Why Build and Maintain a Website?

The importance of having a website cannot be understated. In todays 24x7x365 consumer driven and highly mobile world, making it easy for customers and potential customers to find you lies at the very foundation of doing business successfully in the 21st century.

Having a well placed presence in the major search engines like Google is critical to getting a competitive edge over your competition. Even better if you have a Google Business listing and an entry on Google Maps as well. Location based search is hugely important, particularly for mobile device users who want relevant content and results for their locality.

You website is your perpetual shop window to the world. So make it count! Make sure you have a well designed, mobile friendly, easy to use, content rich and functional website that does your business justice.

Why not just use Social Media instead?

Well, certainly it’s part of the mix of communication channels you can leverage, but social media should complement not replace a website.

Here’s why:

• Owned Media – Your website is owned and controlled by you.
• Earned Media – Social Media audiences and engagement used to sit in this category, based on how content used to be shared across those platforms (e.g. Facebook).
• Paid Media – In addition to paying for things like online display banners and google adwords, social media now squarely sits in this category.

But isn’t it Social Media free I hear you ask? Well it kind of used to be but not any more. Sure pages or channels are free to setup and use, but if you want any kind of cut through with audiences you have to pay. Monetisation is the protocol.

Also, you don’t really have any control over the social media platforms. They can and do change the rules quite frequently, along with the costs, so by having a website at the core of your digital ecosystem, you can always drive traffic/users there, where you have absolute control.

In summary, the best digital ecosystem is a blend of the various social media channels, your own CRM/database and email campaigns, with your website at the centre. So make sure you have a good’un!