Businesses today mainly concentrates on presenting their face through social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram more than websites. You might think what’s the use of discussing this now? Yes, there’s a big reason behind this discussion. Data collected by our research team was shocking. There are still remarkable figure of businesses having no website till date. Less than half of the business entities have their own websites, and even if they have it, it is not mobile optimized.
There are arguments on the effectiveness of websites these days as it was before. Cost and technology are not the barricades any more, and the sophisticated users are given the subscription options. The main challenge here is that websites must compete for the significance in the market with different media platforms including directories, social media sites and review sites. Social media as of today is ruling small businesses as per the surveys conducted by the researchers. Above 40% of the small business owners opines that social media would be the medium of choice if they were given a chance to select one from many forms of online marketing to use.
Sophisticated directory listings contain all the virtual key information our customers are looking for. Integrating multiple functions including online booking, e-commerce and reviews to attract audience than an individual website.
These are the reasons which seems to be enough to persuade that some of the third party owned pages are simpler and sufficient alternative to maintaining a business website. But below are the most vital reasons which reveals the reason of why websites are still the need for local search marketing.
1. Websites are used by huge number of consumers to involve with businesses
Despite the growth of other medias, value of website will not diminish, indeed it will grow. Surveys show that many of the consumers still use websites to engage with the related businesses to a large extent. A website which generates content based on its visitor’s requirement is of more demand these days.
2. SEO a big deal for websites
SEO has always been a big deal in the local market. Researchers have revealed that 95 percent of the consumers use search engines to find local businesses which means only 5% of the consumers do not. The top ten factors essential to appear in organic Google search results related to the business domain or a website includes who is linking to your site, how authoritative your website is, which are the third parties linking to you and the excellence of your content etc. These factors cannot be realistically fulfilled on Facebook platform. The major concern that is the authority of the website is difficult to achieve.
3.Websites influence the Google map results and Local snack-packs, too.
Your Google My Business profile impacts the proximity of your business to the searcher and the local pack ranking factors. Having a complete and rich profile do not always guarantee that your business will be shown up in Google local finder or any map results. Some of them assume that their business will be shown up in searches for the category of business in the geographical area. Organic factors affecting the organic SEO rankings include backlinks, domain authority and clicks. These factors are also essential to absolutely rank and appear in Google local finder and map results.
4. A business having no website will not be considered by the consumers for their decision making.
The credibility of a business is usually judge by its website. Consumers mainly rely on different sources to gather information before they decide to purchase. Just due to a simple reason that individuals look at your social media pages and read reviews does not mean they don’t want to refer your website. Consumers usually use three or more different sources as portrayed in the researches before making decisions. That’s the reason why businesses without a website experience a significant loss of potential customers.
Final thoughts
It seems easy as agencies and marketers to take every step as per the clients need and requirement. Although marketing decisions taken by small businesses is always based on inadequate information. As a small business if you just look at the time spend by the consumers on social media you might immediately conclude that your business resources have to be utilized to mainly make your social media platforms perfect or just make a bigger mistake of relying on social media solely.
As per my opinion we must make sure our clients comprehend the data context used to make decisions. Clients should be trained and educated to look deep into the trends of the consumers and come with better insights to take right decisions. We need to make them understand the importance of website and the need to evade websites sacrifice, in favor of social media platforms.
