One of the most debatable point is: “Why do I need a website when I can just use Facebook to promote my business?” Things are rather easy when you only rely solely on social media but is it really enough?
In this article, we will elaborate more on why having a dedicated website is important when it comes to advertising & branding.
1] Complete Ownership vs. Lack of Control
The first thing that comes to mind with Facebook is: It’s just a social media platform. It does not carry your own name and your name will appear as a “sub-title”. Yes, I agree that your page will still pop-up in search engines but it sounds very unprofessional.
Social media is good as a platform to connect to your customers but it is not enough to use as a total business platform. That is why you need your own dedicated business website and domain name. Moreover, it also gives you full access of your own design and helps to promote your brand at 100%.
On the other hand, Facebook is just a third-party site. You are obliged to follow its terms of service, which will be updated or revised from time to time, your account might be also at risk of being deleted or hacked if you break the terms or being hacked by someone.
2] Design
With a dedicated website, you gain full control on the design elements such as font types, colors, layout etc. You essentially can do whatever you wish on your own website. There are no boundaries for that. If you want it blue, it’s blue and if you want black, it’s black.
That is the purpose of a website. On Facebook, it is just simply an application, you can set things like profile photo and cover photo. Other than that, everything is generic and similar to a normal Facebook user page. You can have a Facebook page and linked it to your own website instead.
You should make it as a part of your tools instead of using it as a website. You may always look for Inspiren – one of the best Malaysia based web design agency to help you on creating an outstanding website.
3] Statistics
Your website’s statistics are your secret. By setting up Google Analytics on your website, you can track the traffic of your website such as the total number of visitors, where do they come from, how much time do the visitors spend on each particular page.
You can also employ multimedia technologies such as VR, audio and video contents in your website. Of course, you can also link your other social media accounts into your website, Facebook is one of them! On Facebook, Facebook Pixel will give you the statistics that is quite similar to Google Analytics, but it is limited only to Facebook.
Once you incorporate Facebook Pixel into your website, you will get to implement re-targeting advertising strategy. One of the good example is you can deliver your Facebook ads to anyone who had visited your website in the past 180 days.
4] SEO
If you have your own website, you can optimize its ranks in search results on various search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Search engine optimization can only be done on a dedicated website and it helps to gain more exposure and visitors.
As always, you are dealing with a third-party site on Facebook. Therefore, you can’t apply a complete set of SEO technique such as Schema Markup or any advance on-page SEO customization. This brings you a lower hit rate and exposure.
5] Professionalism
If you are dealing with customers from B2B (Business to Business), or even B2C (Business to Consumer); it is a must to have your own website. For business people, they often need to refer or conduct background checks before they proceed or consider to start a business relationship.
For a company website, it doesn’t have to be fancy or span a dozen of landing pages. The most important part is professionalism and it’s a must have in the modern business world. Facebook is not a page to conduct detailed business activities.
As mentioned earlier, you can use it as a tool. You can integrate it to your website and let your customers connect to you. End of the day, you can place links for the potential customers to visit your company website.
All business matters should be dealt professionally and your company website should give all the necessary information such as products, price, contact methods and company background. You can still make use of Facebook to promote your products and share stories about your company.
Conclusion
Facebook is a social media platform, you should always have it as a tool but not as a homepage of your company. For all your business needs, get a real website that spells out your company name.
Don’t take shortcuts and setting up an official business website will help you to propel your business to the next level.
Nice Post Bro!