5 Great Reasons Why You Need a Website

Wonderful World of Websites | Website Wonder Woman

First Things First

I am often asked, "Do I need a website?" So, I created this blog post: '5 Great Reasons Why You Need a Website!'

Many people will often tell you that you don't need a website. Their own experience may be that they've created a 6-figure business and all they've used is Google Docs or emails.

Do you know what, some industries don't need a website. I bet you didn't expect a website designer to say that! However, this can be particularly true for some when they are starting or when they already have a massive following. Let's face it, their raving fans will buy anything they send out, however it's sent out.

So, before I give you my 5 great reasons why you need a website, I want to turn the tables on you. Why do YOU think you need a website? Why do you want one? Or, why are you contemplating a website for your business?

Consider Your Business

This is the best place to start. What is your business? What do you want for it, need for it, and what do you think is best for it?

Never mind what other people are doing. What they are doing may be irrelevant to your business, especially if they do something completely different from you.

Local businesses with physical premises, for example, may not need a website at first. After all, they already have a bricks and mortar base for their business. A website and the online world are something they can expand into at a later date should they choose to.

Some businesses are also run via social media (such as coaching-type businesses). They gain clients, testimonials, and referrals. These provide them with a bigger audience and more interest. However, their bubble may potentially burst because they have built a business on quicksand. Unfortunately, they are building their business on a platform (like TikTok or Facebook) owned by someone else. I've seen many people actually lose their businesses because of this, due to changes in regulations, for example.

Have you considered? Do you need a website?

Here are my 5 Great Reasons Why You Need a Website:

I could go on and on about why you need a website, but I thought I'd condense it into these 5 great reasons. If they apply to you and your business, then you know your next step to take.

You need a website - A thumbs up with 5 stars above it to show credibility

1. Credibility

I don't know if it's just me, but if I Google a business and all they have is a Facebook page, then I immediately think they are a start-up business. They are not established enough yet to add a website to their portfolio.

Actually, I've added a little extra here.

I did think maybe it was just me, as I work in the website industry. But no! I am not alone. I recently read a post in a business group on social media that asked the same question, 'Do you need a website and why?' There were hundreds of answers, but almost every one of them stated credibility.

The people have spoken!

I've also had clients come to me after they moved their business online to a social media platform. More often than not, they find people no longer give them the time of day because they no longer seem credible.

Likewise, I've also spoken to people who wanted to work with someone, but, after finding out they only have a social media presence, have been wary of parting with their hard-earned cash. Why?

It is down to trust, and guess what, a credibility issue!

2. A home for your business

As I mentioned earlier, if you are a local business, then your brick-and-mortar premises will start to bring in customers. Creating a website can then give you bigger exposure and a larger audience.

But what if you are just an online business? As well as credibility, you need somewhere to call home, a 'shop front' for your business, that you can drive people to, to make sales. So all those marketing efforts you are doing, such as posting on social media, advertising, word of mouth, etc., you have a central place you can send them to that your business calls home.

Starting on social media is great, but as your business grows, you need something that you own. Do not get caught out, like some of my previous clients, when social media sites change their policies or algorithms.

3. You own it

Remember that building a business on the quicksand thing I mentioned? Or it could be called putting all your eggs in one basket. Relying on one thing, especially if it's controlled by someone else, is not the best way to build and grow your business.

I've known so many people who have lost their business, or it's suffered due to relying on one platform that's been unexpectedly taken away from them for whatever reason, mostly accounts being deleted or reported, and access withdrawn.

So, do I suggest you only have a website? Nope! But as I said, give your business a home online, then use a variety of methods to drive traffic to it. Pick two or three that work for you, but focus on the one you own and control, not one that can be taken away from you.

An alarm clock with notes and coins raining down around it for the Do you need a website blog

4. To save you time

Let's face it, time is money.

All the regular questions you get asked could be an FAQ page on your website. This is great for SEO, by the way (Search Engine Optimisation) and for AI queries too.

All those people who ask to book a call with you could be automated through your website, with pre-screening questions. Similarly, all those people who want to buy from you could, well... just buy!

Ultimately, earning more money in the least amount of time is why we run our businesses, and anything that saves us time in the long run by helping automate processes, or just by giving potential clients the ability to access information they want and need 24/7, is a huge help!

