Top 5 Reasons Your Service-Based Business Needs a Website
If you’re like most modern business owners, you may have seen your competitors sharing their shiny professional websites all over social media and are now wondering if you should have a website too. It sure looks like a great asset to make you look legitimate and position yourself as an expert in the eyes of your potential clients.
But you may have also seen those ads for coaches or courses proclaiming that you don't need a website to reach 6+ figures…
So, what’s a stressed-out service provider to do?
While I'm sure that's possible for some people to grow their businesses without a website, that's certainly not the easiest way to grow your coaching, consulting or service-based businesses - at least in my opinion!
But it’s so easy to understand why those coaches or course creators spout this idea of not needing a website... so many people are freaked out about by the time, effort and money that can go into creating a website.
So, I'm here as your friendly neighborhood Business Strategist, to share some insight into what a website can really mean for your business.
5 reasons why you do need a strategic website as a service-based business:
1. You own your website
Building your business on social media is building on borrowed land. One change in the algorithm or a tech mishap in their systems and your whole business is at risk!
Remember when Instagram and Facebook went down and a lot of business owners freaked out because their main source of clients was suddenly no longer available!
That won’t happen with your website unless you forget to renew your hosting or domain that is (which is why I always recommend my clients set up those particular services on auto-renew to avoid this in the first place!)
A website is truly your corner of the internet. It’s your digital storefront and it’s the only place online that you can control and ensure is constantly working hard to promote and grow your business.
You can also pour into your website as needed to help grow or scale your business since it’s a flexible platform that can adapt and adjust to you and your business’s needs.
Plus with a website, there’s no need to worry about taking people off the platform, competing for their attention amongst thousands of other posts or spending all of your time fighting the algorithm.
2. Your website builds your Know / Like / Trust
When a potential client is getting to know you and deciding if they want to work with you, they will undoubtedly look to see if you have a website so they can check you out. Even just having a website can be a marker of trust for many people, showing that you are indeed a legitimate business.
Just imagine you yourself were looking for a service, like a nanny agency.
If you type “nanny agency” into Google, you’ll see tons of local services pop up. And I’ll bet that you’d prefer to hand your child over to someone working with a reputable agency with a professional website that showed you all of their services, information about how they vet their nannies and a way to book an in-person interview before you hired the person taking care of your child.
Now back to your website.
As a business owner, you have so many opportunities to help potential clients get to know you, like what you have to offer and build up the trust they need to feel to take the first step to working with you.
They can get to know you by finding their way to your website, learning quickly and easily what it is you’re all about and connecting a face with your name (because I highly recommend including at least one photo of yourself on your website!).
Then you can help those interested potential clients start to like what you have to share by creating an easy-to-use website that presents the information that potential clients are looking for in a clear and easy-to-digest way.
This also helps build trust with these potential clients because you are reassuring them upfront that they are in the right place. You can also encourage them feel safe to go deeper with you by freely answering the questions they have on their mind, both through the copy on your website and in a dedicated FAQ section, and offering a straightforward way for them to get in touch with you right there on your website.
3. Your website is the best place to sell your services
Because you do own your website, you have free reign to present your services in the very best light possible.
You can show off your offers not only on your sales page but all throughout your website! Sharing case studies, images of your past projects and the all-important client testimonials all speak volumes about the quality of your work and will, honestly, do a lot of the selling for you!
You also have the opportunity to connect more deeply with your clients on your website by demonstrating that you understand their struggles and showing them the transformation that your service provides. This is a fantastic way to show the value of your work and helps clients picture what their lives will be like after working with you. Basically, you get to paint a picture for them of their current position and then show off your services as the next step to help them get to where they want to be!
Plus you can actually get those potential clients to book an all-important sales call which is often the last step to make it official and sign that new client!
So essentially, your strategically designed website is another full-time salesperson for your business!
4. Your website is the best path towards building your email list
You may wonder if it’s truly necessary to build an email list as a service-provider, and while you don’t NEED to do anything it is another great asset to add to your business for long-term success.
You are essentially collecting email addresses of people who have raised their hands to say they are interested in what you have to offer - which are the exact people who will be the most likely to book you when they are ready!
And to collect those email addresses of potential clients, you can add a waitlist to your services page if you’re all booked up, offer a newsletter sign up section on your homepage to share helpful tips and tricks around your area of expertise or even share a value-packed opt-in gift in exchange for their email address all throughout your website.
And all of these are easy to add to your website and can offer the opportunity for anyone who comes to your website to stay in touch with you!
5. Your website can make YOUR job so much easier
And finally, by sharing all of the important information about your services, prices and FAQs you are cutting out A LOT of back and forth messages with potential clients!
That’s exactly what a FAQ section is for after all: to gather all of the most common concerns that people have when considering working with you and answering them right there on the sales page before your latest future client even has to reach out to ask.
Even just adding an appointment scheduler onto your website will save you a ton of time figuring out when to plan calls and meetings by allowing your clients to book times that suit them best directly in your calendar, without ever bothering you.
Add to that a longer-term content strategy like blog posts or articles that constantly draw people to your website while you sleep and a well-designed customer journey you can see right-fit clients popping up directly into your inbox or booking calls automatically on your calendar.
All of which frees you up to focus on all of the other things in your business!
I could go on, but I hope you get the point, your website is one of the most powerful assets in your marketing toolkit.
