Do I Need a Website or Is Social Media Enough?

Creative Entrepreneurs, Interior Designers, Photographers, Showit, Website Design, Wedding Professionals

This is a question I hear so often as a Showit website designer.

The truth is, it’s less about choosing one or the other and more about having your website and social media work well together.

If you’re frustrated with ever-changing algorithms and annoying bots, you might already be exploring other ways to build your brand outside of social media. A website is your best bet.

It may seem easy for a website designer to tell you how important websites are, but there are millions of business owners who feel the same way.

64% of businesses have a website, a number that will greatly increase as digital marketing continues to surge. Whether your business primarily operates online or you want to add ecommerce options to your local business, it’s important to have a website you feel proud of that also helps you connect with more customers.

If social media isn’t enough to grow your business, why is it that you should invest in a website instead of other platforms? Here’s why…

7 reasons to build & launch a Showit website

If you’ve been wondering about whether or not you need a website, I’ve got six reasons why you should build one ASAP.

As an online business owner, you need a clear place to direct new customer and client leads who are interested in what you do and how you may be able to help them.

The best place to start is with a beautifully designed and strategically built website, but if you need more convincing, keep reading!

A website is one of the only platforms you own

Social media is rented real estate, meaning you don’t have 100% control over anything that happens there. You might be surprised how little ownership you have of the content you’re already posting on certain social media platforms! (I’m looking at you, Instagram and Facebook…)

When you launch a Showit website, you’ll have complete control and ownership over everything on your site. You also don’t have to worry about pesky algorithms that constantly change how many people your content is able to reach.

One of the only other platforms you can own is email marketing. Email subscribers are said to be as much as 15 times more valuable than social media followers in terms of how well they convert on offers.

I personally use Flodesk as my email service provider because of their visual templates, easy-to-customize branding, and super affordable pricing. If you want to get Flodesk for just $19/month for life (which is 50% off of their normal price), click here!

It’s a great idea to add email marketing to your Showit website so you can use social media marketing as a way to build your email list and increase your website traffic. Win-win-win!

You have creative freedom with designing your website

If you have a specific vision for how you want your brand to be presented online, investing in a custom Showit website design is your best move forward.

On Instagram, for example, you can add aesthetically pleasing photos to your feed, but you can’t change the grid format of how they are displayed. You can’t add more than 150 characters to your bio and there’s only one bio link. While you can post whatever graphics or photos you want, you can’t touch the rest of your profile.

As creatives, we love to feel like our brand stands out from the crowd. The best way to do this is by creating a website that gives you full creative freedom. This goes well beyond the fonts, colors, and other visual elements you choose. It’s also about choosing exactly where you want them to go and how you want them to appear on desktop vs. mobile screens.

This is something Showit is known for. With their no-code website builder, we can easily build you a website that has all the benefits of a custom-built site with none of the tech headaches that usually come afterward. For years, I’ve been using Showit to build all of my client websites as well as my own, so trust me. It’s a designer’s (and client’s) dream come true!

Websites act as the “hub” of your online business

Think of your website as the central hub of your business. It’s the place where people can go to learn more about you, experience the value behind what you offer, and decide whether or not it makes sense for them to work with you or buy from you.

Because of this, it’s clear that social media is best when it’s used as a supporting marketing tool. It should be used to help you communicate a similar message that your website does but in terms that will connect with your social media followers.

Instead of asking people to follow you on multiple social media platforms, it’s better to direct them toward your website. You can do this on your business cards, in networking conversations, and more.

Conversions are usually higher on websites than social media

Take a moment to identify the primary goal behind your digital marketing efforts. If you’re like many creative entrepreneurs, your goal is to connect with people who want to buy your products and services. One of the best ways to do this is through your Showit website.

With a website, you can automatically capture leads because your website runs like a 24/7 sales person. You don’t have to be present in order to make the sale. You’ve probably heard people talking about making sales in their sleep, which is possible through your website.

Quality lead generation is the lifeblood of your online business. Without any leads, you won’t be able to earn more income because you won’t have any clients or customers to serve. As you envision what your new website will look like and how it will function, make sure it’s created to generate leads from the get-go!

Websites have a better user experience

You can’t expect a new social media follower to read through all of your Instagram posts or watch your Facebook lives in order to learn enough about your business. They’ll want to make a quick hiring decision based on consuming quality content, not a large quantity of it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that social media platforms like Instagram are strategically built to keep users on their own platform. That’s why they make it so difficult to add links to your posts, Stories, IG TV, IG Live, and other types of content.

If a social media platform wants to make sure their users keep scrolling, those people won’t be as likely to reach out to you because they’re passively looking at everyone’s profile. However, if they were to visit your website, it’s dedicated only to your business so you’d have their complete attention. You can’t put a price on that!

I heavily focus on creating a great user experience for my Showit website design clients.

It’s not enough to have a website that looks pretty (although that’s one of my goals, too!). You need a website that’s built to last and has a clear path toward whatever it is that you’re selling.

This is often called the “user journey,” but it’s just a fancy word that describes how all of your website pages work together. Every action a user takes should get them closer to your end goal, which is usually clicking a “buy now” button or filling out a contact form. It’s up to you!

You can add more information to a website

Some social media platforms like Twitter have character limits, even though it’s been raised from 140 to 280 characters now. That’s not a lot of room to talk about the value your business provides.

Sure, you can write longer posts about your business on other social media platforms, but the minute you start posting other content, those original posts will get pushed toward the bottom of your feed.

It’s hard for social media content to become memorable because platforms are updated so fast. There’s always the pressure to consistently add new and fresh content in order to sell more of your offerings.

That’s why I recommend using social media only to direct traffic toward your website.

Your website will stay the same, so you don’t have to worry about posting new content every day or rethinking your sales pitch all the time. You can also design your website pages in a thoughtful way (like this) that allows you to explain your services or products in more detail than you can in, say, an Instagram caption or even a Facebook ad.

Websites can be better optimized for search

While some social media followers will be scrolling through their feeds to find someone to work with, it’s far more likely to make a sale from a direct search.

Did you know that 93% of all online experiences start with a search engine? That’s why having a website that is search-engine friendly is so important!

By using a curated collection of keywords and implementing SEO best practices into your website, you can rank highly in search engines. This is a long-term growth strategy for business owners, so you can’t expect to see results overnight but it will be worth it.

If you need additional help getting started with SEO, check out my Simple Showit SEO course. It has many step-by-step training videos and workbook exercises to help you optimize your website for search.

Ready to get started with your own Showit website?

Here are a few resources you’ll want to check out next:

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