Why Your Small Business Needs a Website

oogle’s “Get Your Business Online” program has uncovered some shocking statistics about U.S.-based small businesses and their websites. For instance, in most states, somewhere between 50% and 60% of small businesses do not have a website. Yet 97% of consumers look online for local products and services. It’s astonishing that the Internet has been so widely used for nearly two decades, but millions of companies are still missing out on one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to market their businesses.

Despite the statistics, there is a lot of debate in the business world nowadays about company websites and whether or not a business should have one… or just dump it and go straight to the wide variety of social media platforms. While it may be tempting to “save money” and jump on the Facebook wagon, the use of social media platforms, alone, does not make as much business sense as the use of social media platforms in addition to the use of a website.

Why is your website important? Well, it does three things:

• A website tells people who you are.
• A website people what you do.
• A website people how to become a customer.

As shared on forbes.com, the real challenge for a business should not be about killing off the company website; rather, it should be about coordinating all the many parts of a company’s online presence. The question, therefore, should not be about having a website; it should be about which social media platforms to use and how to leverage the special attributes of each platform to conduct business and build the totality of a brand presence online.

The Big Picture

All in all, it’s important to think of your company website as the centerpiece or the hub of your company’s online presence. Your website is where you can share the bulk of information and all the details people may want to know; whereas, the social media platforms, like spokes on the wheel, only have certain things they can share or handle at one time. Each online element is significant, in and of itself; but together, they create the “big picture” that everyone is always hoping to produce, rather than just the random puzzle pieces that don’t tell a very effective story on their own.