Why do I need my own website?

One of the first questions I like to address from people I talk to is a basic one: Why do I need a website?

I don’t even mean potential clients, by the way, I mean just random friends and people I talk to.

I’m annoying like that.

“But I’m on [Etsy/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/TikTok] and I have all my people there. Why do I need a separate place for myself?

Because otherwise you don’t own your audience, you rent. And in this algorithm-driven economy, that rent can get raised/changed/foreclosed at any time. These are not necessarily nice landlords we’re talking about here. They don’t care.

You know what it’s like when some mysterious Algorithm Change messes with your stats. Your audience is going great, engagement is popping, and suddenly…. crickets! Nada. And then everyone scurries around trying to figure out why and how and what beast to sacrifice on the holy engagement alter to get back on top.

Anyone on Twitter right now is seeing in real time what happens when a social media outlet is lit on fire. However, if you really want to see something scary- have you ever tried to get customer support on a Facebook or Instagram business account? Spoiler alert, if you have not had the pleasure- everything owned by Meta (which includes both Facebook and Insta) has almost zero customer support…and that’s even for BUSINESS ACCOUNTS.

You got hacked? You got locked out? You were kicked off for no good reason? Oh well. Guess that sucks for you. Guess you have to start from scratch, again. Guess you’ll have to take the time to collect every eyeball all over.

This is not the way, my friends. People who want to reach you, who want to talk to you, want to hear from YOU deserve to be able to do so. Owning your little patch of the internet is the only way to make sure you have a fixed address.