Do I Still Need a Website for My Small Business?
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A friend who owns a small restaurant asked me recently if she still needs a website for her business.
She has a Facebook page and social presence on Instagram, and Twitter and has regular activity on Yelp. In her opinion, most of her traffic goes to those places.
She can also do her own updates to all those places and interact with customers. She can add events, post new menu photos, and change options. Her issue is that she has a website that she pays for every year. It costs about $250 for that but she pays by the hour for a designer (not me) to update the website. That part runs her about $500 a year. Plus she pays for her domain. Is it worth it?
She has a Facebook page and social presence on Instagram, and Twitter and has regular activity on Yelp. In her opinion, most of her traffic goes to those places.
She can also do her own updates to all those places and interact with customers. She can add events, post new menu photos, and change options. Her issue is that she has a website that she pays for every year. It costs about $250 for that but she pays by the hour for a designer (not me) to update the website. That part runs her about $500 a year. Plus she pays for her domain. Is it worth it?
So this is a question of website versus social media.
Her only hesitation is that all those social sites point/link to the website. Yes, the website gets traffic, but it is not her main way of getting the word out to old and new customers.
My advice was to keep the website. In total, she spends about $1000 a year. Not insignificant, but not a huge investment even for a small business. She could cut costs by using a free hosting website and maybe find a cheaper web services person or even learn to do updates herself using something like WordPress.
My main reason for keeping a website is that even in 2023, people just assume every legitimate business has one. Are you a business if you don’t have a website?
Any thoughts?
Her only hesitation is that all those social sites point/link to the website. Yes, the website gets traffic, but it is not her main way of getting the word out to old and new customers.
My advice was to keep the website. In total, she spends about $1000 a year. Not insignificant, but not a huge investment even for a small business. She could cut costs by using a free hosting website and maybe find a cheaper web services person or even learn to do updates herself using something like WordPress.
My main reason for keeping a website is that even in 2023, people just assume every legitimate business has one. Are you a business if you don’t have a website?
Any thoughts?
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