Social Media or Website?

As a website design company, we deal with many different prospective clients every day. Some are reviewing a project proposal in preparation before development and others are usually enquiring about our services, prices and general advice. Within both groups fall a unique clientele who are unsure on where to take their business due to social media. Many of us are filling our 2022 schedule with plans and preparations for business. This could be networking, hiring new employees or even buying some more stock in. But how many of you are preparing to take your business to the next level?

If you have a company that is successful and has been grown through social media and networking, you may be confused as to how a website can help you further. If your sales targets are being met and you are gradually increasing your client list, you are probably wondering why you’d pay towards building a website. Well, the truth is there are limitations to marketing solely on social media.

The first is that it’s easy to get distracted by so-called ‘vanity metrics’. That is, mistaking an increase in your follower numbers, or the number of people engaging with your posts, as business growth. Those figures do show that you are reaching more potential customers but is that actually boosting your sales?

Despite your Facebook page having a number of likes and shares, this might only increase your network and brand awareness on that platform. The same is true of Instagram, your followers and interactions will not necessarily correlate directly with sales. Social media can increase your brand awareness and ability to connect with clients directly, but it doesn’t guarantee sales.

You are also at the mercy of that social media platform. If you run a business entirely on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, what happens if the company which owns the platform changes its approach? Facebook has made several large-scale changes to its newsfeed in the past 5 years, at one time prioritising video and at another downgrading posts with external links. You are powerless as a business owner to do anything other than react when changes are made and hope you can still reach your audience! 

There are of course lots of advantages to using social media for your business, such as being able to post spontaneously any time of the day for free and build an engaged audience of followers. You can showcase your products and services on your terms and answer questions from customers directly. Clever brands use social media to add accessibility and show their brand personality, something which they previously had to rely on paid advertising and PR to do effectively. But as we’ve said, it isn’t wise to purely rely on these outlets to run your business. Here’s why having a website alongside a social media presence is essential.

1. Having a website will improve your company reputation and sales. Brand trust is something that all businesses selling online need to consider. We hear all too often about scams and fake business profiles on social media, and the stats say that people like to check out a website as well as social media profiles before they buy from a brand. Your website will have information about your brand, your staff, and ways to contact you, all of which helps deliver that all-important trust.
2.  Another advantage to having a website is being able to display your services or products in a professional manner, having the ability to add unlimited pages to your site covering anything from product list to an ‘about’ page or ‘contact us’ page as mentioned above. Furthermore, you can add copy, links and images which speak to your brand identity and distinct style.
3. With a website you won’t be solely reliant on social media for leads. Even with just basic SEO (search engine optimisation) work you can help make sure your website is found by people looking for brands just like yours. That should ensure they are high quality leads and much more likely to buy from you than say someone who sees a social media advert. Combined with any leads you do get from social media, and you can have very exciting business growth! You can also use Google Analytics to track where your website traffic is coming from and therefore see which marketing channels are working best for you and which are perhaps less efficient.
4. Finally, you own your website. So long as you keep paying for website hosting and any domain name charges, it’s yours. You can change the content and images as your brand evolves. You can edit prices and product information if your costs change. You aren’t at the mercy of a social media giant deciding it wants to refocus on connecting friends and families at the expense of businesses using it for marketing (thank you, Facebook!). If you rely on social media for your sales, what happens if you get locked out your account, hacked or they delete your page? It does happen, and it can hit businesses hard!

So, how can Black Nova Designs help you?

We specialise in creating bespoke WordPress websites built with the most up-to-date coding practises and prioritising user experience (UX) throughout the development. We have a team with over 20+ years’ experience and over 1000 happy clients so you can guarantee your website will be in the best hands at Black Nova. Our developers can create any website from simple, information-based sites with 5 pages to comprehensive, complicated e-commerce sites. No request is too big or too small and we can do seriously amazing things, if your budget allows.

Our developer, Steve, created a brand new, never done before customizer for our fantastic clients that is used across a range of websites.

Our priority when creating websites is to ensure that any amount of traffic or large-scale plug ins don’t affect user experience.

Whether you are a small business prioritising Google leads and SEO or a large company needing a site that can manage a substantial amount of traffic, we can cater for you.

We design websites to match your business, so when you work with us your WordPress website will be made with custom design, all designed on custom layouts, custom icons and whatever else is required for the website to represent your business.

No business is the same as any other, so no website should be the same.

For more information, click here.