5. It's part of your overall marketing and business strategy

As I said before, you need to have a reason why you want to have a website. This will then ultimately lead to your website's mission (what you want people to do on your website).

Having a website just sitting there doing nothing is not doing anything for your business. Factoring your website into your overall marketing and business strategy gives it a job. That, in turn, will improve your business in some way.

So, for example, if you are using your website to attract a bigger audience and reach more potential clients, then you can monitor website traffic, see where people are coming from, what they view and then provide content based on the keywords that get them to your website (which you can check in Google Search Console).

Blogging and various SEO efforts can also drive traffic to your website that can be used in a measurable way (with Google Analytics), which could be part of your marketing strategy.

If you have a website, get it working for your business. Otherwise, it's like having a lazy employee who just sits on their phone all day, mindlessly scrolling through reels of funny cats and cute dogs! Useless!

What Are Your Thoughts?

Having considered my 5 great reasons why you need a website, do you feel ready to commit to one?

Yes? That's great!

There are plenty of blogs on here that will help you get started, with lots of tips and advice to help you on your way.

Alternatively, if you would like to work with me and my team, we'd be happy to discuss the vision you have for your website. We will discuss the various options we have to support you in making this vision come to life, and we can even create the whole thing for you. Just contact us via the button below for a free, no-obligation chat.

Help ChatGPT find your website a laptop with a megaphone coming out of the screen

I know that sounds ridiculous, but spend a few minutes browsing small-business websites, and you will see why it matters.

For example: A homepage might say: "Helping you achieve your goals." That's great, but what goals? Who are you helping?

A web visitor might work it out from the logo, photographs and navigation. Machines have less tolerance for ambiguity.

Compare that with: " We provide commercial cleaning services to offices, schools and healthcare businesses across South Wales."

Suddenly, there's much less to decipher. Who are you? A commercial cleaning company. What do you do? Clean commercial premises. Who for? Offices, schools, and healthcare businesses. Where? South Wales.

Clear website copy isn't unsophisticated copy. If you want to help ChatGPT find your website, clarity can be a big advantage.

3. Create Proper Pages for Your Main Services

One mistake I regularly see is businesses trying to squeeze everything they offer onto one service page. Imagine a building company offering extensions, loft conversions, kitchen renovations, and garage conversions. Giving each important service its own useful page creates far more context than mentioning all four in a short bullet list.

A strong page can explain:

what the service involves;
who it is suitable for;
common questions customers ask;
the process;
relevant experience;
examples of completed work;
geographical areas covered.

This is not only useful information for potential customers, but also useful for conventional SEO and will help ChatGPT find your website and understand exactly what your business provides.

However, a word of caution. The important word here is useful. Creating 30 near-identical pages simply to target 30 slightly different phrases isn't the answer. Websites are ultimately for people, so create pages because you have something worthwhile to tell them.

4. Answer the Questions Your Customers Really Ask

3d speech bubbles with Q & A in them for Help ChatGPT find your website blog

This is where good blog content becomes particularly valuable and can help ChatGPT find your website.

People often interact with ChatGPT and other AI bots in a conversational way. Rather than searching for something like: "loft conversion Cardiff", they might ask "Do I need planning permission for a loft conversion in Cardiff?" or "Is my house suitable for a loft conversion?". You get my drift.

Think about the questions customers ask you on the phone, in emails, during quotations, or at meetings. Those questions can become extremely useful website content. And don't limit yourself to just obvious FAQs. Some of the best content comes from the questions that require actual expertise to answer: comparisons, costs, pitfalls, misconceptions, alternatives, and situations where one option is better than another. That is where your knowledge becomes valuable. Put that into blogs, and it will help ChatGPT find your website.

5. Don't Just Say You're an Expert - Demonstrate It

Almost every business website claims some variation of: "We pride ourselves on providing a professional, high-quality service." The problem is that anybody can write it. Evidence is much more persuasive.

If you want to help ChatGPT find your website and understand why your business might be a credible source, then you need to give your website substance.

That could include detailed case studies, named authors with relevant experience, customer reviews, original photographs, accreditations, qualifications, awards, research or data you've produced, and genuinely knowledgeable articles/blogs.

A case study saying: We recently completed this project for a client in Newport", isn't particularly informative. Explain the problem. What did the customer need? What did you recommend? Why? What difficulties arose? How did you solve them? What was the outcome?

