I don’t believe in doing things just because you should. I believe in being intentional about your ideal clients and customers and meeting them where they are — whether that’s through a website, social media, or something else entirely. So I’m not here for an everyone-needs-a-website-no-questions-asked pitch.
But even if your business is “full” and you have plenty of customers/clients, there are other ways a professional, well-built website can hugely benefit your business.
What can a good website do for you?
A good website can bring in higher-quality employees.
Potential employees are definitely looking at your website. SEO matters in getting potential employees to find you — if you’re a Mammoth ski shop and don’t show up in a “Mammoth ski shop” search, people who don’t live in Mammoth may not realize you exist.
But even if they know about you, and even if your physical business looks great, if they can’t even find a simple website, they might skip applying to your business.
Take flower farm Floret (if you love flowers and feel-good business stories, I highly recommend watching Growing Floret) for example. Floret’s creative director found the company’s website and decided to get in touch.
“In 2006 I found her business card, it was at a local cheese shop. I went on the website, it was a really basic website at the time, but I was totally hooked and I was like who is this woman? … I knew that she was going to revolutionize this industry from just three paragraphs of text and a photo of Chris on the tractor.”
– Jill Jorgensen, Floret’s creative director
You can keep your site simple and still show potential employees who you are. If finding great employees is your goal, check out these tips from Monster.
A good website can enable you to choose your clients and customers.
Isn’t that the dream as a business owner?! Sure, you might have enough people walking through your door, booking your services, or buying from your shop, but are they the right people? Are they spending as much money as you’d like them to? Are they aligned with your mission and values? Are they raving about you to their friends, or do they feel so-so about your business?
If you wish you had better customers or wish you could turn away the ones that aren’t perfect for you, a website refresh can go a long way. An outdated or poorly designed website might be turning off potential customers and keeping them from reaching out or visiting you. A website that doesn’t show up in Google search might be missing a lot of searchers who are looking for what you offer.
Perfect Clean Inc. in Mammoth Lakes, CA has been full for several years but still wanted a professional website so they could elevate their reputation in town. When I built their WordPress website, I made sure to add language to the contact form setting expectations for their availability (very minimal) but still inviting people to contact them (so if it was a perfect fit for them, they wouldn’t miss the job).
Plus, if you need to pivot, expand, or shift your offerings, having a professional website in place makes this process much easier. You can quickly grow or let your website visitors know how things are changing.
A good website can invite partnerships, collaborations and other opportunities for revenue.
A good website can function like a good business card. You may give out dozens of business cards without getting any new customers, but you might get one amazing opportunity from a business card that makes all the difference.
You’ll likely have dozens or hundreds of eyes on your website, and if you put some thought into developing a website that reflects you and your brand well, you’ll be much more appealing to potential partners and collaborators.
Take Kyle Van Deusen’s online community of website designers and developers, The Admin Bar, for example. This 4,000+ member knowledge-sharing Facebook Group is active and engaged, but by having a professional website for this community, Kyle has turned this side project into something much bigger.
Interview guests, sponsors, and supporters often land on TheAdminBar.com to check out the community and see if it’s legit, and thanks to Kyle’s polished and thoughtful website, they’re quickly converted.
“Our website isn’t about finding opportunities because I’m in desperate need of them — it’s about finding better opportunities. That may be ones that are more profitable, better align with my goals, or even being able to work with people that would have been completely out of my league without it. Good or bad, a website acts as your first impression and establishes a reputation that precedes you.”
– Kyle Van Deusen, Founder of The Admin Bar
The Admin Bar website also provides more ways for website professionals in the Facebook Group to interact with the Admin Bar brand — they can buy Kyle’s Website Owner’s Manual (generating recurring revenue for him), they can listen to his podcast and read his blog, they can sign up for his newsletter, and they can see and buy the products he endorses (many of which he’s an affiliate for, driving a bit more revenue for him).
Without a professional website, Kyle would have missed these opportunities for deeper connection and passive income.
The bottom line: you might not need to spend an arm and a leg on a fancy, custom-built website, but having a professional, intentional website can still have an impact on your business, your revenue, and your reputation.
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Need help creating a website for your business? I offer website audits, website design and copywriting services. This fall I’ll be releasing a set of mini courses for people who want to build their own website on WordPress or Squarespace. Sign up for my email list to hear when these are released!
