While starting a small business can be a very rewarding experience, that doesn’t mean that it’s without challenges. Because there’s no shortage of obstacles that can stand in the way of small business success, it’s important to give yourself every advantage possible. One of those very important advantages is to have a website. Since people spend so much time searching online, not having a website means that you’re missing out on the opportunity to connect with a lot of potential customers.

To understand exactly why having a website is a necessity for any small business that wants to succeed, let’s go over four different specific benefits:

Protect Your Reputation

Good online reviews of your business can really help it flourish. Unfortunately, it only takes one negative review to undermine all the other good things that have been said about you. The good news is if you have a website, you can publish content on it that is specifically designed to help make any online negativity about your business less visible.

Increase Customer Loyalty

When you have a website, it’s easy to add a sign-up form so people can give you their email address. Depending on your specific type of business, you can then send the people who sign up anything from a bi-weekly newsletter to coupons. The key takeaway is regardless of what you decide is best to send, as long as it provides value, it will help to increase customer loyalty.

Attract Highly Targeted Traffic from Google

Although we touched on this in the opening paragraph, it’s such an important topic that it’s worth discussing in detail. When people use Google to search for a specific keyword phrase, they’re basically saying exactly what they need at that time. So if your website appears in the list of results that show up and the searcher clicks your link, there’s a very good chance that they’re going to want to do business with you.

Serves as a Hub for Social Media Promotion

There’s a lot of value in using social media to promote your business. The one caveat is in order to maximize results, you need a central hub where you can drive traffic from all the different social sites you use. By having a website, accomplishing that goal will be quite easy to do.

Your Website Needs to Be Visible in Google

As you can see from several of the benefits above, small businesses will only gain those things if they not only have a website but have a website that shows up in Google. While making your website visible in Google for relevant searches may seem like some kind of magic, the reality is it simply requires an effective marketing strategy. So whether you already have a website but need to increase visibility, or you want to have a website built that is fully search engine optimized, your best option is to work with an experienced design, development and marketing agency.

Could your company benefit from a better website? Web Strategy Plus offers a free quote or consultation to help you identify the areas of your marketing plan that need improvement. Learn More

Michelle Hummel is CEO of Web Strategy Plus a full-service digital marketing agency. She was recently nominated for the Woman-Owned Business of the Year! She’s a passionate Social Media Trainer with 15+ years of successful online business development, sales, and marketing experience. She also holds a valuable Internet Marketing Degree however with the ever-changing world of web marketing she strives to learn something new every day.

She travels Nationwide visiting her 22 Social Media Enthusiasts Chapters she developed Nationwide delivering in-depth social media training. She also provides Social Media Certifications through founding Web Media University. A current contributing editor to The Franchise Dictionary Magazine and she has written 3 books in her series called, “The Social Media Magnet: Everything You Need to Know to Attract Customers with Social Media”, where she shares her best-kept secrets to success. She also specializes in helping Franchisors and Franchisees develop an integrated web marketing program to drive leads. She’s available for interviews via email, telephone, Skype video, news segments on location and more. Just let her know how she can help!