This question came to me recently , when I was going to do an event with somebody… And we were talking about whether we needed to have a website or if we needed to have an Instagram account.
So when it came to choosing one of the other, we both had different opinions on the matter.
She was all about Instagram while I thought that a website was the way to go.
Then I realized we were having this battle because I’m in my late thirties and she’s in her late twenties.
And so that’s the generation that was more focused on Instagram, whereas our generation has been more focused on a website which made me feel super old…
When I think about that today, do we need a website?
And my answer is ABSOLUTELY, if you want to find out why, keep reading.
When it comes to business, I think that a website is still the most important piece that you need.
And if I was in brand design and website design, I would definitely be very biased. But because I’m no longer in web design, my answer is unbiased.
Now this doesn’t mean social media is not useful or not important.
Obviously I teach TikTok marketing, but before that I started on Periscope, then moved on to Facebook Live, then Instagram and so on, and this is how I have been building our business… generating lots of leads by using social media. In fact my brand has a presence on most of the platforms.
Now, when we first started out and we were trying to build an audience, we didn’t need a website because we weren’t necessarily taking anybody anywhere, it was all about making us visible and getting our message out there.
But when I started investing into coaching and consulting, I started realizing that, Oh duh, I don’t own social media… and did not have absolute control.
So at any point in time, the owner of Facebook or X company, let’s say …
Mark Zuckerberg decided to make changes and I had no control over my Facebook page, which is what happened; And, I know the same can happen on Keenya Kelly (@keenyakelly) TikTok and any other platform.
So… the only way to have any sort of control is that I have to be able to get people off of social media into a “controlled environment”, right? At least one that you can control.
The only thing that I know of, which is a controlled environment, is email or text messaging. And so when we started trying to build this audience, pulling people from Facebook Live and all that started learning about the only one of the ways to capture people from social media is giving people some sort of “lead magnet”
Which means you’re going to give them something of value in exchange for their email address.
At first I was just like, ok let’s say I come up with a great freebie then… How do you deliver that thing?
At first I was on MailChimp trying to figure out, how do I give people this thing that I put in MailChimp?
And what I later realized was that I needed a website, this way I could give people a link to go to, where they can then put in their name and their email address and we’re able to deliver the freebie to their inbox.
And so, that’s how we started realizing the importance of having a website, because if you want to be able to give people things in exchange for their email address, then you need a website.
So when you are first starting out in your business and your resources are limited, your people and all this stuff is limited. I don’t think that you have to start out with a full website.
It is a lot of work and a lot of money to have a full website developed. You can start out with the actual free thing that you are offering, right?
In the case of my brand we used to have a quiz which is called the My Brand Personality Quiz, right?
That was a one page site with a quiz on it. Nothing fancy, just a one page site with a quiz that people could take and then we were able to build our email list from there.
So… what would happen is that they were able to take that quiz by providing their email address, so then we could send them the answers. And that’s all we had for the longest time.
However, here’s the thing. If you’re going to be building an online business, you are going to have people that don’t just want your freebie, the ultimate goal is that they want to purchase your product or service, right?
You’re going to have people that want to come to your website to learn all about you, all about your business, your brand, your service offerings, what you’re about, how you can help them.
And so, eventually as you’re growing your business and as you have more resources, I think it is important to then also consider building out a website that will serve as a hub for everything that you do in your business.
Every single time I’m interviewed on a podcast or on a stage or a virtual event, they always ask my social media handles and then they ask me for my website.
And so many people go to KenyaKelly.com after being offered the “lead magnet” and then they stay there because they want to know more about me. Right?
It doesn’t mean that that website is what’s making me get the most sales, that usually a sales page is what’s causing me to make the most sales.
But my website is telling the full story, right? Who am I, where did I come from, what do I stand for? What other services do I offer? It is where I can really control the narrative and tell my story in the way that I want to tell it. Here is a great example
Back in 2020, I had reached out to Michael Stelzer of Social Media Examiner slash social media marketing world, because one of my goals was to speak at the conference and to be featured on the podcast.
And so I reached out to him. I created a real and I basically pitched him creating an Instagram reel and he didn’t respond.
He hit like in the video, but that was it…
And then a month or so later, I got an email from his assistant. I said, Hey, we know you reached out to Mike about being on a show and we would love to have a conversation with you. So I get on with the conversation…like a main conversation with Mike.
He said, Well, I just want you to know that people pitch us all the time and what we do is we go and research the person. He said, We researched you and we watched and watched and looked and looked and looked.
And you had everything that we were looking for. And I was like…
Well, what were you looking for?
His answer was simple, he said
We want to make sure you are who you say you are. We wanted to look at your website. We wanted to look at your socials. Look at you commenting to people.
Because of having everything set up in place I had been on his podcast so many times and I’ve been a speaker at Social Media Marketing World and on their YouTube channel and all the things…
So definitely, in my experience I will 100% say at some point in time, you need to get a full website built by yourself.
It needs to be clean, professional and really represent you and represent your brand.
But should you be directing people mostly to one page sales pages when you’re trying to sell a product or service? Absolutely!
I know website design is pricey, but if you go to Upwork.com , you can find a great web developer for less than 1000 USD
The talent from all around the world that you can find there is insane!
So there you have my elaborate answer on whether you need a website for your business or not.
If you are still in the phase of building an audience or are thinking of entering the TikTok world, so you can create content that will deliver tons of people to your webpage, today is your day!
I created an Intensive 4 Hour LIVE TikTok Coaching, where you and I can be face to face, or at least screen to screen discussing all the strategies you need to put in place in order to get the most out of this social media platform.
What do you say? Are you ready to take on the necessary steps to build the business you’ve been dreaming about?
If you answered yes, then sign up here and let’s get you started on the path to social media success!