Does my referral-based business really need a website?

Do I really need a website for my business?

Truth: not every business needs a website. The answer to whether your business needs a website will depend on your business structure, your industry, and your long-term plans. It’s wonderful that the business owners questioning the value of a website are already doing really well and attracting lots of new clients through referrals alone!

I know there’s a huge learning curve when you establish a new business (trust me, I’ve lived it!). There’s so much outside of your core skillset to get your head around. You know you need a logo design and a business email address. But what does web design really get you?

The simple answer is that if you’re looking to build trust, prove your credibility to potential clients, and scale on your own terms, then yes, you really do need a website for your business. With the added value of reducing business risk, saving loads of time through integration of your business technology

A website builds trust and proves your credibility

A client referral already has a great level of trust in your business — you’ve been vouched for by someone they know. But not every one of those referrals is going to convert into a paying client, and many of them likely won’t be the right fit. One thing you can do to increase the likelihood of referrals going on to hire you is to have a professional website design that reinforces trust for referred clients and create credibility points just for having the digital presence prospects expect.

Differentiate your expertise

One of the most important reasons to have a website for your business is to prove you’re the real deal. There are several competitors providing the same service as yours. Having a new website that represents your brand and provides the clear information your users are looking for is one way you can differentiate yourself from the competition.

If you don’t have a website, you may lose out on professional credibility

If you initially get clients via a pre-existing network, you can use that to test and develop your ideas. However, you should be mindful that people may question your legitimacy if you don’t have a website. How often have you Googled a business to check they’re the real deal? I do it all the time, and I definitely judge a business on the quality of its web presence. A website is an opportunity to make a positive first impression and reassure clients that you’re a real business. The importance of credibility and trust will vary between industries. You may care less about the credibility of your local coffee shop (which you can check out on foot anyway) than about a legal or financial services firm that you are trusting with secure documents and private information.

Scale your business on your own terms

By leaving referrals in the hands of your clients, you often end up stuck with clients who aren’t helping your business move forward. Your website is the one part of the internet that you own and control. It’s where you can tell the story of who you are now, not just who you were when you were referred. Do these issues resonate:

Referrals are sometimes outside of the industry you want to focus on

An example of this for my business is eCommerce. I used to get loads of referrals for lovely people who wanted Shopify retail stores or complex WooCommerce setups that were a drain on my resources when I really wanted to focus completely on service professionals and consultants. Every project you take on that is outside of your preferred industry segment takes you further away from not only gaining that specialized experience for your preferred clients, but also from the repeatable systems and processes you can set up to build a more resilient business around the exact work you want to do.

Pricing hits a referral ceiling

This is a source of real difficulty for most referral-based businesses. When clients refer you, they also refer your rates, making it harder to increase your fees over time. This is a particular problem when you’ve had a client for several years, and they are referring you on at a legacy rate you’re trying to move up from. When you’ve been recommended at one rate, but your new rate is way beyond it, you’ve got an instant expectation mismatch that can be hard to recover from.

Services aren’t in the area you want to be known for

This has always been the biggest issue for referrals to my business. I offer a Fractional CMO retainer service that is an evolved (and more strategic) version of the marketing retainers I took on when I first started my business.

What I offer clients today is a service that allows brand ‘clever’ to meet marketing and technology to move business forward in a sustainable way. I got to a point where, as a design and tech professional with a couple of decades of experience under my belt, I’d hit my limit of social media scheduling, business card designs, and random bus shelter ads for corporate clients. I still get loads of referrals for ‘on-the-tools’ marketing services, but I know it’s not a good match for my business ops brain or my level of experience.

There’s a mismatch there, which means I can’t rely on those old client referrals to bring in work for the sort of high-level service that I offer today. The same is true most of the services I offer—these days I don’t just do ‘web design’, I offer a highly strategic web design service that builds not just a marketing channel, but a whole business system. I don’t just help with marketing tasks, I create growth marketing systems that make marketing more efficient and more effective, while leveraging tech and professional AI tools to give busy experts more time to focus on their clever.

Take control of your business direction

If the work you were doing 1 year ago, 3 years ago, 5 years ago matches what you do today, then this may not be an issue for your business. If your niche, pricing, or services evolve with your interests and experience, you need to control the message and attract the leads you really want, rather than relying on leads wanting what you used to be known for.

How can a website reduce risk for my business?

Avoiding failure

Many businesses that start out relying on referrals eventually hit a wall where the referral network alone isn’t bringing in enough leads to support their business goals. According to Department of Treasury data, over 30% of service-based businesses fail after 3 years of operation. Managing the finances of a small firm is a constant balance between the number of clients you can manage, the prices you can charge them, and the number of staff employed to share the workload. If any of those three levers change, one of the others needs to change in response to avoid a problem.

How COVID has changed the way your clients are searching for you

The Australian Communications and Media Authority have released some fascinating data in response to a survey they ran, looking at changed online behaviour in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Their data showed that in the 3 months from March to June 2020, 13% of people surveyed had accessed legal or financial services online for the first time, and 26% had increased online access to these services. This data is only likely to continue to trend upward as more businesses transform their operations to a digital-first strategy. That’s a huge pool of potential clients that don’t know you exist if you don’t have a website where they can find you to compare you with competitors (which they most certainly will do).

