In our digital world where online marketing is so important for a business' success, having your own website is a must, even if you've already built an online audience through social media. Social media pages have limitations that are out of your control while building and maintaining a website is a valuable and worthwhile project that gives you full control of your business' online presence.

Website vs. Social Media: Where Social Media Falls Short

Relying on just social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram to promote your brand has its disadvantages, such as:

• Time is often wasted on content that renders little or no engagement with your audience,
• You don't own your social media page and must abide by the platform's terms and conditions, which can change at any time,
• Social media pages demand daily monitoring since users expect quick answers to their questions,
• Social media ads are expensive,
• Engaging with your audience is time-consuming,
• Content is limited because your information is provided to you by the platform,
• Social media pages show negative reviews,
• You can't stop someone from sharing your page in a negative way,
• Social media is very competitive,
• You can't choose how you want to lay out your social media page,
• The goal of social media platforms is for businesses to upgrade to professional versions in order to gain more exposure,
• Not everyone has a social media account,
• Features like Shares and Likes don't let you know how much money you're actually making off your efforts.

Technically speaking, utilizing social media alone doesn't mean you have a digital marketing strategy in place for your business or brand. "Digital marketing" means you have taken advantage of more than one online marketing channel. A website you can personally customize to your brand is a great way to really kick off your online marketing campaign.

If you are only engaged in one [online] channel (like social media), you typically wouldn't say that you have a digital marketing campaign in place.

-Jeff Bowdoin, Social Media Strategies Summit (blog.socialmediastrategiessummit.com)

Why Your Business Needs Its Own Website

Your website should be the heart of your online presence and social media should be your marketing tool.

-nic.icu

Ideally, your social media pages should complement and funnel online traffic to your website. A website gives social media users something to reference and use to get to know you and your services better.

This is because you own your website. You have full control over its layout and content, which gives you the opportunity to show your audience exactly who you are, what your mission is, and what distinguishes you from your competitors. You can do all this under your own terms and conditions, not someone else's.

Other advantages of having your own website include:

• Customers can easily refer you to their friends
• The content is unique to your brand and your website, which can help you rank better in search results
• Informative sites get more visitors, which boosts rankings among search engines, potentially increasing sales
• Websites are easy to update
• Other sites can link to yours, which can help you rank higher in search results
• A website builds your brand's identity and establishes trust with your customers, since these days they expect a legitimate business to have a legitimate website
• You can track how many visitors you get to your site, where they come from, how many of them messaged you, how long they stayed on each page, and how they found you
• A custom email address builds credibility
• A website is always accessible to your customers, even when your brick-and-mortar competitors close for the night
• You can send your customers email updates
• You can save money by setting up an online store
• You can save time by using your website to collect consumer details
• If you provide monthly plans for your customers, they can sign up on your site by just clicking a box
• Startup can range in cost from free to expensive, and then your website can pay dividends forever

A few more reasons why your business might benefit from having its own website and domain name are:

• The ways you can present your content are endless, from promotional offers to customer reviews to blogs and videos, which adds up to better marketing that reaches more people
• A website is an excellent way to spread awareness of your brand
• Digital marketing strategies like having your own website bring your customers to you, instead of you having to find them like you would on social media platforms
• Visitors on a website are often farther along in the buying process
• If customers can get your information online, you can save on overhead costs
• Having your own website keeps you up to par with your competitors
• A Taylor Nelson Sofres survey showed more than half of those surveyed said they went to business' websites for product information
• Websites give businesses worldwide presence
• A website exposes a business to millennials, who use the internet more than any other age group
• Informational videos posted on your home page can increase sales by over 40 percent
• Blogs posted on your website can increase search engine traffic
• Websites translated into more than one language can reach a global customer base
• A website caters to current and future customers

We highly recommend to our clients that they invest in a website that they own...

-Conversion Strategies, Inc. (conversionstrategies.net)

The benefits of having your own website go even further. With a website, you can keep track of how your audience responds to your marketing. After all, staying connected with your customers and what they need from you is key to your business' success.

Also, via an FAQ page on your website, you can be part of the dialogue when your customers have something to say on online review sites like Amazon, Yelp, and Angie's List. These reviews have a significant impact on potential customers' decisions regarding what your business has to offer. Being able to control the dialogue is crucial. Again, it's all about staying connected to your audience.

People listen to what other customers have to say. Dimensional Research found that 90% of average buyers buy based on online reviews.

-Pam Haskell, Chili Pepper Design, LLC. (www.cpdesignco.com)

Furthermore, when your business has its own website, you aren't depending on a separate platform to stay in business, keep certain key features, or maintain their current terms and conditions. If your social media page comprises your entire online presence, any changes social media sites make in any of these areas could potentially result in your business closing down. The best way to safeguard against this is to create relevant, high-quality web pages that address your customers' needs.

It'd be like a clothes merchant who goes from paying for a booth at a flea market to buying her own store front. With her own store comes more control over her business and how it operates, the possibility of more people finding her store, and more freedom over what she gets to sell.

The reason a website is still valid is because you can keep your fingers on the pulse of what is happening.

-Dale Berkebile, www.success-movement.com

How Tesames Content Management Can Help You Boost Your Online Presence

TCM is here to provide an array of content management knowledge, products, and services to help you set up and maintain your website, and realize and enhance the vision you have for your brand or business. Whether you're well-established online or looking to enlarge your online presence, Tesames Content Management can help you succeed and make decisions that best meet your business needs, using whatever IT resources will work best with your situation.

If you think building or refining a website for your business is the next right move for you, TSM can provide you with custom content management systems (CMS), software that can help you manage your website's contents. This can enable you to achieve things like:

• Target a giant audience
• Optimize your web pages so they can potentially rank higher in search engine results
• Lessen your workload
• Make your site easier for visitors to access and navigate, especially on smartphones and other mobile devices
• Customize your website and restrict unauthorized access to particular section
• Update your content whenever you want
• Access your website anywhere and on any device
• Provide your website's visitors with scores of user-friendly features
• Save on operational costs, since the system does what you would hire a web developer to do
• Protect your website from security attacks
• Boost sales with SEO plugins and tools
• Make your website easier for you to work with

Even if a website doesn't sound like the next right move for you and your brand, TCM wants to help you with all your information technology needs. To learn more about how Tesames Content Management can help you achieve your goals, please visit www.tesames.com.

Learn more about the difference between a website and social media by clicking on the following links: