251: Do You Really Need A Website? {Listener Questions}

Can your business thrive online without a dedicated website in the age of social media dominance? In this week's episode, we are diving into the listener question of the month and breaking down the pros and cons of having a website for your business.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hey there and welcome to the Girl Means Business podcast, the show where we're all about helping you feel confident both as a mom and a business owner. I'm your host, kendra Swalls, mom of two, former teacher and full-time photographer and business coach. Each week, we'll discuss the challenges, success and secrets that make you say I can do this, because you absolutely can. So pop in those earbuds, grab your favorite snack and let's dive in, because this girl means business. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Girl Means Business podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:42

It is listener question week. I love listener questions. They make me so happy. One because I love hearing from you. I feel like I sit here and talk into a microphone in my office by myself Well, in my dog, but he doesn't talk back to me, thank goodness and so it's nice to just hear back from you. So if you have not filled out the Ask Me Anything form, please, I would love to hear your questions, even if I don't respond to them here on the podcast. I will typically try to respond to them via email, so you can head down to the show notes. Fill out the Ask Me Anything form. Send me your most burning questions. It can be as broad or as specific as you want them to be, so please ask away. I would love, love, love to hear from you.

Speaker 1: 1:30

So this week we have a question. That is one that I have heard quite a bit over the last few months, I think, because we're coming off of the holidays and a new year. I know we're already into April, but January, friday, march, a lot of times are slower months for a lot of businesses, and that is when we start to focus on things like the backend of our business the systems, the processes that were in the organization, the marketing, the social media, the websites, the all the things. And what I've noticed is I've seen quite a few people in Facebook groups or, obviously, in this question for this week, and even members inside of my Focus Photographer Lab have been asking about this topic, so I'm just going to jump right into the question. So this week's question comes from Allie G. She says hey, kendra, I love listening to your podcast and would love for you to answer my question on your show. Well, congratulations, allie.

Speaker 1: 2:31

I am answering your question on my show. I am a new-ish photographer, still working a full-time job, and right now I mostly just post to my Facebook page and I'm going to start an Instagram page as well, since most people use social media as a way to find businesses, is it really necessary to create a website as well? I know that most photographers have them, but I'm curious if it's something I need right away and, if so, what do you recommend for someone with a limited budget? Thank you Well, allie. Thank you so much for your question. I love this question. So, again, this is something I have seen a lot of people asking about. Again, I think it's because we're in that time of the year, or we have been in that time of the year, where people are starting to work on things like this. So a few months ago, I had a web designer, my web designer Melanie, come on the show and she talked about websites and you know what to have on your website. But I did ask her this question of our web websites still relevant. And yes, they absolutely are still relevant.

Speaker 1: 3:36

I know that social media is the thing people kind of gravitate towards first, especially if you are starting off with a new business, which Allie says she's new you know, newish photographer. So I take that to mean that she's been doing photography for a little while, but she's just kind of launching her business and it's easy to go. Well, I'm going to go with social media because one it's free. I can create a Facebook page. I can create an Instagram account. I can, you know, name it under my business name. I can, you know, put all the information in the bio or, you know, on the post, and it's easy. And then you just create content, you put content, content up there and, yes, social media is becoming a search engine that people are using. You know, there are times when I well, perfect example, I was looking for a web designer and I did. I went on to Instagram and I searched for web designers and specifically for, you know, coaches and things like that, and that's how I found Melanie. So, yes, social media is a great way to create a place that someone can go and search for what they're looking for and find you, hopefully.

Speaker 1: 4:54

But here's where the disconnect and the breakdown comes in between social media and having a website or social media and a Google search. So, if you have someone who is searching on social media and, let's say, they go on to Instagram and they search for a photographer in Allie's town and her Instagram page pops up and they're like, oh cool, I'm going to check out Allie's Instagram page and she's got all these great photos on her feed. They can scroll through kind of get a feel for what her photography style is, what type of photos that she does. She has her bio information filled out with where she's located, her types of sessions, all those things. Here is where they are going to want something more. So if I am searching Allie's page, I'm like, yeah, I love her work. I, you know, I like that. She's in my area, she's close by, she specializes in what I'm wanting done family photos. What do I do now? The likelihood that someone is going to reach out to you via DM without having more information about your prices, or if you're even still in business, because I don't know, this could have been put up five years ago and you haven't touched it since. They are going to want more information and that is where a website comes in, because your website is the more information that they're looking for.