That is useful information for humans, and it gives search and AI systems considerably more context about your real-world expertise.

6. Make Your Location Clear

Naturally, this is particularly important for local businesses.

If you are an electrician serving customers across South Wales, make that clear on your website. Your address, service areas, and contact details shouldn't require detective work to find.

Your About and Contact pages can reinforce where you are based, while individual service pages can naturally explain areas you cover. However, avoid creating dozens of thin location pages where the only difference is swapping one town name for another, like "Electrician Newport", "Electrician Cardiff", and "Electrician Cwmbran."

That's not useful content. If a location genuinely warrants its own page, give the reader something specific and worthwhile.

7. Build Your Reputation Beyond Your Own Website

Your website doesn't exist in isolation.

If you claim to be a leading expert in your field but nobody else on the internet appears to know you exist, that's not a particularly convincing signal. Therefore, I want you to think about your wider digital footprint.

Are you listed accurately on relevant professional or industry websites? Have local publications mentioned your business? Do reputable websites link to you? Are there genuine customer reviews? Have you contributed expert comments or guest articles elsewhere?

You see, digital PR, quality guest blogging, and traditional link building still have a place. However, the aim shouldn't be to scatter links across hundreds of low-quality websites to help ChatGPT find your website. On the contrary, it's to build a recognisable business with a credible online presence.

8. Write Content Worth Citing

Graphic woman sat at a computer with pages of content coming out of it

This may be one of the biggest opportunities created by AI search.

If everybody writes a generic article called "10 benefits of X", then there is very little reason for any search or AI system to favour yours above the others. To help ChatGPT find your website, you need to give it something better:

Share your experience.

Explain what customers commonly get wrong.
Compare two approaches and say when you'd choose each one.
Publish original examples.
Answer awkward questions.
Discuss pricing honestly where possible.
Challenge a commonly repeated piece of industry advice if you disagree with it – and explain why.

The internet doesn't desperately need another 800-word blog saying the same thing as the previous 100 ones. What it does need are people who actually know their subject sharing information that isn't available everywhere else. Tricky, yes. Impossible, no.

9. Don't Forget Traditional SEO

As I mentioned right at the beginning of this article, trying to help ChatGPT find your website doesn't mean forgetting Google and other search engines. In fact, as I'm sure you've realised by now, many of the fundamentals overlap.

You still need a technically sound, crawlable website with logical navigation, descriptive page titles, useful headings, strong internal links and well-written pages focused on genuine customer needs. Ultimately, your content should make sense to a person first; I always stress this to my clients. There is little to be gained by contorting every single paragraph into something you imagine AI or search engines want to read.

Cater for your customer. Ensure your website clearly explains who you are, what you do, where you operate, and why you know what you're talking about. That's what they need to know, and by doing that you are already building a much stronger foundation for both traditional and AI-driven searches.

Help ChatGPT Find Your Website - But Write For People

Help ChatGPT find your website a 3d graphic of a person in front of a laptop with books and text

AI is changing how people discover information online, but that doesn't mean websites suddenly need to be written for robots. Quite the opposite. After all, humans, your potential customers, are asking ChatGPT the questions. So, if you want to help ChatGPT find your website, you must make it clear, informative, and more authoritative for the people you're trying to reach.

Follow the guidance listed above. None of it is particularly technical (save point 1); it is simply about making sure you have good website content. The difference is that today, a well-written website isn't only helping a potential customer decide whether to contact you; it may also help ChatGPT find your website and decide whether or not to list it in response to a query, ultimately driving fresh traffic your way.

If you would like help reviewing your website content, or creating quality blogs that appeal to both humans and bots, please do not hesitate to get in touch. My name is Heather, and I'm The Content Creator.

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A bit about the author

Heather founded The Content Creator nearly three years ago, combining her love of writing with a genuine passion for helping small businesses and solopreneurs get seen online. She supports her clients with everything from website copy and SEO to AI search visibility, newsletters and social media, taking the stress out of creating content that not only sounds like them, but helps their business grow.

If you need a helping hand with any of these areas, Heather is your go-to girl! We can speak from experience, too, because she works on our own website, helping us keep up with the ever-changing world of SEO and AI search and making sure our content continues to work hard for our business.

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