With Social Media dominating our culture it poses the question of what value does a website even have in 2024? Should I bother hiring a web designer when I could simply advertise my product on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok for free?
When we think about selling a product the first question we have to ask ourselves is how do our customers find our product?
The answer to this question dictates whether it makes sense to have a website. If your customers are googling to search for your product then you're definitely going to need a website since your social media account is unlikely to rank in searches. For example with one of my clients Bearwaters Brewing their website represents a large amount of their traffic. This website averages over 7,000 viewers a month and these are often first time visitors. These visitors almost always find Bearwaters through google, google maps or another search engine. Social media is not driving this traffic.
In addition the website provides another benefit that social media struggles with. It creates a consistent first impression. With a website you're in complete control of what a customer views first. You can guide them through the entire experience. This makes it much easier to pitch your product since you always know what customers will see first. In Bearwaters case customers primarily want to see the food and drink menus and a few photos of the location. On their previous large website it was difficult to figure out where the menu was and what location it was for. This was causing causing a high bounce rate and losing them business. Bearwaters noticed an immediate significant increase in traffic the month after I took over their website, simplified it and made it easier to navigate. This is because their sales page is their menu and driving customers to other parts of the website only served to confuse them.
The last reason to have a website is that you own the traffic. When you build up a social media page while it is a great ad for your product it is fundamentally owned by the social media company. You're building up their brand, rather then your own. If the Social Media company changes the way their algorithm works it can often put you in a tough spot where it's suddenly much harder to sell your product. Where as with a website you're always in full control.
Having said all this Social Media is a powerful advertising tool and should never be ignored. Even with a great website it's still worth being active on the Social Media platforms that your customers frequent.
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