Speaker 1: 6:22

So let me give you an example. Imagine that you own a bakery like a storefront bakery in your town and you go out to all of these local events and you're helping to cater a business event and you've got your cupcakes or your cookies or your desserts. Or last night I went to a banquet for my husband's work and they had a um, someone else like someone had sponsored the dinner and then someone had sponsored the desserts. And they had these beautiful desserts and underneath them they had like a little card from the company that does that made the desserts, and they were local to like the Dallas area, and you could take the card and had like a little little coupon thing on it or a discount code, and so I could take that and go into the bakery and get a discount on purchasing a dessert from them or an item from them.

Speaker 1: 7:13

If you're out doing all those things, that's what social media is. You're out there drawing the people in. But if I had gone to that banquet and I picked up that dessert and been like, oh, this is amazing, this is a great dessert. Oh, this is the company that made it, I have nowhere to go to learn more or get more information or buy something else from them, because I don't have an actual store to go into. So your website is that store. It is that place that people are being directed to.

Speaker 1: 7:44

So if you're relying on Facebook or you're relying on Instagram and you're telling people send me a message. If you want to learn more, send me a message. If you want to book a session, send me a message. For whatever purpose, people are hesitant to send that message unless they have enough information that they feel completely confident that they're ready to reach out to you. I think about this all the time and it's something we talk about in marketing a lot, which is people you know they need to kind of have these touch points with your business.

Speaker 1: 8:19

And here's another example. So there is a program that I'm considering purchasing and diving off a course that I want to get into, and I've been following this person on Instagram for a while. I have been to her website probably no less than 25 times to read through the content, to really get a feel for, like, if I invest in this, am I going to get what I need out of it. It took me almost three months of really like taking in her information and watching her on social media and going back to the website and reading through testimonials and doing all these things, doing my research before I was ready to make a decision about whether or not to invest in that program.

Speaker 1: 9:06

And when you have a business, there are people who are doing that with your business. They are watching, they are soaking up information, they are making a decision behind the scenes of is this really the investment, the product, the service, the person I want to go with? And so if you don't have a place for them to go and find more information, then it makes the decision a little bit harder, because it's almost like you're cutting them off. You're saying like I only am going to give you this little piece of thing, which is what I put on social media and that's it. So good luck. You have to figure out the rest on your own, whereas, or you have to send me a message, and that's scary for people, or you can say I have this website for you to go to.

Speaker 1: 9:51

It has more information about the services that I offer. It has client testimonials, it has all of my pricing, or at least a starting price. It has information about who I am as the business owner, or information about the business as a whole, like what's our? You know what are, what's our philosophy, what do we stand for? Why are we doing what we do?

Speaker 1: 10:12

If you're the, you know, allie is the photographer. I want to know about Allie. I want to know more about who she is and do I connect with her as a person? Because photography is kind of a intimate thing. You're up close with someone with a camera in your face. You need to know that, you click with that person, and so that's all information that, yeah, you could put into an Instagram post or you could put into a Facebook post. But then you're making your clients do the work of going and searching through all of your old content to piece together the pieces of information that they need. So I can go on to Facebook or I can go on to Instagram and I can create posts that talk about this type of session that I do and this type of session that I do, and then another post that's about how much you know my pricing is, or another post it's about me, or another post that is about the booking process.

