If you’re just starting your business you may be faced with some old-fashioned advice. One of the worst is “you don’t need a website, just get out there and get clients”.
Now that worked just fine back in 2008 but times change and if you haven’t got a website presence in 2021 – then what kind of a business are you? Everyone checks out the website… I suppose we want to be reassured that you’re real and your business is real.
I’ve just this morning hired someone (to look at my horse’s feet!) and she doesn’t have a website! Seriously! I found a name online and she’s local to me, but all the stuff written about her was back in 2013 or so. So I popped off an email with the only address I could find – and it turns out she IS still in business – she’s just lucky I’m an internet sleuth and was able to track her down going years back! I bet she’s missed out on a lot of business!
Another lie you may be told is that you just need a Facebook page. Now I know we all use Facebook – in fact if you don’t – I’m wondering why you’re even here or considering opening an online business! But Facebook selling pages are kinda weird… it’s like sending your money off into the ether and hoping your goods arrive. There’s no accountability, no face, name or address behind the sale – it puts the willies up me and there’s no way I’d part with my cash like that. How about you? Can you afford to hand over your hard-earned cash to someone who may or may not be legitimate?
So if you mean this – and when I say “this”, I mean your online business – and you’re serious about it – then you need to get serious about your website.
The best way to do this is to go all-in from the start and get a fully-customisable WordPress website. Because WordPress is open-source (that means it’s been designed and maintained by a group of volunteers) there are no license fees or ongoing subscriptions to use WordPress itself. There are a myriad of plugins you can use for extra functionality and more than half the world’s websites run on WordPress.
With a WordPress website you’re totally in control – you own all the data and you won’t need to hand over to an expensive designer – or even worse, the person who designed the website in the first place – because it’s common software and so you don’t need that one expert which saves you time and money and you won’t be held to gunpoint by a rogue developer (unfortunately they exist).
By having a WordPress website you can easily collect leads (that means grow your email list) and make sales online with all those bits and bobs fully-automated so you can get on with running your business and not worrying about tech or having to manually handle sales and initial customer interactions.
**Update April 2021. WordPress’s closest competitor has come on in leaps and bounds since I first wrote this blog – and I would now also recommend SquareSpace for having GREAT functionality and ease of use if you’re not a techie!