The prospect of a new site can be exciting, but it’s important to keep your expectations grounded in reality.
Whether you have an old website that needs updating or this is your first foray into the online world, creating and launching a new site is a great opportunity for your business. In fact, it can actually do more than you thought. However, it’s also important to ground your expectations in reality—launching a new site isn’t a magic recipe for turning your business around. It often relies on a number of other strategies to increase the visibility and reach of your business.
A new website can:
- Improve the image of your brand. This is possibly the most important function of a website—making your brand seem stronger, more authoritative, and approachable. A site can do this, as long as it’s designed and implemented properly.
- Increase your rank in search engines. As long as you adhere to best practices and launch with the right titles and meta data, you can improve your ranks with a new site.
- Do more to answer common customer questions. Your navigation and page layouts can help answer common customer questions and concerns.
- Increase onsite conversions. Whether you have an e-commerce platform or you’re a service-based B2B company, a new website can increase your conversion rate and net you more revenue.
A new website can’t:
- Stay up-to-date automatically. You have to take the initiative to update it with new information and posts.
- Drive new business on its own. Sites don’t automatically draw in traffic. You need content, SEO, social media, advertising, and other methods to lure people in.
- Speak to your customers directly. Most people won’t come to your site for news and updates—instead, they’ll rely on social media and other offsite channels.
- Make your business more profitable. If your business is in bad shape, you’ll need to make infrastructural corrections before a website can help you.
Take these truths into consideration when you decide whether a new site is right for your business. Most of the time, a new site will serve as a gateway to better visibility, a better reputation, and tons of new business—but only if it’s properly supported by your other marketing efforts.