Speaker 1: 11:01

But unless someone is willing to go and piece together all of that information like a puzzle from your social media account, that's too much work and I I say this all the time If you ask your potential clients to jump through too many hoops, after one hoop they're through too many hoops. After one hoop, they're out. Maybe two hoops, but usually the first hoop, they're out. If it's too difficult or it requires too much work on their part, they're going to bail out super fast. So we want to make it as simple as possible, as easy as possible for your potential clients to get the information they need and decide if you're the person they want to work with or they want to buy from, and I wholeheartedly believe that websites are the best way to do that.

Speaker 1: 11:49

The other thing that websites do is they legitimize your business, and I know this is it's a mental thing, because I know there are companies that are, you know, spam companies and fake companies. Anybody can make a website these days. That doesn't mean that you are, you know, practicing good business strategies or that you are technically a business or that you are legally a business, but it does, to some degree, legitimize your business. To some degree legitimize your business. If I were looking for a dentist for my kids and I went on Instagram and I searched and I found a local pediatric dentist and I went to go find a website and they didn't have a website, I probably wouldn't book with that dentist. Same thing with, like a restaurant If I'm looking for a restaurant for, you know, a birthday dinner for my husband or a friend and I find them on Instagram or Facebook, and then I they don't have a website where I can go and see like a sample of their menu or information about if they have party rooms available. I'm probably not going to go eat dinner there. So there's just something psychologically about having a website that kind of legitimizes you in the eyes of your audience. And then the third thing with websites so not only does it make it easy for your audience to find all the information they need from you, it legitimizes your business and it also makes it easier for people to find you if they are not using social media as a search engine as much as there are people using social media search engines.

Speaker 1: 13:29

A very large portion of society is still going to Google to find what they're looking for, and the best way to show up on a Google search is to have a website with keyword content. So if, allie, you have your photography business, we'll just say it's Allie G Photography and you're located in Memphis, tennessee, and so if somebody goes on to Google and they search for a family photographer in Memphis Tennessee, and so if somebody goes on to Google and they search for a family photographer in Memphis, tennessee, the likelihood of your Instagram content or your Facebook content showing up above all the other photographers in your area who have websites and who are SEO optimized is pretty unlikely. Like you're, you might still show up if you are super active on social media and you have lots of keywords out there and lots of content for Google to grab onto. But you're more likely to get found in a Google search if you are using and optimizing a website and content on your website. So those are the three main reasons that I wholeheartedly believe that every business needs to have a website.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Now to get into Allie's second question, which is um, what do you recommend for someone with a limited budget? Okay, so I've had this question come up a couple of times within the members of my Focus Photographer Lab membership and what happens when you sign up for the membership. One of the first one-on-one calls that we have together is me going over your online presence. So I look at your social media, I look at your website Do you have a blog? All of those things Because I want to know kind of, where are we starting at, what do we have available to us and how can we improve it so that you're getting found more easily by your ideal client. And one of the things I usually ask them is what platform is your website on? Because I know that there are some free options out there which are not terrible, and then there are paid options, and both have some pros and cons, obviously. So let's go through those.

Speaker 1: 16:58

Okay, let's start with the free versions. So there are free website designers out there you can use. The most popular one is going to be Wix, w-i-x, and they have a free plan. They also have paid plans. And then I do know there are some people who will build a website on Canva. I don't recommend that just because it's I don't know. Visually it can be really nice, but it doesn't have a lot of the features you're going to want in order to really optimize your website to make sure it's showing up in a Google search. I feel like with a Canva website, you're just kind of creating like a static page, almost like a Canva document that just lives on their site and you're directing people to it. So I would say, as far as the Canva option, I would not recommend that one.

Speaker 1: 17:49

Now, wix is a great I'll say good free option, although when it's on the free plan. There are some limitations. So some of those limitations include things like you cannot have people actually make payments to you through Wix. Now, if you have a client management system or you're using a different system for payments, that might be fine. It can have slow loading times. You're not able to add third-party apps or plugins, so if you are an e-commerce site, this doesn't really work for you and it just kind of doesn't have a lot of the features that are going to be beneficial to helping you really grow your business. But the nice thing about you know, starting with Wix is that if you start with the free plan, you can always upgrade and pay for them later. They do have some beautiful templates that you can customize. They are fairly easy to use as far as like drag and drop things in or just kind of take their template and plug in your own stuff. So that's a pro. I would say.

