Do you really need a website for your business?

I hear so many entrepreneurs talking about whether or not it’s necessary to have a website for your business (online or off). It’s a question that comes up again and again, and I get where the doubt might come through. I mean, what comes first? Having a website and building your brand, or bringing in clients? What do you need to be focusing on the most?

And I completely get where that doubt comes from. When we start our businesses, we often do it with the sole goal of making money first. It’s exactly what I did in mine when I began. Sure, I had a *basic* website, but my efforts were directed completely at getting clients and making sales. Period.

Here’s what I didn’t realize at the time: I was doing triple the work because my website wasn’t up to the challenge. What I realized after I decided to truly put all my efforts in building my website, it completely and radically changed my business. And yes, I get how ironic it is that even though I spent all day building websites for my clients, mine was basic and simple and not very special at all. They don’t say that “the cobbler’s children are always barefoot” for no reason at all, right? I was the clear embodiment of that phrase for my own business as well.

Because I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did in my business, I want to share with you 10 reasons why having a website as well as hiring support for your website will completely change your business. Also, you can download this free guide I created with the 5 most common website mistakes that are keeping your from growing your business.

One of the biggest functions of a website is having the capacity to build your brand. This means that you have absolute control of how you are showing up for others. You are basically looking to position yourself in a certain way that will allow you to stand out from others. Social media is sometimes more complicated because it’s overly saturated with messages, images, videos and sponsored posts. This means that you end up losing control of how you are seen.

However, with your website, it’s the perfect place and opportunity for you to position yourself and control the narrative. Through your website, you have the opportunity to create your own story. This means that you ultimately are capable of differentiating your business from your competition. Plus, the majority of your competition have websites already, so you want to make sure that you have the presence as well.

Another great reason for having a website is that you have the capacity to instantly connect with your ideal audience. Since you are positioning yourself and what you do from the beginning, it’s a great way for you to make your audience see that you are the perfect solution that they need. If you don’t have a website, you are losing so many opportunities of people randomly discovering your business and realizing that you are exactly what they need. Plus, six out of ten consumers expect businesses to provide online content about their business through their website. If you don’t have a website, it means you could potentially lose these leads because they end up going to someone else that IS online.

What I have found to be really important is to make sure that your communication is really clearly directed at your audience. For example, MaHe Art is a consulting company that teaches artists how to market themselves online. They came to me because they were launching their business and understood how important and vital it was to have an online presence. Specially if you consider that that’s exactly what they are offering their clients as well.

So we made sure that the website and brand was clearly built and directed to bring in their ideal audience and there were a few essential things that needed to be in place for that to happen.

First, we clearly communicated up-front on their homepage what their message was, “Boost your artistic and enjoy what you love to do most: to create”. That way, it was immediately clear who her target audience was. The other thing that we did was create an offer that was a no-brainer for people to sign up to. MaHe launched a free 7-day email course on how to market your art. We made sure that the sign up for it was right at the top so that people wouldn’t even have to scroll to find it. Finally, we used photos that looked like who her target audience looked like. These are all things that enabled her to captivate and connect with the right people. It also meant that once they launched, they were able to sign on 7 clients within weeks of opening up their business.

I actually talk about the best ways to connect with your ideal audience here and how to bring that into your website and brand.

Here’s the thing, having a website immediately makes your business legit. I mean, yes, you can proclaim to be the most amazing coach in the world, but NOT having a website turns your message a little bit shady. The bottom line is that your website is there to build trust. Period. And without that trust, it’s going to be really hard for you to turn people into customers. This is the perfect place for you to communicate what makes you different and highlight your strengths so that you can stand out. Also, 90% of consumers claim that online reviews influence their buying decisions. Ninety! This is something that you can absolutely use to your advantage, by sharing a number of testimonials, samples of your work, places where you have been featured or even reviews. These are ALL things that are going to build your social proof and therefore, your credibility.

And yes, you could in theory rely on Facebook page reviews or Google reviews, but, if people are going into your site and looking at what you are doing, it means that it’s the perfect moment for you to convince them even more of working with you or buying your products.

The other thing is that it’s the perfect place to show off your talents. As in, you can show your case studies or portfolio or your products in the best light possible. Remember, it’s perfect because you are in control of the narrative.

