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10+ Reasons HR Consultants Need A Website
As I wander through the Web seeking human resource consultants, I’ve found most HR consultants on social media sites, but I can’t find their websites. This fascinates me because social media isn’t a standalone product. Let me explain. Relying only on social media to market your human resource consultancy isn’t enough. Yes, social media reaches a lot of eyes, but it’s limited in what it can do. Take Twitter, for example. It’s impossible to explain the services your consultancy offers in 140 characters. That’s where a website comes in. Social media entices people to go and get more in-depth information about you and your consultancy. You can tweet until the peeps come home, but if you don’t have a home for them to go to, you’ve tweeted for nothing. Your website is the home you want those peeps to go to. Let’s talk about ten more reasons an HR consultant needs a website.
A website markets your consultancy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When you’re sleeping, eating or partying your website is providing potential customers with information about you and your consultancy. I, personally, can attest to midnight madness. I’m one of those people whose body clock runs from 12:00 p.m. – 1 a.m. I do my best work during these hours, and I prefer to roam the Web during the hours when most folks are sleeping.
A website gives you another source of Web exposure/visibility. The more ways you have of exposing yourself on the Web, the better your chances of being found by potential customers. Limiting your Web exposure to social media, limits your chances of being found by potential customers. It’s not that potential customers won’t find you via social media; it’s that you limit the number of potential customers that find you.
A website provides a foundation for all your Web activities. A website not only provides 24×7 Web visibility, it also provides you with a Web base for your consultancy. A website contains information about you and your consultancy. A website also contains links to your social media activities, blog posts, your email newsletter, reports/whitepapers, educational materials, etc.
People use the Web to check out a product or service before making a purchase. Personally, I go to the Web to check out the menu of a restaurant, my competitors and even apartment reviews. The last was especially helpful to me after I sold my home. A first-time renter, I didn’t know if what looked like a nice apartment was really a nice apartment. A website that included reviews of local apartment complexes told me that the apartments that looked lovely and had a lovely price tag to match were, in actuality, rodent-infested. Thanks but no thanks.
A website establishes your credibility and expertise. Your website is your platform for showcasing your human resource expertise. Whether your HR niche is compensation, training, or compliance your website is the platform from which you tell the world that you know your stuff.
Your competitors have a website. I happen to know this for a fact. Several months ago, I embarked on a series of telephone interviews with a number of independent HR consultants. Each and every one of these HR consultants had a website, and each of them knew the value of that website presence.
Your clients have a website. More often than not, this is the case. Everything from solo enterprises to McDonalds has a website.
Your potential clients use the Web to find the services you offer. If you rely only on social media to market your consultancy, a potential client may find you by typing your name into a search engine such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., but if a potential client is looking for an “independent human resource consultant,” chances are good that your name won’t come up in the organic search engine listings. Why? Because you don’t have a website. In order for a potential client looking for a HR consultant to find you, the client must know your name, which is how search engines pick up people using social media, or you must have a website that uses the keywords (HR consultant, HR consulting and a slew of others) that clients would use in looking for HR consultants. If you don’t have a website, you’re limiting your opportunities to reach potential clients.
Businesses are expected to have a website. Decades ago it was expected that a business have a listing in the yellow pages of their local telephone directory. In the 21st century, it is expected that business have a website.
A website provides you with inexpensive advertising. Where else can you advertise your consultancy, in multiple categories, 24×7, for less than 55 cents a day? That figure includes web hosting, a domain name, unlimited email addresses and a blog that you can easily update yourself. Heck, a cup of coffee will cost you more than that.
Your website can provide your clients with value-added services. You can add a “clients only” area to your website where your clients get together in a website forum or bulletin board and talk among themselves and share information. A “clients only” area can contain HR updates and other news just for your clients. What you can do with your website is limited only by your imagination and budget.
A website is environmentally friendly. No trees are felled when a website is created. It’s all bits and bytes and a small way you can get on the “green” bandwagon because every little bit and byte helps 
.
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