Speaker 1: 18:59

The biggest con is your ability to manipulate the backend of the site as much as you can with some of the paid options, and the reason why that is important is because the purpose, or one of the main purposes of having your website is to get found online, and the more control you have of those pieces that allow you to get found, that push you to the top of a Google search, the more likely you are to end up there. The less control you have of that aka on like a free Wix plan, the less likely you are to get shown on a Google search. So if you're listening to this Allie specifically, and anybody else and you're thinking I really just need something that's like a home base for people for me to direct people to off of social media and you have a lot of social media traffic coming in, then a free Wix website will work for you for now. If you're like I'm not getting clients anywhere, my social media is very slow to grow, I need people to find me then you might want to go with a paid option because you have more control. So let's talk about some of the pros and cons of a paid platform.

Speaker 1: 20:17

Now there are probably what I would say four sort of top tier paid platforms based on sort of what you are looking for. One of the things I would say is because there's a lot of you listening that do different things. Some of you need e-commerce, some of you are more um, you know artists or photographers and you just need, you know, like a basic website for a service, I would go onto Google and search for website platform for, and then your industry. So website platform for photographers, website platform for a nonprofit website, platform for an e-commerce shop, um, and then it will kind of give you some of the main ones. But we're going to go through the four that I know are really popular for e-commerce. I think Shopify we all have heard the commercials, we've seen the commercials, we've you know all the things. Shopify is probably top for e-commerce If you're selling physical products, the other ones, the other three for more service-based, or if you have e-commerce as well.

Speaker 1: 21:16

Squarespace I know Squarespace, um, I hear it advertised on a lot of podcasts I listened to. That's a really popular one. If you type in website platform for anything, squarespace is probably going to be one of the top ones that comes up. Um, I have not used Squarespace myself, but I have friends who use it for their websites and they swear by it. They say it's awesome. So that's a good one, um, another one is Pixie set. So Pixie set is going to be, um, probably more for like photographers and service-based business owners, because I do believe it also incorporates a little bit of like a client management system on the backend. So that's a good option. And then the one that I use and I switched over to it from another platform and I can't remember who I was on before is ShowIt. So both my websites my photography and my coaching business, my podcast website are all on ShowIt.

Speaker 1: 22:13

Now the pros and cons. So pro is you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to creating the website that you want. So with your free options, you're going to have more like. Here's a template, just kind of plug in your information to the design that we've already created for you, whereas with the paid platforms, you have more creative control to design a website, either from a template that you modify or completely from scratch. And so, even within the templates they give you, you have flexibility to move things around and to kind of customize them or combine pages from one template and another template together. Or, you know, you have a little more creative control in that area, which is really nice, especially if you have a very visual brand or a very visual business where you want it to look a certain way, or you have a vision for your brand and you want it to look a certain way, you also have more control, like I said before, over the backend.

Speaker 1: 23:18

So the backend meaning things, like you know, the SEO features, if you want to add in plugins. So an example of a plugin one is for Pinterest, if you want your images to be pinnable. So, like you go to a blog, sometimes you kind of hover your mouse over an image, then you will see like the little Pinterest symbol pop up and you can click on it and it will automatically pin it to like your Pinterest board. If you want people to be able to do that, then you need to have the ability to add those plugins, which plugins are basically like little apps that you add to your website. On the backend, you can also control things like title pages and descriptions, alt text on photos, which helps those images show up in a Google search. Little things like title pages and descriptions, alt text on photos, which helps those images show up in a Google search, little things like that that make a pretty decent difference when it comes to the searchability of your website.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Now, the cons of a paid subscription obviously is one of them is the price they are fairly reasonable of them. Is the price they are fairly reasonable, like, I would say, average. You're looking at $20 to $40 a month, depending on the platform you choose and the level of the platform you choose. Then you also have the price of. A lot of them will offer free templates, which are great. Showit has several great free templates but then if you want a really custom or you want someone to design it for you, or you want to go buy a template, it's going to cost you a lot more, sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars for a template.

