Do I Really Need a Website in 2024?

About the Video

The discussion emphasizes the significance of having a well-structured website for your business. In this digital age, discover how a website can help your business succeed, especially with your trademark, business credit, credibility, and overall sales. 

Prefer to read? A full transcript is provided below.

Cort: 

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Wealthy and Wise. I’m your host, Cort Christie. Today we’re going to be talking about why every new startup and every business needs to have a website, even if you’re not a customer-facing LLC or a holding company, or you’ve got it for a reason that doesn’t involve anyone ever needing to come to you, whatever that might be for wealth creation or wealth management.

But I’m going to tell you, everyone needs a website and better yet, everyone needs a custom website. A well-thought-out website for various purposes. Today we have an expert with us. This is the head of NCH Web Services. We’ve got Luke here. Luke is very important to the organization. Luke, you’ve been supporting the needs of all of our clients for years now in web services. And let’s talk about why is it that a website is so important for every business.

Luke: 

Yeah, definitely. Thank you for having me on today. I think we can kick it off with kind of the most obvious reasons why you want to have a website. And then in a little bit here, we’re going to get into two reasons that most business owners, unless you’re very savvy and I’ve done this many times, probably don’t know why it’s so important to have a website.

And we’ll get to those two reasons in a second. But the obvious ones that you started off with, right? First and foremost, you have to look professional to brand new clients and people that are looking for your services. Right. And I think one of the best representations is to have a nice new modern website. You don’t want to have a website that looks like it’s 20 years old, because if people go to your website, they’re going to equate that with maybe you have 20-year-old products and 20-year-old ways of doing things, and maybe they shouldn’t go with you. So, I think first off, it’s professionalism and having a modern and clean-looking website. 

Cort:

And I think all of us can relate to looking up someone online, whether it was a plumbing company, electrician, somebody to do our line, some new product that you were looking for, and you’ve gone to this website and you’re like, okay, this was built a long time ago.

It doesn’t function well. It doesn’t tell me anything. I can’t understand what the business does. You know, they don’t make it easy for me to make an appointment or whatever it is you’re trying to do. That has to change for every business. And I think for some business owners, it’s complicated and they think it’s going to be expensive. They don’t know who to trust to get the work done. It can be a lot, especially if you already have a client base and you are doing well in your business. But you can leverage your online presence to really help you not just grow your business. If that’s not an interest, but to manage your business. To simplify the management of your business, like appointment setting things that you would have online.

Luke:

Yeah, definitely. And some people, you know, probably half of our clients, they already have existing websites for their business. And they come to us, and they say, hey, I need some help polishing this up, making it look more modern, making it look a little bit better. And we have a couple of different options, but like you had mentioned as well, part of having a good website is having a very clear call to action and schedulers, or what is the reason someone’s going to your website.

Does it give the presence you want? And what is the end goal? Is it to schedule an appointment? Is it to book a new service? Is it to sell something directly on your website? We have options for all types of businesses, whether you actually have to sell something or whether you’re just scheduling a service. So, it’s all-encompassing the different products and services that we have.

The second option that I was talking about was you have to have a clear call to action on your website to gain new clients. Now, the third thing that we also do, and one of the most obvious things, is you have to be listed on Google with your website. So one of the things that we have as part of our website offerings is we make sure that the businesses listed on, we call it Google My Business, and that’s one of the easiest free ways to generate clients because say for instance, you have a hair salon or a barber shop if you’re in the Las Vegas area like we are, and I go on my phone and type in barber shops near me, it’ll pull up anyone within maybe a five-mile radius, and it’ll show me who’s a barber in my town. 

Now, if you’re not set up correctly, you’re not even going to pop up or be relevant. But if you do have it set up correctly with what we call a Google My Business profile, you’ll pop up and it is free traction for your organic searches, and you might get a couple of clients without paying anything additional.

