Having your own website is crucial for success in today’s digital world. Not only do 86% of pet parents shop online1 but also, 76% of consumers search businesses online and explore their online presence before deciding to visit its physical location2. This means that even small local businesses substantially benefit from having an online presence of their own.
1. Enhanced Visibility, Brand Awareness & Credibility
A website enables a business to have full control over its own online presence, including its brand identity, style, and message. Having a website with well-crafted content lets visitors get to know your business, its history, its purpose, its products and services and it lets them engage with you in the ever-growing virtual world.
To ensure higher visibility, the website content, which includes the content of the Home page, About page, and other similar pages, needs to incorporate SEO practices. For your website to be even easier to find by search engines and potential clients, it should also include an SEO-friendly blog, which establishes your business as an authority in the industry, boosting your credibility.
2. Launch Marketing & Advertising Initiatives
Your website serves as the launch pad for all your marketing efforts. From list building by inviting visitors to subscribe to your newsletters to keeping them engaged through useful blog articles that keep attracting traffic. Websites enable you to have your own self-managed online presence and allow you to further capitalize your brand through SEO practices.
Having a website also gives you the opportunity to boost your profit and diversify your revenue streams by expanding your offering to sell more products and services online, like courses, e-books, products, ads, and more. You can also penetrate new international markets by exploring language options and reaching new audiences. So, it is not simply an online storefront, it is a portal to new business and growth opportunities for your brand.
3. Save Time & Money With Automations
On top of enabling you to offer new products and services online, websites can also do actual work for you. By adding the right functionalities, you can save time on administrative tasks and more. Websites can handle bookings for you by letting visitors select available time slots, they can also prompt blog readers or general website visitors to sign up for your newsletter for information, news and discounts, increasing your clientele without you having to lift a finger.
With the proper add-ons, your website can also display your products online, process payments, offer pre-made or live courses or webinars, automate customer service tasks, and much more, and it can do all this for you, while you sleep, so you never miss an opportunity. This is a great addition for users looking for a self-serve approach, and for busy business owners that prefer to focus their energy on tasks that only they can do, and let technology do the rest.
4. Reclaim Social Media Traffic
Oftentimes many businesses have Facebook or Instagram pages and believe that to be enough of an online presence. Although it is indeed better to have a Facebook page rather than to have no presence online and miss out on opportunities by not being findable by search engines, those pages are limiting in terms of style, revenue streams, customization, automations, and more. They are also oftentimes limited to possible buyers or visitors that have an account on those platforms which can leave out a fraction of the population.
This doesn’t mean social media is not useful. Being able to interact with followers, and being present on social media enables you to connect with your community and be found and recommended to potential buyers. However, it also limits you to the platforms’ settings, terms of use and conditions, and availability. Social media platforms come and go, and throughout time we have seen many rise and fall. Having a website enables you to redirect social media followers to your website, where they will find and discover all your products and services and can sign up for newsletters and more.
You can earn commissions from your blog or social media by partnering with the best pet affiliates and collaborate to promote pet products and services. This way, you use social media platforms as tools that serve your business and expand your own community rather than promoting activity and growing the influence and consumer base of the social media platforms themselves. At LinkingPaws, we like to say websites allow you to have your own “online kingdom” where you decide what your style is, what your content is, and what your terms of use and conditions are.
5. Catch Up To Big Competitors
Your business is unique and important, and it warrants its own “online kingdom”. In today’s digital world, everyone can have a presence which should empower small- and medium-sized businesses to compete with bigger brands. With well-designed websites, made for efficiency, the smallest businesses can use the same tools and marketing strategies big companies do, at a fraction of the price and without needing to hire a marketing team.
Online, you can also protect yourself from fluctuations in the physical market since it allows you to diversify your offering to also offer a variety of digital products. This shields your revenue and livelihood from any stock shortages, geographical limitations, language barriers, and lockdowns, giving you the biggest gift of all, peace of mind.
Sources
1 https://explodingtopics.com/blog/pet-industry-stats
2 https://www.revfcu.com/creating-an-online-presence-for-business-success/