Yes, today you can sell directly on social media platforms, and it can indeed be a successful business venture. It's fast. You found the right account on social media, messaged them, got a response. That's it! The deal is almost done.

With so many online marketplaces, platforms, social networks, and business idea-sharing apps at your fingertips, it's tempting to forgo having a website.

But, one day, these online marketplaces may impose unfavorable terms, which you'll have to agree to, or your social media account may get blocked. Suddenly, no one knows about you anymore. Your beautifully crafted feed and lovingly written posts remain unseen and unread.

Therefore, I want to remind you once again why a website is necessary and what advantages it brings:

Reason 1: Your website is your territory

It's crucial to remember that a social media account isn't your property; it belongs to the network itself. Think of any social media platform like a rental apartment. At any moment, you could be evicted, face a rent hike, or encounter new living conditions.

Therefore, fully relying on social media for your business is like walking on thin ice. A social network could block you, impose shadow bans, or remove your posts from subscribers' feeds for various reasons. Not to mention, the social network itself could be shut down. There are plenty of examples. When devising a promotion strategy, I always consider this question: if this network disappears, can my business stand?

Reason 2: No crazy race

Unlike social media platforms where you need to post EVERY day and keep up with endless innovations, managing a website is more conservative, and in this case, that's a plus. You need to set up your site correctly once and write good SEO texts to attract people from search engines.

Reason 3: The website generates a "warm" audience. For free

Your website works 24/7. Even one well-written article can bring you clients for years if Google consistently presents it to users, indicating its usefulness, authority, and expertise.

So, if you post useful and optimized articles on your site, using the right keywords, sooner or later, people will start coming to you from search engines. And this will be a warm audience that you get for free. Every day.

Unlike social media, where you have to fight for audience attention to get noticed in the news feed, people come to you from search engines because they themselves were looking for this information. Agree, this is a completely different situation, and selling in such a scenario is much easier and more effective.

How long does a post live on social media? Days, hours, minutes? On a website, I repeat, one good article can bring you visitors from search engines for years. Plus, here, all posts are categorized. There's something called interlinking. You can easily find the article you need and add it to the recommended list. If your posts are useful, visitors will linger on your site for a long time and navigate from one article to another. This brings several positive effects for promoting your site to the top of search results.

Reason 4: It's a Home for Your Products

With online marketplaces readily available, retail sellers might question, "Why do I need my company's website when I can sell products elsewhere?" Well, your company's website is where you can truly showcase your products. On any other site, you'll need to work hard to stand out among other companies. By using high-quality web design for selling products, you can establish a recognizable brand on your own e-commerce platform.

Reason 5: Passive Income

A website can earn you money even while you sleep or relax. Potential sources include:

- Embedded Google ads

- Affiliate links

- Guest post publications

- Banner ad placements

- Sale of informational products

Combine everything mentioned above, and you'll find that one good article can not only attract visitors from search engines daily but also generate income for you. Consistent passive income.

Reason 6: Sales Automation

It's the best start to the workday—checking your email and seeing a bunch of messages titled "Your account has been credited...". The ability to accept payments is one of the main reasons why I prioritize website development. People don't need to message me privately, in direct messages, or email me screenshots, etc. It doesn't matter where I am, whether I have internet access, or what the time difference is—you can always visit the online store, select what you need, and have it delivered to your email in just a couple of minutes.

It's a case where you can work significantly less but earn significantly more.

Reason 7: For customers, having a website is crucial

Even if you have a strong presence across all social media platforms, I'm confident that customers regularly inquire about your website. Why? Firstly, it's easier to find information on a website. Everything is concentrated and categorized, making it easier for your customers to find what they need.

Secondly, a website serves as an additional guarantee of reliability. Creating a website is more challenging than setting up a social media group. It requires significantly more time, effort, and usually, money. Your customers are well aware of this, and while it may not be a guarantee, it's substantial proof of your serious intentions.

Reason 8: Detailed analytics

You can integrate analytics systems with your website. Thanks to them, I can learn everything: where people most frequently navigate from the homepage, which sections they visit, which links they click, which banners they interact with, which articles they read to the end, and so forth. The amount of data provided by website analytics is incomparably more detailed than what I can get on social media platforms.

Reason 9: Marketing strategies

Marketing is all about experimentation. You can conduct A/B testing with different pages, use alternative call-to-action buttons in your emails, try banners and pop-ups—the list is endless.

Your website is an excellent resource for testing new marketing strategies. It can be relatively inexpensive, and it's easy to modify.

Reason 10: Infinite expansions

I can change the design and structure of my website. I can expand its capabilities infinitely. For example, create my newsletter, an online school, or even my social network.

In social media, we're entirely reliant on the decisions and tastes of developers. And their decisions don't always bring joy.

For me personally, these reasons are enough to prioritize the development of my website. I agree that a website is more complex:

• You need to understand its functionality,

• At least grasp the basics of SEO,

• It takes time before the website gains traction online and becomes friendly with search engines.

But it's all worth it.

So, a website is not just a business card or a status symbol. A website is your business partner, producer, and sales manager, which can take on the lion's share of the work associated with finding clients and selling products and services. Take your website seriously, take care of it, and the efforts invested will come back to you manifold.

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However, let's remember that without SEO, a website is like a car bought without the ignition key. It's the excellent work of SEO that breathes life into it and helps it become noticeable and essential.