback loop is the amount of time it takes for you as the entrepreneur to see the results from your output. If you have a brilliant idea that you thing will double your web traffic and triple your conversation, then you need to test it.
In traditional business, this would be a risky move because if your brilliant idea isn’t so great after all, you wouldn’t know until it was too late. It would take months or years for you to get the raw data back to prove you wrong. With an online business, you can get the data back in days or weeks. That way, when your ideas don’t pan out, you can easily edit your website back to its previously profitable state.
11. Be one of the cool kids
Despite the older generations slowly starting to get into social media, smartphones, and the internet. It is still young adults and teenagers that make up the highest share of users online. Therefore if your business’s target audience is young people, you benefit from having a website that engages these viewers.
One of the most important things that will set you apart from your competitors is your brand. Having a website that shows off your brand will bring people that resonate with your message and products. That’s why knowing your target audience is critical. Knowing what your website and brand are all about is what made Apple cool and Microsft lame. By creating consistently valuable shareable content, you will sooner or later build a loyal audience a percentage of which become your customers.
