Most of us now realize the importance of growing social channels if we have aspirations of entrepreneurship, (whether that’s through freelancing, coaching, part-time yoga/fitness/pilates teaching, selling products, etc.). Social media helps us find our customers. We can connect with them, build up trust and relationships, and keep them in the loop on our business happenings. But social media alone isn’t enough. If you’re ready to make your side hustle into a more serious endeavor, let’s talk about why you need a side hustle website.
1. It Boosts Credibility
Regardless of industry, the first hurdle you’ll face as an entrepreneur is building trust and credibility in your business.
Especially in saturated markets like wellness, fitness, mindfulness, travel, food, etc., your potential customers will walk (or click) away quickly if they can’t differentiate you from your competitors.
A side hustle website makes your business real for other people. It gives them a home base/address to point at. This makes your business feel as real as if it were at a physical address.
2. It Makes You Discoverable (Generally and Locally)
What is the first thing you do when you’re looking for something: a person, place, answer to a question, or service? If you’re like most, you Google it (or “whichever search engine you prefer” it). That has become our go-to method to solving any inquiry.
So when someone wants to learn something about you, guess what they do?
Your customers have questions that you can answer, and for those questions they’ll turn to Google. If you don’t have a website, you will not appear when they’re looking for you. Instead, they’ll find your competitors. It’s unfortunately that simple.
A website is what allows you to book the student looking for a “yoga class near me” into your class.
Psst: Here are some of my tips for boosting SEO to help your discoverability:
[Read on my Medium Blog: 8 Ways to Improve Your Blog SEO]
3. It Gives You Control
When you build your business on social media channels, you don’t own your audience — instead, the social media network does. I go in-depth a bit more on this topic in this article, but I’ll give you a bit of a summary.
When you can only access your audience through social media, you’re limited by the network. They control your reach, your visibility, and in a large way, your business success.
Shifts in an algorithm, adjustments to visibility, pay-for-reach schemes, etc. will leave your business vulnerable if you don’t proactively take steps to build an audience you own.
Your website, email list, blog, etc. are all content platforms that you own and control. [Read More on my Medium Blog: Why Your Marketing Should Never Depend on Social Media Alone]
4. It Centralizes Your Message and Branding
While there’s some personalization you can do to your social media channels to keep the messaging and look on-brand, you’re only able to customize as far as the social platform will let you. You’re bound to their restraints: character limits, fonts, photo shapes and sizes, etc.
Your website is yours. Your home base on the internet and you can control every aspect of how it looks, sounds, feels, and what the experience of flowing through it feels like. It’s an incredibly rewarding experience to have a website that feels just right. Something that reflects you, your personality, your business, your message, and ultimately creates your brand.
5. It is a Low-Cost Way to Boost Revenue
Now if all of these reasons weren’t enough to convince you that a website may make a lot of sense for you, then here’s the most practical reason of all:
A website boosts your revenue. Here’s how:
We already touched on the fact that without a website, you’re missing customers who are searching for you. But in addition to never being found by people who don’t know you, without a website you are also not being taken seriously by a lot of the people who do find you.
A survey conducted by Weebly indicated that 56% of consumers do not trust a business without a website, meaning that without one, your customer pool is immediately smaller.
So how can a service based business (a yoga teacher, freelancer, or mindset coach, for example) benefit from a website if you don’t have items to sell?
Let’s Explore:
- It gives your students and clients a place to find you. If you teach at three yoga studios, guest appear on different podcasts, or branch out to multiple social media platforms, your schedule/appearances may not always be clear. This means your loyal clients and students may not find you even if they want to.
If they missed your Instagram story about the podcast episode, it’s gone. But if that person looks at your side hustle website, they can experience all of it. They can find your classes at multiple studios, listen in when they want, etc. all in an organized place. This leads to fuller classes and a longer content lifespan. - It has more powerful integration opportunities. Service-based businesses are usually more people-dependent. They depend on clients booking calls, students booking classes, or people attending your webinar/zoom class. For those to continue, you need a good customer experience.
While social media channels try to create ways to integrate your offerings (through DMs and live videos, for example), they’re fairly limited and often unreliable. On your website, you can choose the tools you want to use and customize that user experience. This will help you keep them coming back.
Don’t assume everyone has time to search through your latest posts to find the information they’re looking for — you can make it easy on them with a website.
Closing Thoughts
A website makes your side hustle into a business — one that other people would recognize. This will end up boosting your sales, building a stronger community, and giving you control over your brand and messaging, ensuring you make the most of every opportunity that comes your way.