AI is changing the way people find you

While AI search is still miniscule, it is based on structured web data. If you aren’t on the web, you don’t exist in this realm. If you want to future-proof your business in the face of AI, being aware of how you can appear in an online search regardless of search channel (regular search engine like Google, or AI model) will help to build your visibility for online referrals.

Websites that convert new clients fill the void in times of drought

Clever websites help to protect against the negative impact of referral downturns, price hikes that may lose you clients, or the extra expense of a new employee. Your website has the benefit of exposing you to more leads searching for your services online, so new users can be onboarded to maintain your revenue levels or offset an increase in expenses. Without having a website running in the background, ‘magicking’ this extra source of clients is very difficult to create on the run if things go wrong.

How can having a website save me time?

Empower clients to communicate on their timescales without encroaching on your boundaries

Clients can discover a lot of the information and resources they’re searching for on your website without needing to call you. Empowering clients to find the answers they are searching for quickly and on their terms—they may want an answer at 3am when you aren’t available for a call—results in an overall better user experience for the client and less admin for you.

Optimise tools, systems, and processes

Providing info and resources is just the tip of the iceberg regarding how a clever website can save you time. Small business teams selling services online can save a ton of money, time, and stress by optimizing their business tools, systems, and processes around their website. Your systems give you an advantage over your competition and make your life easier — because work without life ain’t balanced!

If your website is the digital front door to your business, your systems are your house. I don’t just mean the technology needed to run your company, but also all the little steps that make up your processes. For example, what happens next when a new prospect lands on your website? Can they book an appointment without needing to speak to you? On booking the appointment, will they get an automatic email notification welcoming them and telling them more about you? Will they be prompted to pay without you needing to be online or on the phone? What happens after that? This is where the clever comes from in Studio Clvr — we love working out your business processes and client journeys and optimizing them.

Automate or outsource to AI tasks that would otherwise require staff—or you on evenings and weekends!

Your systems are the hub of your business: your admin assistant, your communications manager, your accounts assistant, and your sales rep all in one, but without the expense of having all of those roles on your staff. And all of these business automation systems can be synced to each other and automated through your clever website, making it easier to run your business, and a better experience for your clients.

How can a website help me grow my business?

A resource hub for brand consistency

In its simplest form, your website can help to grow your business just by being an information resource for your clients — a place where you can answer all the myriad of client questions that come your way. This also forms a great knowledge base for any staff you hire, so you can provide a consistent response to those questions you get time and again (great for the brand).

Attract clients away from your competitors

The even bigger benefit is that in answering all the questions your current clients are asking (usually through a blog), you’re also answering the questions your future clients are searching for on the internet. An important thing that a lot of new business founders don’t realize is that answering questions on your website is good for SEO (search engine optimization). If you provide quality answers to things people search for on Google, Google will be more likely to serve your site up in response to a search query than your competitor. That means more of your competitor’s potential leads are coming your way instead. Win.

Create your mojo

Websites are where marketing and business ideas are tested, processes are refined, feedback is collected and reflected, and the world can learn what you’re all about. Websites are much more than an online point of contact or glorified business card. Your website is your opportunity to shape how you are seen and understood. As the only piece of digital real estate you are likely to own, it is the sole channel to truly shape and control your business direction.

Can I start my business without a website?

You can start a business without a website. In fact, I often recommend to clients that they shouldn’t let not having a website be a barrier to getting a new business started. Starting any new business is all about getting your ideas out there and providing services to clients, experimenting with what is and isn’t working, and iterating until you are happy with where the company is going and the types of clients you’re working with.

Start small and iterate

If you have the budget, investing in custom website design early can be a key investment to validating your expertise in the eyes of potential clients looking for proof and trust. The website design and strategic direction can evolve as the business evolves, and the website will become more valuable over time through a longer history in the eyes of search engines like Google (simply existing for a longer period of time improves your search rank as it takes a while for organic search to build up).

Conclusion: to invest or not to invest in a business website?

Until you fully understand your business model and your goals, it’s wasteful to invest in any marketing that doesn’t form a foundation you can build on. You want the marketing you create in these early days to count—from logo design to custom website design or social channels you decide to use—you want every marketing piece to count to maximize ROI as your company grows.

Companies can be launched without a web presence, but people may question your legitimacy if you don’t have a way for them to check you out. An online presence has many benefits, including helping protect against negative impacts like referral downturns or price hikes that might cost you clients.

If full-on web development isn’t for you yet, creating a simple one-page website design with a home page, your logo, some company info, and contact details can be a great start to building your credibility. Add a case study or two and think about a blog down the line, and you’ll solidify your credibility and move toward a space where you are building your authority.

A clever website can help reduce administrative tasks and boost productivity by making communication more streamlined and efficient. It can also give potential clients easy access to information on what you do—and leveraging SEO lets them know that YOU are the expert in this field! In other words, a good website is one of the most important tools in your marketing arsenal to establish your new business.

Are you ready to invest in your online presence? Our Buyer’s Guide to Web Design Packages might be a good starting point.