![](https://www.practicalfrugality.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/6-reasons-why-your-small-business-needs-a-professional-website.jpg)
The title for the blog post should read 6 reasons why your business needs a professional website to succeed, but it was a bit of a mouthful to write!
When I started my first business back in 2011, having a website was a bit of a novelty, and not everyone thought it was necessary to have one! Imagine that!
Fast forward to 2019 and building a website is now the top priority of every new startup. A website is like a shopping window to any business which doesn’t have an actual shop – a virtual space where your customers find you, learn more about you and hopefully make a purchase. But no websites are equal! There is a big difference in having a free ‘made with …’ website and a website carefully put together by a professional design team.
So, today I wanted to focus on 6 solid reasons why I think your business needs a professionally designed website.
1 Brand Image
Unless your business has an actual shop front, your website will be representing your business and your brand 24/7. If you have a website that’s not professionally made, you might end up putting people off before they get the chance to know you and your business. If there is a mismatch between your business brand and your website image, your potential customers might be confused about your message. For example, a luxury candle maker business needs to be represented by an equally highly polished website design with amazing photos like in the example below.
![](https://www.practicalfrugality.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Silky-Ocean-Studios-Website-Example-of-Shop.jpg)
2 Customer’s Trust
Research indicates that any potential customer needs around seven contacts with your business before they actually buy from you. This could be through your social media, personal recommendation, or meeting you in person. Your website helps to build (or not!) that customer’s trust. If your website has outdated information, last decade website design, is not mobile-friendly or doesn’t even have About Page, how are people going to trust the website (and you) and make that all-important purchase?
3 Sales Conversions
Your business website can have many roles. It could be a gallery of your work, personal blog or your online shop. Ultimately, a business website has only one function – to work as a constant referral of potential business, sales and inquiries. But to make a website into this indispensable business asset takes time, expertise and the right kind of technology. The purpose of your business should be immediately obvious, like in the next example for Wedding Photo Swap website.
![](https://www.practicalfrugality.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Wedding-Photo-Swap-Website-Example.jpg)
4 Save money
When you are starting your business, you have essentially two options. You either learn how to make your own website, or you leave it to the professionals. In my experience, unless you are very technically minded and have a lot of time on your hands, I would always recommend to work with a web design company, like Silky Ocean Studios. They will take care of everything and guide you through the website making process, while you focus on running your business. A good website company can save you months of work that you would have to take from working on your own business and learning how to put a website together, including all the technical set up.
5 Payment Processing & Other technical functionality
A professionally designed website will not only save you money in a long run, but it’s also less likely to lose you any! If you need an online shop, then your website set up needs to be even more efficient to make sure that everything is tested and works as it should. I’ve heard many times how people thought they set up their online shop correctly, only to find out few weeks later that the real reason why they were not getting any sales, wasn’t because they had a bad product, too high price or they were not good at marketing their website, but because they simply didn’t link their shop correctly with their payment platform!
![](https://www.practicalfrugality.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Silky-Ocean-Studios-Website-Example-of-Product.jpg)
6 Search Engine Optimisation & Website Security
Not a lot of people mention SEO and technical set up of your website as a reason for working with a professional web design company, but I think it’s crucial. The ‘front end’ of your website (design, images, content etc.) is, of course, important, but well designed ‘back end’ set up is absolutely essential. A good website company will take care of the stuff you don’t even know existed before you thought of having a website, such as daily back ups, securing your website against hackers and spammers, making sure that your website is visible to the search engines and is easily crawled by the search bots. Confused already? I’m sure you are!
So, to sum up, your business deserves a well-designed website for so many good reasons (and not just the 6 I’ve just mentioned). Deciding whether to build the website yourself or share the workload with a professional website company is up to you. Still, either way make sure that the result reflects your brand and helps you to make your business a real success.
![](https://www.practicalfrugality.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Untitled-2.jpg)
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