Do You Still Need a Website As a Solopreneur? It Depends!
Do solopreneurs still need a website?
So it’s 2024. There is barely a need to go to a “Web site“. Why?
Google displays third party content right on Google sites itself. Traffic dwindles.
Many people do not have websites. Even professionals often use third party apps instead.
It’s also quite common to see most online activity taking place on Mark Zuckerberg properties:
Not to mention the next big things popping up left and right!
So do you still need a website nowadays?
The answer is not as straightforward as in the past: it depends!
Tell me who you are…
…and I tell you what kind of online presence is best for you!
So do you need an actual website of your own or not? It depends on several factors.
I want to help you find out whether you really need one.
Yet I will also admit that you can create a thriving online presence without a website.
See below for the genuine pros and cons of having a website or not!
First you have to find out whether you are really a solopreneur.
Why? All companies still need websites! Freelancers don’t.
Solopreneurs are neither nor or both in many cases. What exactly?
To me it’s someone who truly works for themselves and offers something of value to the world.
Many freelancers e.g. are just glorified day laborers. They get hired for a day or not – often just hours or even minutes.
Many are workers who merely have a much worse status than employees.
On the other hand many people are business owners who act like a company.
At the end of the day the definitions overlap.
A solopreneur has some unique traits workers don’t have.
So how to find out whether you are a solopreneur?
A freelancer vs solopreneur comparison by Nicholas Robb
Do you offer a product or service or just sell your time?
Selling time does not suffice. Then you are still in the worker mindset of the factory from 100 years ago.
When your product or service is scalable so that you can sell more within the same time frame to earn more then you are an entrepreneur.
Are you independent from others? Or will your business crumble overnight without a circle of freelancers and others who help you?
Ultimately it depends on who you are, what you do and how your business model is meant to work.
Some experts state it very clearly that you need a website as a business owner!
“If you have a business, you should have a website to avoid losing business to competitors that already have one.”
Dharmesh Shah – Founder and CTO at HubSpot
Also social media sites do get blocked in some countries for various reasons that amount to censorship:
“Too many people from my side of the world had to face a reality where their preferred social media networks were banned.”
Ann Smarty, Co-Founder of Smarty Marketing
See the whole discussion thread on LinkedIn.
Others who are less popular convince us with stats.
“84% of today’s consumers think a website makes your business more credible than companies who only have social media profiles”
Dianna Gunn of ThemeIsle
Another woman has even more convincing numbers it seems:
“70-80% of people were researching companies online before visiting it or making a purchase, and the same percentage of customers could be lost to small businesses without a website.”
Ada Durzyńska at GetResponse
Yet the man I quote above here is biased. Why is that?
It’s not that was an early reader of my blog and someone who I wrote for back in 2007.
He sells websites or rather a content management system for business users!
Similarly the others promote tools or services that require a website.
Let me start with an example close to home: I am a blogger so I need a website or blog to show off.
I have to demonstrate my blogging skills so that other people hire me to write for them!
Yet even I could benefit from blogging for other sites more than for this by now very niche blog.
Yet a blogger without a blog (I still have at least three of them) is like a shoemaker without shoes.
For others the decision is probably more intricate and involves a little more thought.
| A website is “owned space”. Nobody can ban you or limit access to your account, audience and customers. | Yet you can also go broke and be unable to pay for webhosting etc. Social media are free in contrast! |
| Socializing and even comments can be time-consuming and frustrating though. A static website means much less effort! | Most people socialize on a few sites that are summarized as social media. You know their names. |
| You are the sole publisher on your website. Your other writers are not competing with you for attention. | On social media there is lots of other content. Social media audiences will return anyway. |
| You decide which technology you use for your website. It is your audience on your own terms. | A website can be hacked and you have to keep it updated. |
| A website can get designed in a unique way reflecting your values and preferences. It can be challenging and/or expensive to create a proper website. | Social media allow some ways to customize your profiles, pages and accounts. These are limited yet offer a framework people are used to. |
A blog with comments enabled and social media sharing is somewhere in-between.
Before you start weighing the pros and cons to finally make an informed decision read a disclaimer.
This is not a trick! Decide for yourself!
Before you decide a few words of caution!
This article is not another of the myriad posts selling you a website!
I am not trying to convince you that you need a website! Why not?
I do not make money off the affiliate commissions from hosters!
Most website building articles are pushing website hosting services.
In this post I attempt to stay unbiased and give you an honest opinion.
It’s based on my 25 years of creating and optimizing websites!
Yes, I started back in 1999! Those days were wild! I built websites coding them manually!
I can still create HTML websites from the top of my head. You needed that skill back then.
By now it’s very easy to be honest yet for some it might be still too much effort!
Especially if you follow wide spread advice to host your site yourself and use a CMS like WordPress.
I have recommended WordPress for years. Yet I’m not believing that it’s a one size fits all solution.
How chronic fatigue affected my website and blogs
Are you a solopreneur? Do you have enough time and energy?
You never know! Why? You can’t plan everything. Let me explain.
Sometimes life happens one way or the other.
Over night you can’t expend the necessary
- money
- time
- effort.
How do I know? It happened to me and my family more than once.
On an individual level I experienced lots of inexplicable health issues.
Ever since I started dealing with my healing more consistently I encountered a lot of solopreneurs.
I don’t just mean the obvious
- self-employed
- freelancers
- consultants
I met online in the SEO industry.
By solopreneurs I mean people who don’t always own a company yet also sell a product or service beyond their own lifetime.
So I also mean all kinds of
- artists
- coaches
- designers
- healers
- musicians.
In many cases they did not own a website!
At first I automatically reacted as I would have done years ago! Poor souls!
They can’t afford one or are not tech savvy enough.
During my prolonged health issues I suffered from a lot of debilitating symptoms.
Thus I saw more reasons not to have a website.
Those were including most importantly – chronic fatigue.
I realized that’s not just a matter of money and skills.
What happened? I could not update my sites and blogs.
My WordPress based blogs were simply too much work for me.
One blog of mine – luckily the least important one – got hacked and I couldn’t fix it. It was such a sophisticated hack.
Another blog of mine I had to offer for sale.
Do I just mean to complain here? No!
Do you need a website or does an online presence suffice?
What is the website alternative then? For most people the obvious choice seems to be social media.
They don’t have a website on their own yet they do have an online presence on one or many third party sites!
They post their content on other people’s sites or let them index their content by Google.
You may ask yourself a few questions before you just give up on websites and invest your energy into third party venues.
- Is this an offer I will sell for a short time (e.g. English or Yoga courses to finance traveling the world for a few months?) or for years?
The longer it takes the more you need a website. - Do I need an audience fast and am I willing to pay third parties of a platform to get it?
Many social apps let you reach somehow relevant audiences by way of ads.
Or do I want to build an actual audience for me (website)? - Is this an offer people think a lot about and want to background check upon (website!)?
Or is this an easy decision (social media)?
By 2024 many third parties also just gobble up your context – it gets rewritten by AI – and then they repost it without attribution.
- Do you still have a website for your solopreneur venture?
- Do you give away all your precious original content to third parties?
- Do you do work for free for others without even getting credit for it?
Tell me below in the comment section! I may add your insights to the post itself!
