Many small business owners often wonder if they can just use their Facebook Business page as their primary digital point of contact, but it’s always better to have your own website as your small business starts to grow. While there are plenty of specific reasons for this, the simple explanation is that it gives you far more power, control and flexibility in how you engage with online customers. It’s also an essential marketing tool for any kind of company to represent itself as a trustworthy brand.
Even though we always recommend getting your own site up and running, this doesn’t mean your Facebook Business page isn’t an indispensable asset. Social media pages and shops are a great way to get started and connect with customers alongside a conventional site, so you should always keep them current and active. These profile pages can also serve as interim or preliminary points of contact until you have a chance to fund and develop a proper portal of your own.
Controlling Your Online Presence
The fundamental advantage of owning your own site is that you are in control of your online presence. You don’t have to worry about adhering to Facebook’s ever-changing terms of service, potential censorship or other types of controls impacting your business. A small business that puts all of its web presence “eggs” in the Facebook basket will also vanish from the face of the internet every time the site is offline or risk losing its entire digital presence if Facebook decides to close its doors for good one day.
Take Advantage of Website Analytics
Website analytics are tracking tools that allow you to gather detailed information about how customers use your website. This can include anything from identifying hot spots, which are the parts of your pages customers tend to click or view, to testing the average time it takes for them to bounce off of a page. Detailed analytics are absolutely invaluable for helping marketers and digital developers optimize your site to improve user experience and encourage more sales. Running your own site allows you to implement a full range of analytical tools that you couldn’t on a Facebook page.
Broaden Your Horizons
Another fundamental advantage of setting up your own site is expanding your potential user base and overall visibility. Limiting yourself to a Facebook Business page means you can only reach people who actively use the platform. While a lot of people use social media on a regular basis, publishing your content on one single platform still stunts your ability to compete against other businesses that utilize multiple channels. The fact is, companies that limit themselves to any social media, even if they use multiple, are ultimately going to miss out on customers they would have had if they used a conventional website as well.
Integrate Your Sales Cycle
Many modern companies rely on an integrated sales cycle to turn one-time customers into long-term users of their products or services. Having your own site allows you to present your products and optimize the buying experience to maximize the closure of individual sales and encourage repeat visits. This can range from suggesting appropriate additional products or add-ons to integrated data tracking to feed automated e-mail followups that keep your brand top of mind.
Direct Technical Support
Even though Facebook does try to keep its users happy, their technical support serves a massive community and they are not particularly motivated to keep your business running at peak efficiency. When you contract a professional agency, you can also take advantage of a reliable and responsive technical support team to address issues promptly. This is particularly important when the issues impact the user experience or interrupt the sales process.
Comit’s Commitment to Digital Excellence
Comit Developers is an integrated team of digital web developers and designers who can craft a website to set your business up for growth and scalability. We consult carefully with each client to design and build sites that serve their specific needs and goals. Our team is also equipped to provide continuing updates, secure hosting services and ongoing technical support to keep things running properly year-round.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you build a website that gets you seen and checks off all your boxes.