And that’s something that we make sure to set up. The obvious reason to have a website is you have to look professional. You have to have an easy way to get your clients through the door with a call to action. And then you also want to start generating some organic traffic and organic clients by having things listed correctly and having the right search terms on your website to drive that traffic to you. So, we make sure at NCH that you have all those different bases covered.

Cort:

And that’s very important. You’ve got to make sure that the functionality, the way it communicates, some people think, well, I have a website, but was it built by you and your language to tell your story, or was it built for the customer who was looking for your service to understand what you’re going to do for them?

Oftentimes, I find business owners have no idea how to communicate properly to the end user, the customer that they’re working with. They like to tell them how great their company is. Then they can tell them how great their product is. But what you have to do is explain to them how it’s going to improve their life or benefit the customer, not why you’re so great.

Very big difference between building a website from you, the manufacturer, the supplier, the business that wants to talk about how great you are, then what the customer is looking for and I find it a problem all the time. Even with marketing experts, they don’t know how to communicate properly so that they really simplify the message about what the website saying you do.

I’ve been on so many websites, I have no idea what their service actually is or what they do. That is so confusing. You can’t be that business or people are just going to run from you at the end of the day. 

Luke:
Yeah, that’s a great point. And I think the content is the thing that holds most people back from having a new website or starting their website or getting it kicked off.

One of the things with our custom website packages is the fact that we have a team of content writers and like you said if you don’t have a marketing background, you might not really know what are the current trends, what resonates with clients, you know, how do you really get your message across in a concise and clear way?

So, we have a team of content writers that will actually go in there, and they’ll do your first draft of all the heavy lifting, right? Here’s how you normally lay out your introduction, your FAQs, who we are, what we do, and why we do it. And then you can go in there and polish it up with your own spice and your own lingo and your product names.

But our team will give you that head start and do 90% of the writing, 90% of the hard kind of lifting that we have, and then help you and guide you along the process of getting that content and the real message you want across. Because like you said, a lot of the time you don’t know what resonates with clients.

Our team works every single day on new websites and keeps up with those trends to understand what really drives clicks and conversions and consumers, so that we can help you to drive more clients to your finalized product, which is, you know, is it a call-to-action schedule, like I said, or is it they make a purchase on your website? Whatever your goal is for the website, we will drive that and make sure that we have it all honed in for you. 

Cort:

And I think that’s very important too, is what is the goal of the website? Again, you begin the process of thinking through what should the website have on it and how to break it up? Do I have different menus that they would go through to get to the content that I’m trying to share, the information I’m trying to share.

But if you don’t start off with what’s the goal of the website at the beginning of the process, you could really spend a whole bunch of time where somebody says, well, we need an about us section or we need a FAQ section, frequently asked questions that you oftentimes find out. But if you don’t start with what’s the goal in mind?

If the goal is lead generation, appointment setting, people to find your location to get to your retail store, all these things really matter, and then you build it with the ultimate goal in mind. And that’s not where people start this process normally. And it’s the most important part of starting the process of putting anything on a website. I think that’s huge.

Luke:

Exactly. Sometimes, you know, as I they, less is more. Maybe your business doesn’t need 20 blog articles about what you do. Maybe you just need a really simple call to action to hey, give us a call for a free consultation. Something like that, right?

Cort:

Absolutely. And I think, you know, you can get sold a lot from marketing companies that’ll tell you need a blog, you need to be updated every day, you need Facebook posts or Instagram posts. You’d be doing all this stuff, which is going to drive traffic to your website and make you more relevant, and you’re going to find that it’s like the 80/20 rule. You know, it’s like 20% of your efforts bring in 80% of the income. And so, you want to be able to identify what actually is working for you.

It’s not about what a marketing specialist said, well, you have to be on all these different platforms doing all this. It’s like, what’s working for your goal again? And then making sure you spend your money on the things that are working for you, not just broadly going out there and saying, I have to be on every platform. I have to be on all the social media sites.

I need to be posting all the time because you can spend a lot of money and trust me, we advertise a ton at NCH and so we know where to spend our money and where not to spend our money, what gets results, or what doesn’t get results. And we’re looking at it with our marketing team all the time.

