Today we are going to talk about funnels vs website. People often asked me, “Which one should I get? A funnel or a website?” I tell them both.
First of all, what is a funnel?
A funnel is basically a landing page. It is a one page website where someone comes in and the primary goal for them is to perform the action that we want them to perform. Let me give you an example…
Let’s say you’re selling French breads. You run your ads, you attract attention, and someone comes to your landing page/funnel. So somehow, you are selling French bread and, somehow, this visitor finds your French bread and your goal is to get them to buy your bread. You don’t want to overload them with all of the different types of breads. You want them to come, make an easy decision, and convert into a purchase.
And then there is upsell and down sell. With French bread, you probably want to eat it along with something else like butter or cheese. So after a customer purchases your bread you would then say “Hey, would you like some cheese to go with your bread? Here are all of our cheese kinds.” You’re offering a different product and now are increasing your cart value.
Furthermore, you realize that this customer already bought one loaf of bread. Maybe you can give them a discount if they buy three loaves of bread. Upsell it again. Do exactly what McDonald does. You purchase a hamburger and they roll out all of their questions: “Would you like French fries with that?”, “How about a coke?”, “If you supersize, it’s only an extra 75 cents.” This is how McDonalds makes billions. So that, in a nutshell, as a very basic is a funnel.
The problem with funnels is that you have to constantly drive traffic.
If you only have a landing page/funnel, chances are you are always running paid ad campaigns or you’re doing something where you’re sending people the link and asking people to come to that link. But you’re getting lucky. You’re not getting customers organically. Remember, most of the time, if you have a funnel, you are driving paid ads traffic. That is, you get visitors through paid ads which gets expensive.
If you only have a funnel, you will not appear in a google search.
What if you have a customer who has not seen your ad and so does not have a link to your funnel. They want to research you so google “Best French Bread in Town”. Most likely, they will never find you because you don’t have a website.
Now, I’m not saying that, because you have a funnel, you cannot get your page indexed or ranked higher on search engines. You absolutely can. But if you have a website, then the chances of you being able to get indexed and ranked higher organically on search pages is a lot better than a standalone funnel page. On our website, you have a lot of different things. You have tons of keywords, you have multiple pages, you have links. On your funnel, it’s bare bones. You only have your logo, customer testimonials, features, and pricing. There is no meat for google to grab and search for.
Compliment your funnel with a website.
While funnels are great to start off and quickly, getting quick and easy customers/converts is not always easy with a funnel. So, you should also complement that with a website. The website is basically building a brand, a storefront building, and a presence on the web. Building blogs and sharing what’s special about you attracts customers and organically converts visitors into converts.
I know that having both means more work…
But trust me, guys, if websites were dead, all these companies would not have a website, right? A website gives credibility and security to the customer. Would you really make an online purchase if you knew nothing about the company, their privacy standard, or their shipping policy? How many of your customers are currently trying to search for you, but they can’t find you because you have no website.
If you’re still thinking that organic traffic is not that important, hear this.
Two years ago when I was at Google’s office, they told me that there are about 6 billion searches per day. That is 6 billion searches in 24 hours. And I’m sure that number has increased in the last few years. You are only missing out if you’re just focusing on funnels. Obviously, if you’re starting up, that’s the only one place you should start but you should quickly add a website to your footprint because, if you don’t, you’re missing out.
