If you’re a business owner who posts regularly on Facebook, that’s a great start. But I want to tell you why you should also get a website, and integrate the content that you post on your website with whatever is happening on your Facebook business page.
Reminders of why it’s so important to have a website and not just a Facebook page in this competitive day and age:
It’s great for your SE rank.
Google recognizes when business owners have a cohesive content strategy across all platforms and with a website.
There is space on your Google listing for your website and for your social media pages, on purpose. It’s expected that you’ll show up where the traffic is. And the truth is that it comes from all of those places.
Your website will rank better, your Google listing will feed you more search results, and your social media pages will also get you more views, clicks and follows, if you integrate these. This is key to your success in today’s competitive market.
Brand recognizability and staying power.
You probably see that your favorite brands from top companies have a presence in all of the expected spots online.
That includes top social media platforms like Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram and Twitter, and it especially includes the company’s own website. Please don’t overlook this.
Without a website, you don’t have lead capture.
What are we capturing? Email addresses… and more recently, phone numbers, if relevant.
Email marketing is still the best way to make sales even with all of the social media activity. There’s a lot you can do with people’s email addresses including direct them back to a new social media page, show them a special offer, reach out to them personally, introduce your services, send tips, and sell directly through payment gateways.
Your website should be the hub of all content publishing.
Biz owners tend to feel like the Facebook page is HQ. But what happens when Facebook goes down?
What happens when Facebook changes the algorithm?
What happens if you’re locked out of your Facebook account, or Facebook gets bought by a new company who makes huge changes that impact your views?
If you have no website, all of that traffic and following is just lost in the abyss.
Respected brands have websites.Your website serves as the wellspring from which all content bursts forth and is then shared on social media, and via email.
Google is still the king of search.
We might have beef with Google right now. We might be embracing the use of other search engines. But when people want something right now, they search.
They don’t mess around on social media. They don’t post on a group waiting for replies. They go straight to Google, which is very different than what typically happens on your Facebook page or in your FB group.
So, are you showing up there? Your company website, I mean?
Social media drives traffic from the big social media sites to your blog or website.
This is called backlinking. When you upload content directly to social media, you serve whatever social media site you are currently on. But uploading the content directly to your blog or website will serve you in terms of making your website rank higher on search engines. Please do not forget this.
Again social media sites are for sharing links to your website to help you generate more leads.
So let me outline the technique that you should be using to create and share content:
- Take pictures or make videos, and write posts.
- Publish those on a new post on your website. If you’re not in the habit of doing this, just log in. Break the seal. Start thinking of your website as the home of your business.
- Optimize the content that you just posted on your website. Make sure that you’ve used the best keywords which will bring traffic from search to your sign-up form.
- Link to your sign-up form. Place it prominently on the post, and also make a pop-up form that comes up after people read.
- Share on social. Systematically log into all of your Facebook accounts one at a time. Share links to your latest website post or page from there, with a nice lead-in and hashtags.
Integrating your websites content with your social media content:
If you have already built a following and big content collection on Facebook, then you should start using the content that’s there to create new messages and post them on your blog or website.
What I often see with small local businesses is a mismatch between a company’s social media pages and their actual website.
The two will look very different visually. The voice of the company doesn’t make it from one vehicle to the next. It’s a disconnect. Yes, your customers notice. When they visit your site, it feels empty and sad.
This appears to happen when the company decides to hire a company to make their website. The web design company does not make use of the beautiful photos and messaging that the business has already used to create their Facebook page.
These should absolutely match.
I just took a look at a local shop, with all of the content that they worked so hard to take pictures and post beautiful food photos to their Facebook page.
Then I went to their website. It’s great that they had a pro make their site. But it would be much more meaningful and personalized if the website creator took the existing content if it looks good, directly from the Facebook page, and brought that same homespun vibe to the website by sharing the carefully crafted content in that spot.
You would also create brand recognizability by doing that.
Your customers are likely emotionally connected to you. So if there are some really good heartwarming photos that you’ve published on FB, why not make that content go the extra mile and share it on your website?
This is what the web is for.
Your website, again, serves as the home base of your company communication.
The social media sites work to drive out your message farther to the masses.
Finally, to recap:
- Post on your site
- Copy the post link
- Share it on social media
- Rise higher on Google for your search words.
Consider these tips when creating your company website. And please remember: yes, it’s worth building a home for your business online.
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