And if I were a small business owner, I can’t afford to waste my resources, it’s very important. So, Luke, you also mentioned that everyone needs a website. Well, what if I’m a real estate investor and I’m just holding land with my LLC or I’m somebody that doesn’t really have an active company? but I’m not looking to necessarily bring in customers online because that’s not how my business operates. Do they need a website? 

Luke:

Yeah, that’s a great question. Something that we alluded to at the start of this video was there’s two reasons you might not realize you want a website, even if you’re not trying to drive new leads or selling products directly on your site. Right. So, the first thing is going to be business credit, lending, funding for your company.

I think every single business could use some type of funding or credit building, whatever it might be. One thing that people don’t realize is when you go to apply for loans or when you go to build business credit with Dun & Bradstreet, they’re going to want two things. The first thing is a professional business domain, right? You can’t just go and apply for loans with a business email that says [email protected].

They’re not going to like that or approve it. You need something that says, you know, [email protected], whatever your business name is, that’s one of the requirements. So first off, you have to have a professional domain link up to your website. The second thing is they’re going to ask for your website domain and your website address.

And they’re going to check your website and make sure that you have updated content, updated addresses, and updated business owner information. So, there’s a couple of things that you’re going to have to have. And it all just kind of rounds out to a nice package of you need a great website presence, a professional business domain to even think about getting business funding and loans.

So, you know, like as I said, even if you’re not directing traffic for consultations or to schedule an appointment with you, it’s still very important as a business owner to build up your business credit and to get lending services, whatever you might want by having first an established website and domain. So that’s the first reason. The second reason is going to be if you’re interested in getting a trademark.

If you want to trademark a logo or if you want to trademark an image, whatever it might be, one of the things is you have to prove that you’re using the trademark. You can’t just go in and register a trademark that you’re not actually using, because someone else can come along and say, well, this trademark hasn’t been used for ten years for anything, and I kind of like that name or I like this image, so I’m going to use it and you have to be able to prove that, no, I do use this and have been using it. The easiest way is to put that thing up on your website and then you can show, hey, this website has been established since 2010 and I have my trademark and it’s up here and traffic goes to my site and clients click on it and use it.

It’s protection and a way for you to get your registration for a trademark, to get push through. So, you know, those are the two ones that most clients wouldn’t really think about right away that, you know, hey, I need a website so that I can get loans and business credit built, as well as solidifying a trademark and making sure that my trademark isn’t taken by somebody else so I can prove that I’m the owner. And I’ve been using this trademark since day one. 

Cort:
I think that’s really important; everyone needs it. You know, let’s say you’re trying to attract investors, right? Investors want to see your website and see that you’re real. A bank needs to see that you’re real. Dun & Bradstreet needs to see that you’re real. If you need business credit, all these things matter.

When it comes down to any type of business. Even if you’re not looking for customers per se, you’re just trying to create awareness. Even a nonprofit, there are many nonprofits out there. They need websites to kind of communicate with the public their message, and what they’re trying to do. So, I think it’s the full spectrum of businesses that need to have it.

And you mentioned, you know, using a Gmail address, it’s surprising how many people I know might even have a website, but they prefer to use a Gmail address. That’s not a good idea as a professional business. And when you get a URL or a domain that says, you know, [email protected], you can also have, even if you’re a one-person business, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],  could be, [email protected], could be many things where you start to look like, hey, there’s different email addresses I use for different purposes, and that’s for tracking the different types of communications you’re having. But it also makes you look much bigger. Like, oh, they’ve got a support team. Oh, they have a technical team, or they have a help desk. All those things that just kind of give your business dimension, at the end of the day. 

When someone’s launching a business, I think, it’s so important that you have the website built before you launch your business. And no matter what industry you’re in, even if you’re a person on Fiverr, or Upwork, just a one-person company may be providing solutions, and most of your customers are coming from some other platform. I’m going to tell you right now, they’re going to look to see what you are doing online, besides the platform that you might obviously be advertising your solution on.