Here’s something that comes up consistently for me when I talk to clients. How are you supposed to sell your product or service if there’s no place to buy it? If they have to sort of chase you to give you their credit card? To me this makes absolutely no sense at all. Not having a website means you almost don’t even have anything to sell at all. I mean, remember, not everyone is going to be willing to get on the phone with you for a “Discovery Call” or have a meeting where you can present your offer to them. All those people that “like” your Instagram posts, or feel connected to your status update on Facebook might want to find out more details on the scope of your services. They might want to know exactly what it is you can do for them.

If they have to scroll all the way down, or send you an email for more information, think about how many people you could be losing in that process. Get into the shoes of your clients. If you were them, and you still aren’t a die-hard fan, would really go out of your way and email someone or get on the phone if you aren’t sure at all if you need their services? It’s unlikely unless they have more information on what you do.

Related: I talk more about how important your website is in order to charge premium pricing and showcase your offers right here.

It’s never surprising to me when I work on a rebrand for a client and they have massive success after launching their new website. The reason this happens is that usually, there’s a disconnect with what they are presenting or how they are reflecting themselves, with the quality of the work that they are doing. All it takes is for you to match these 2 things, making sure that your brand and website truly show the level of quality you are giving your clients.

Here’s the thing, because you are controlling your narrative and you are making sure that your message is there to captivate your audience, the results you start getting are massive for your business. Take The Simple Life Pattern Company for example. They started their business on a DIY route and as their sales started growing, they were feeling like their brand wasn’t representing them. There was a little bit of website shame going on. You see, Katie (the owner) was a bit embarrassed to show how she was selling her work. This is what her website looked like before:

So what we did was really go in there and make sure we updated her messaging and positioning in order to really connect with her audience. Before her communication was centered around promotions or new products. What we did was make sure her brand felt premium and communicated in a more sophisticated way. Her products were still low-priced, but they looked really high-end. We wanted to give the feeling that her brand was this huge almost global business. This change radically transformed her business — and income.
We changed her communication to be centered around the feeling that is evoked by using her products. We also made sure we used a lot of photos that would make her work look absolutely spectacular. We rebuilt her brand to feel professional and beautiful. This meant to her a 403% income increase within 30 days of launching. So, when I say that a well-designed website can transform your business I mean it. In The Simple Life Company’s case, without doing ANY advertising or marketing whatsoever, just by changing the design, communication and software (because the platform we were now using, WooCommerce, made it a lot easier for her clients to purchase) meant almost tripling her income within days.

Remember to download the guide where I cover the top 5 website mistakes that could be hurting your business right here:

Another thing that happens a lot with websites that are well-made and professionally designed, is that they immediately increase your Return on Investment (ROI). What tends to happen a lot is that people start their business in a DIY (do-it-yourself) mentality. Again, you think that this will save you money. However, in my experience, it tends to be much more expensive in the long run. Here’s why: you start your business with a DIY website and brand and go on to invest in coaching, marketing, software and advertising. Because your brand doesn’t effectively reflect your quality, it means that the work that you are doing tends to be more expensive. It costs you more money to make clients. In the end, you realize that you have to make the investment (or that it’s finally time) and go ahead and hire a professional to rebuild your website. And then the cycle starts over again: coaches, advertising and marketing. So, by this point, you will have spent double the money to get the result you wanted in the first place. Ouch.

I often give my clients this example to make it super clear how having a poorly or unprofessionally designed brand and website will affect their bottom line. Imagine you are a restaurant with the most delicious food in your whole city. You have this incredible chef make the most spectacular dishes. BUT, you decide that, until people start liking your food and you start making some money, you will start your business in your garage serving food on paper plates and with plastic silverware. Just “until.” My question to you is, how many people do you think you will be able to bring in your restaurant like this? Yes, you can go out advertise like crazy, but I GUARANTEE it’s going to be really hard. Now, if you had a restaurant with beautiful plates and food served spectacularly, how much easier will it be to bring in the right clients?