Speaker 1: 24:59

I know that one of the template shops I follow is Tonic T-O-N-I-C and they have gorgeous, gorgeous website templates like the kind that I'm like oh, I want this for my website, but they're pricey. I mean, you're looking at, you know, $1,000 for a template sometimes, or hundreds of dollars for a template. So that is the price tag obviously is a little bit of a downside. What I suggest in that case, if you're like, oh, I really I want to strive to one day have this like super high end template web design that is like stunning for people to come to or super intuitive or all these things, then sometimes it can be good to start on a paid platform like show it, sign up for their lowest tier and then you can easily go in and change out your template later on or add things into your platform of choice as you grow and as you start bringing more money into your business. Another con of paid platforms is that when you pay for these platforms that have more capabilities, that have more creative control, sometimes they can be a little bit more difficult to navigate and use, because when you're going with a free platform like Wix and everything's kind of done for you and all you have to do is plug in the pictures and the text and the buttons you want and the contact information you want and you're done, there's not a lot of you know work that has to be done in order to make sure that you're getting what you want the way you want it. If you're using a more robust platform, it can have a lot of behind the scenes controls or behind the scenes aspects that require you to have a little bit more knowledge of how the website works, a little more practice, a little more time to invest in like getting things to work the way you want them to work.

Speaker 1: 27:01

When I moved my websites over to show it, there was quite a learning curve and I don't know why I cannot remember what my previous platform was. I want to say I had WordPress with some kind of like theme page. I don't remember, but all I know is that when I went over to show it, I was so happy to move. It was easy to use. However, there was a learning curve of figuring out like, okay, if I wanted this graphic to do this thing, how do I get it to do that? Well then I had to go on to like YouTube and blogs and figure it all out or go into like the show at user Facebook group and ask people there. So there was a little bit more work that had to be done because I was having more control over all these aspects of it. It meant I had to know how to do all those things. So that is kind of a downside. If you're someone who's like I'm not super tech savvy, I have no interest in learning how to do those things. I just want to have a website that is up with my information and that's all I need.

Speaker 1: 27:59

Now, the other thing that I don't want to get into too much in this episode because I have whole other episodes on this topic is blogging. I believe that blogging is a huge part of getting found in a Google search. That's a whole other conversation for SEO and blogging. But I will say that if you are really, really interested in getting your business found by more people on the internet, on Google searches, you're going to want to add in a blog component. So when you are looking at your options whether it's a free option or a paid option you want to also consider the blog aspect. Of like, can I add a blog to my website? It doesn't mean you have to do it right away, but you need that capability so that as your business grows, as your website grows, as your needs grow, you can add those extra things on.

Speaker 1: 28:54

So, allie, I hope that that was a answer to your question that you can take and run with. I tend to just like fire hose information at people. I realize that it's the teacher in me. I want you to know all the things, I want to give you all the things and all the information. So I feel like I kind of did that in this episode, when the simple answer to your question was, yes, you do need a website for your business and yes, there are free options, but there's also paid options. So that is the simple answer. I'm sorry if you had to get all the way to the end of this episode to get that simple answer, but I do think that the other things I talked about the in-depth is really helpful to understand why you need a website and why these platforms have pros and cons to them.

Speaker 1: 29:39

So, allie, thank you again for writing in with your question For anyone else listening. Like I said at the beginning of this episode, I love getting your listener questions, so please, please, please, head down to the show notes, click on the ask me anything button, fill out that form, send me your questions. You never know. Yours could be the next one here on the podcast, or I might even answer some of them over on Instagram and my stories. So make sure you're following me over at girl means business on Instagram as well. All right, guys, thank you so much for being here. Have a wonderful week and I will see you next week back here. Same time, same place. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to take a screenshot, share it to social media and don't forget to tag girl means business and, as always, we greatly appreciate any reviews you leave for this podcast. Thank you so much for being here and we'll see you next week.