If you’re selling on eBay, selling on Etsy, selling on Amazon, no matter what it is, you also need a website, your own business website on top of it because people go and check you out. So, you might think, I have an Amazon store I’m selling, you know, some product that I, you know, imported from somewhere else. And you’re involved in that.

Well, I do it all the time. I’ll look at a product online. I’ll look at their store on Amazon where they have their own store set up, and then I’ll go Google that same company to see how real and legit they are. So, before I spend money on a product, I’m probably not doing that on a $10 product, but I’m going to do it on a $100, $200 product for sure to make sure that it’s something that is legitimate and that I’m going to get a good quality product. So yeah, that’s a big deal.

Luke:

Also, I’ll add, as a business owner, you love when people go directly to your website because it means you’re keeping more of the product revenue. Yes, for yourself instead of paying it to eBay or Amazon or Fiverr. So, we love it when people find you directly because it normally means you can keep a little bit more of the income that is provided through your services. Right? 

Cort:

Yes. Very, very important. And then let’s talk about the like to what extent is how somebody needs to go to build a website. Let’s talk about the extent of services that we offer for solutions because people are listening. Some might have successful businesses just want to rebuild their website and do it, you know, in a way that’s more consumer or client-friendly, or somebody listening and just talking, thinking about launching a new business. And they’re on a huge budget. What are the services that are offered? 

Luke: 

Yeah, that’s a great question. There’s kind of two different categories of website services we offer. One is a do-it-yourself version, so you can go into our platform and if you want to go check this out you can go to NCHWeb.com and you can get an idea of what some of these websites look like and you can see real examples as well as a coupon to try or do it yourself platform for 30 days. I’d recommend checking out NCHWeb.com. But like I was saying, there are two different categories. We have a do-it-yourself, template-driven, AI-driven very responsive, easy-to-use website builder. Now a year ago I would have told you, if you want to build your own website, expect to take, you know, an hour doing so, even if you’re really tech-savvy.

Now this thing’s gotten so good to the point of giving it ten minutes, give it some prompts. It’ll help you with your content. We use templates and you can get a nice, clean, modern-looking website refreshed for you in ten minutes. It’s that easy. We have a brand-new tool that we just launched about six months ago, and it’s been tremendous for our clients as well as our company in getting these websites live. So that’s kind of the first option. 

Cort:

And so, if they want, you’re saying to anybody listening you can use the do-it-yourself version. You get a 30-day free trial. You don’t get charged for that. And let’s talk about an inexpensive way of just going on and kicking the tires on building a website for yourself. 

Luke:
If you want to get in there, get your hands dirty, and build your own website. We have a great option for that. And then we also have the one that I’d recommend, which is our custom website plans. We have two plans. One’s called the deluxe website package and one’s called the E-commerce website package. These are options where our team will actually go in there and build you out a custom WordPress site.

These are not websites that are template-driven. This is you know, you can tell our web architects exactly what you want, where you want things positioned, and your layouts, I want a blog. The different the different products here for the deluxe e-commerce, the main differences deluxe would be your kind of basic website if you are a service-based business.

If you have a lawn mowing service company or if you’re a hairdresser and you just want to book appointments and generate calls, that’s really for the deluxe package. Now, if you want to take it a step further if you’re someone that’s actually selling real products on your website, you need an e-commerce platform. And so, we then build you out your platform to host pictures of your products, prices, and coupons, as well as a merchant service account that we hook up to so you can take payments on your website.

That’s a different level of website. And we do provide that. It’s a lot of handholding. Now, the best thing about both of our products is the fact that we build them on WordPress. And then we give you an hour-long training so that if you want to go in there and make little tweaks to the prices or what products say, it’s super easy and usable for our clients.

We also give you the keys to make those little edits to your website, so you don’t have to call us every time with easy changes. 

