Is Social Media Enough - Does My Business Need A Website In 2022?

The modern-day online landscape looks very different from its humble beginnings. The advent of the internet was born on a rocky foundation of simple, static web pages with an antiquated yet charming aesthetic. There’s something nostalgic about these relics of our online past, but the decades that have preceded them have brought on an evolution that early adopters of the internet had no ability to predict. Websites have evolved to become sophisticated and elegant, custom website design and website development have created endless possibilities. We’ve moved from websites being read-only based content, to a fully interactive experience.

The latest waves of web applications, known as web 2.0 and 3.0 offered the tools for social media to be built on. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tick Tok have become essential means for businesses to reach out and connect with their audiences. Social integrations create an easy to manage an environment that businesses can quickly show off new products, communicate and engage with their audience and even build extensive advertising and marketing campaigns.

There’s no doubt that web 3.0 applications have played a major role in how businesses find new customers and sell products or services. The barrier to entry is tiny to create an online presence for your business due to these platforms being so easily accessible. However, to think that this is all you need to maximise your businesses turnover and revenue is misguided. Don't fall into the trap of thinking this is enough, your business needs a custom website designed specifically for it, and here are some reasons why.

Creating the Perfect, Curated Environment For Your Customers

While having an online presence on a 3rd party’s platform is an important ingredient in the online business pie, it still isn’t truly yours. While things like your social media are incredible tools for outreach, they limit you in their ability to tailor them exactly to your business needs. You have to adapt your business aesthetic and communication style to fit the platform's parameters. Perhaps your products aren’t done justice in the manner in which you are forced to display them? Or the display pic and banner layout don’t work for your branding? Or perhaps something as simple as Facebook’s garish blue clashes with your brand's colour pallet.

And then there’s the unpredictable algorithm for organic reach. All bow towards the algorithm gods.

A custom-built website grants you full control over how your products or services are presented. Web design allows you to tailor your website to take advantage of your branding, rather than compromising it for a third party platform's layout and user interface. This allows you to guide the customer journey, presenting your products and services in a perfectly curated order to ensure that they gain perspective into the full spectrum of what you offer, ultimately increasing your conversion rate. A custom-built website allows you to have full consistency between branding, imagery and copywriting to deliver your brand's message in the most optimal way.

Getting your Customers Full Attention

Most people have grown used to swiping through content at an extraordinarily fast rate. With all the noise online, it's becoming increasingly difficult to hold the attention of online users. This is particularly true with social media marketing, where your brand is just another post in a quickly refreshed news feed. As stated earlier, these third-party platforms are important tools for initially grabbing your customers attention, but your next step should be to get them out of the current digital ecosystem they are in and into yours. Pulling them away from social media and into your world.

Social media platforms and other online aggregates are designed for rapid navigation. Their business model is to keep their users churning through their content to keep them on their site as long as possible. Your business is not a priority, it is just another piece of content. By drawing these users off these platforms and onto your website, you have their full attention. Your business is now able to dictate the pace of communication, and with a well designed UI in place and a strategic funnel set up, you can lead your clients all the way to a conversion. This conversion may be selling a product, booking a service, or signing up to your mailing list.

Search Engine Optimisation is the Unsung Hero of Successful Online Businesses.

Up until now, we’ve spoken about web 3.0 apps such as social media, but haven’t even mentioned the giant elephant in the room - Google. A large portion of the success of the internet as a utility for business has been carved out by the development of search engines. Prior to their inception, users needed to already know the URLs they were heading to, and casual browsing was almost impossible. Search engines changed this, providing a quick and intuitive way for people to navigate the world wide web. While there are multiple search engines available, there is no doubt that Google rules them all. While the nature of social media platforms tends to cater to specific demographics, Google caters to them all. It is the go-to tool for customers looking for services and products, and as online shopping increases exponentially every year, not being able to be found on Google can be a death sentence for a business.

Through strategic web design and web development, businesses can craft a website that is optimised to be found on Google easily. It allows you to create multiple pages that focus on specific search terms, allowing your online presence to be spread across a wider set of enquiries. This allows multiple inlets into your website, saving potential customers time and increasing your conversion rates.

While paid advertising has a place in ensuring success, at the end of the day your website design and development are going to be a major factor in how successful it is. Creating beautiful engaging websites with rich content and imagery that pops is the backbone of doing business online. This requires expert website design, while an inexperienced website development team ensures that all technical aspects such as page load speed, image size, and site architecture ready your website for Google’s search engine.

Final Thoughts

Don’t be misled into thinking that having a social presence is enough for running a successful business in 2022. A well-designed website, tailored to your business’s needs is the final destination for all conversion online. Your marketing, advertising, and social presence all need to lead somewhere, and that place should be your website. Lime Digital’s proven track record for designing and developing awe-inspiring websites has led our diverse portfolio of clients to higher levels of organic traffic, conversion rates, and revenue generation. Don’t leave money on the table when it comes to your online presence, see what Lime Digital’s website design and development can do for your business today.

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