On Monday, October 4, 2021, the interconnected world that we knew took a pause. Three major social networking platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, experienced an outage that left many confused, anxious, and stressed. While each platform has experienced momentary glitches and outages that leave users frustrated, this was one of the first times that all three major platforms were down at the same time for more than a few hours. 

Working Without a Website

The social media outage was more than just a fluster for the everyday social media user. It also created a lot of issues for business owners that rely on their social media channels to interact with their audiences. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, websites have been considered an essential business element. So it is surprising to find more than a quarter of small businesses still don’t have a website.

Businesses that solely rely on social media to engage and interact with their audiences found themselves siloed in the dark most of that Monday. This shed light on the importance of having a website for people to go to when social media becomes unavailable for any reason. Although social media serves an excellent purpose for online visibility and audience engagement, these recent events have shown us that having a website is just as critical.

Establishing Credibility

Having a polished and professional website is essential for establishing credibility with your audience and your industry. It is a great place to display your work and portfolio, clearly convey your messaging, and showcase your authority in your respective space. Unless your business or service is an absolute unicorn, similar companies are probably competing for your audience. Your website can offer a solid first impression and create legitimacy for your brand. 

Increase Leads and Organic Traffic

A website offers businesses an excellent opportunity to increase organic traffic to their business page. Without a website, you could be limiting your reach to your local area. When you have an optimized website, audiences from around the world can easily search for your business. You also have a secure destination to send leads to learn more about your business, products, or services through targeted advertisements. 

Communication 

As seen with the recent social media outage, having an open communication channel with your audience and customers is very important. Unlike social media, your website is a communication channel that you own and have more control over. This allows you to keep a line of communication open with your audience when other media go out for any reason.

Digital Marketing

Most importantly, a website is an excellent vehicle for your digital marketing strategy. You can consider your website a home base for all of your digital marketing activities. A website can help businesses gather the data and insights necessary to create compelling digital marketing strategies that reach the right audiences. 

Leverage Your Website with Laing Media 

About one-third of businesses partner with an agency for their website development and design. At Laing Media, we have worked with startups to Fortune 500 companies in creating websites that drive traffic and increase leads and revenues for business owners. Don’t let another social media outage happen before you decide to move forward with getting your website up and running.