Cort:
Okay, so the custom site you’ve got some access to do some small changes yourself. Or if you’re somebody who has no idea and never wants to make changes, you can work with somebody who will make changes as long as that website’s up there.

Luke:

Yes. And we actually have 24/7 support. If you did want to say, hey, I need to change my pricing by $5, you can email us at 2 a.m. and somebody on staff will be able to log in there and make the change for you. So, it’s all, you know, hands-off if you want it to be or as hands-on as you want it to be. But yeah, it’s a good point. We do have people 24/7 that can answer, you know, any questions, if you have technical difficulties, if you want to make changes to your website, we’ll be there to make those for you. And that’s part of our ongoing monthly cost. 

Cort:
That’s fantastic. You’ve got some really great solutions here. You’ve got a very inexpensive do-it-yourself package, and then you’ve got a full custom package for anybody that wants to have somebody really get in there and build it in a way that’s consumer or client-friendly and very easy to work with. I think that’s really important. So, you’ve got the full spectrum, which is huge for us.

There are a couple of things that I just thought about too Luke that are important as people, whether using NCHWeb.com for services, working with one of our experts to build it for you, avoid a couple of things. And I’ve seen this often. Somebody works with a web service company, but the web company that builds their website owns their URL, and their domain name.

And so, if you stop paying the fee, you don’t own the website. And they can take it down, they can block it. Never, ever let anyone own your website, it’s your website. Pay service fees, that’s fine. But never allow them the ability to take you down or block your website, or you have to hire a different provider. Huge problem that I’ve seen out there where people are like, I have to keep paying them.

I’m like, how much are you paying them? They’re like, I pay them $1,000 a month. Like, what? Are you paying $1,000 a month for? It should be a lot less than that. Shouldn’t be any more than $100 a month to maintain a website. And it’s just really interesting how people get locked into things that make no sense. The second thing is, I see this all the time as well.

Small contractors use Facebook pages as their website. Facebook is great for communication. It is not where your website needs to reside. Nobody wants to have to log into Facebook to look to see what service offerings you have. You should have your own domain. It’s professional. Even if you’re a single-person landscaper, mowing lawns, somebody painting a contractor, or just doing painting work or a handyman service, so many people just don’t take the time.

And especially when you can do it so inexpensively today with a do-it-yourself website, at least you have a website online. So please, please, please, no matter what size business you are, no matter whether you think you need a website or not, get a website and you can go cheap and inexpensive. And I shouldn’t say cheap. I don’t like the word inexpensive and have a very good-looking website. Or hire us to do a high-end custom, well-thought-out website that communicates really effectively with the audience that you’re targeting. So, all this good stuff.

Luke, thank you for sharing all this information with us today about NCHWeb.com and the services that we offer. And great job on, everything that you’ve done to build this out and make it so easy for people to work in conjunction with us. So, thank you for being on the show.

Luke:

Thank you. 

Cort:

And thank you, all of you who have tuned in today to learn more about why every business needs a website. No matter what kind of business it is, don’t use Facebook pages. If you’re on Amazon, make sure you have your own independent website. If you’re just a holding company, you need a website because people might check you out.

Even if you don’t want to be recognized, there’s a way to just keep it very generic so people don’t understand exactly where you’re located, or what you’re doing. But you know what? For legitimacy purposes, have a website for any business that you have. 

Thanks for tuning in to another edition of Wealthy and Wise. I’m your host, Cort Christie, and it’s been great talking to you today.

With NCH, the state’s top business formation service, you can register your LLC in Nevada quickly and easily. Our specialists will help you choose the right entity for your company and understand why an LLC in Nevada is your best option. We’ll assist you with all necessary Nevada LLC forms, including the vital Articles of Organization, and help you comply with state regulations. In addition, we offer expert assistance with tax compliance, credit building, and payroll management. Schedule a private consultation to explore effective solutions to minimize tax liabilities and protect your wealth. Start unleashing your LLC’s full potential today with NCH.

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