I know, I know, it’s almost like a cliché phrase by this point. But hear me out. Your website’s ultimate purpose is to make sales, right? Yes, you do that by controlling your narrative, by building trust, by looking good, but ultimately, you do it if you have a sales funnel in place. Now, if you don’t have a website, and are only depending on people looking at your posts on Facebook, you are missing a HUGE opportunity to convert them into buyers. Again, there’s too many messages out there, right? So you want to make sure that you are looking for ways to convert the people that come across you and your business into clients. Period.
Now, what I say is, if your website is there just to look cute and isn’t doing your business anything else, you might as well NOT have one at all. That’s right, delete it and forget about it. Your website desperately needs to have a sales funnel that will drive traffic into leads.
Take Madina, her website was lacking a sales funnel. This means that she wasn’t capitalizing on opportunities from people that were kind of browsing her site. So we worked together on building a funnel that would drive people into becoming clients.
Believe it or not, it takes people 8 seconds on your website to make a decision about you. Go ahead, I dare you. Go to a website for the first time (after you finish reading this, of course), and see how long you stay on there. So, you want to make sure that you have something that instantly will captivate their audience so that they enter your sales funnel and can be driven to decide to buy from you. This should ALL be happening automatically for you so that you can, yes, you guessed it, makes sales while you sleep.

Okay, so, let’s say you are one of those people that have success without having a website at all. So, you got to a point in your business where you achieved your goals. But, here’s the thing, it’s likely that you are playing small because you aren’t opening yourself up to more opportunities of growth. Having a website will allow you to expand and take on new things that could truly transform the way you do business. Now, think about the businesses and brands you admire the most: Marie Forleo, Amy Porterfield, Lewis Howes, or Gary V. They ALL have websites. In fact, they all have pretty cool websites. Do you really think they got to multiple 7 figure businesses by posting all over Facebook groups? No! They didn’t! And the reason they didn’t is that they understood that they needed to build their presence by having opportunities to grow.

So, think Online courses, stores, membership sites, masterclasses, programs, 1:1 coaching, live events, book sales, speaking opportunities, features on big publications. All of these things are housed on their websites. They have funnels created that drive people to each of the right places up their ladder. They are constantly working on marketing that pushes their websites as a hub for growth. So yes, your website continuously works for building your online — and offline presence.

For example, one of my clients, MiaMommy started her business from a parenting blog and has now expanding into doing live events. Within a year of launching her business, she has been awarded as the best South Florida Parenting Blog. She is now in the process of doing larger events for moms and was even recently invited to write for the Jack Nichalus Children’s Hospital. This is all because she has built her online presence. It also means she gets more sponsorships and business opportunities for her brand. She recently did a huge collaboration with Disney Parks for example that really shot up her visibility.

Having a blog for your business is one of the smartest business decisions you can make. The reason for this is that it’s the perfect opportunity for you to establish yourself as a trusted source, build trust and write content that convinces them that they need you. Pretty simple and straightforward.
It’s also a great way for people to constantly come into your website and see what you are up to. Plus, the more articles you write and the more updated your website is, the higher you will end up ranking in Google. This is obviously going to work if your site is SEO friendly and not built on platforms such as Squarespace which is really terrible is you want people to find you on Google or Pinterest. This is one of the suggestions I give my clients the most as it truly will help you in bringing more people in.

The other thing is that if you do a good job of connecting your website and blog posts to other platforms such as Pinterest, you are bringing in a MASSIVE amount of traffic into your site. Believe it or not, I get a TON of free traffic thanks to having all my posts shared on Pinterest.

Considering you have all the right elements in place, if you use all of your efforts from your social media to drive traffic into your website, and your website then turns that traffic into clients, them you have hit the jackpot. Your website will serve as your marketing hub. All roads lead to Rome? Nope, they should lead to your website. So, whether it’s Instagram or Twitter posts or Facebook or Google Ads, all of them should take people to your site, where you are in control of what happens there.

And this happens not only for clients, but for any other relationship you are looking to build in your business as well. Think about all the companies that could have you speak in front of their large audiences. Or all the stores in which you could sell your products. Or how about the media outlets you so desperately want to get on? Do you think that Forbes is going to chase you down for a feature if you don’t make it easy for them to find you? Without your website serving as your marketing hub, all these opportunities are missing because you are invisible to part of the world.

So there you have it! Anytime another coach or friend tells you that you don’t need a website for your business, please send them over here! I just scratched the surface on some of the things that make having a website vital for your success. I have seen this success repeat itself again and again with clients that either are starting out their businesses and want to make sure they look premium so that they can attract premium clients as well (more on that here) or for clients that are ready to rebrand and transform their businesses into Brands that Attract so that they can make the impact they deserve.

Remember to download the free guide with the 5 most common branding + website mistakes keeping you from growth!