ClickFunnels vs. Websites: Which is Better?

ClickFunnels is a software tool used to generate and convert online leads through its use of sales funnels. A traditional website serves as a company’s online location that tells customers what you do, what you sell, and creates brand awareness. ClickFunnels and websites are both online platforms that share many similarities, but which one is better for businesses?

If businesses seek a targeted way to generate and convert leads to sales, ClickFunnels may be the better online tool to use. However, if companies are looking for a platform to bring general awareness and credibility to the business, a website may be the better choice.

Ultimately, deciding whether ClickFunnels or a website is best for your business starts with understanding how each one works and what their platform can accomplish. It is also worth considering what your own goals are as a business and how either ClickFunnels or a website can help you achieve them.

What is ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels is a software program that allows you to create various funnels embedded within a non-traditional website. Through their software package, you can easily design templated webpages and forms around your sales funnels.

ClickFunnels does not feature a traditional website that requires a domain name, design work, or hosting. The primary goal is to guide prospective customers through a sales funnel.

What Are Funnels?

A funnel is a path designed to take customers through product or service recognition to become paying customers. It ends with the customer becoming an advocate for the product or service. The customer goes through a series of sequential steps that lead to action; this may be a customer who signs up for a webinar, buys a product, or fills out an application.

A funnel provides a simple way to engage a customer. Its targeted approach allows the customer to focus on one thing instead of being distracted by the multiple pages and options you find on a traditional website. Funnels are designed to target a specific customer and get a particular result.

ClickFunnels uses templates to create funnels; this makes it easy to add in or switch around the steps you want a customer to take throughout the process.

How Are Funnels Designed?

A funnel focuses on a specific customer persona and the desired outcome. For it to be effective, it is essential to identify the type of customer that will go into the funnel and how their journey should end.

The key concepts addressed when designing a sales funnel include:

• Awareness – This starts with discussing a problem or a concern that a potential customer may be trying to overcome.  It may even represent an issue that the user may not have been aware of. 
• Consideration – This stage allows the user to research what options are available to address their concern. A funnel reveals to a customer why your company’s specific product, service, or action can address their need. 
• Conversion – In this stage of the funnel, the user becomes a customer. They may buy whatever product or service you are selling. Conversion may also mean that they sign up for an offer or complete a task, such as filling out an application or inquiry form.  
  • Special attention should be placed here to make the conversion process easy and user-friendly. A conversion process that is cumbersome or confusing may frustrate customers and force them to look elsewhere. 
• Loyalty – Funnels can help to retain converted customers. By engaging them after their purchase through such promotions, surveys, or emails, customers may be willing to share their experiences with others. When customers view their interaction favorably, they may tell their friends or leave positive reviews. By building loyalty, they may become repeat customers.

(Source: Parisa Consulting)

With ClickFunnels, you can design each customer experience from awareness to loyalty. Since the sales process may be different based on the type of customer you are trying to reach, ClickFunnels is easily tailored for each journey.

Why Do You Need a ClickFunnels Strategy?

A funnel is a targeted approach to engage a customer and convince them to act. It would help to have a sound strategy to minimize distraction and direct customers through your funnel.

An effective strategy involves selecting the right steps for the customers to walk through during the process. When designing this process, it is necessary to consider several factors, such as:

Who is Your Customer?

In a funnel strategy, it is critical to determine who the customer is. A funnel is designed to be used for a specific customer type or to produce the desired outcome; this is typically not a broad customer definition but rather a particular group you are trying to reach. You may find that multiple sales funnels are necessary to target different types of customers or elicit numerous outcomes.

With ClickFunnels, you can set up multiple sales funnels to target different customers, products, or services. A customer type is directed to a customized landing page to start their specific journey. ClickFunnels uses templates that are easy to drop in or take out to build a funnel for that customer type. If you create a funnel approach that works well with one customer type, you can easily copy and customize it for another group.

Where do you get your customers?

Funnels are typically most effective when using leads generated from paid advertising. Customers may be more inclined to purchase when they click on a specific advertisement or page than if they are doing a general internet search and find your website.

Deciding where you should advertise to generate leads, such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, is a crucial consideration in this step.  For example, if you are looking to attract professionals, choosing to advertise on LinkedIn may be the best social media platform for leads.

When customers click on a paid advertisement on social media, they are automatically directed to a landing page through ClickFunnels. This page starts the customer through the purchase journey that you’ve designed to convert leads to sales.

Customers aren’t just directed to your website and forced to figure out how to buy your product or service; you’ve carefully laid out the steps for them to take through ClickFunnels.

What Prompts a Customer to Buy?

An effective funnel strategy starts with making customers aware of a problem and then walking them through how their action can fix this. Knowing what would motivate a customer to act helps you build the steps to walk through in your funnel.

ClickFunnels is equipped with a landing page; this is a descriptive page that details a problem that your customer can identify with. It also includes a “Call To Action” step to encourage customers to take the next step in the process, which may mean purchasing goods or services or completing an action, such as signing up for a class.

What Are the Advantages of a Funnel?

When set up properly, funnels offer many benefits:

• Improve Lead Conversions – By targeting the message to specific customers, funnels may be more effective in converting leads to sales. 
• Targeted Journey – A customer walks through the journey in the sequence that you’ve designed; this puts everything in one place for the customer and eliminates the distraction of information that may not be relevant to their decision to act.
• Easy to Design – The ClickFunnels platform makes it easy to create, change, and maintain funnels than what you’ll find on a traditional website. 
  • If a step in the funnel sequence proves to be ineffective, it can be easily updated or removed. ClickFunnels are typically set up as templates that can be easily dropped in and customized. 
• Easy to Replicate – When you find a funnel effective for a targeted customer group, it can be easily copied for use with a different group; this saves you the time of building one from scratch and testing it for effectiveness. Additionally, you can easily customize the steps.

What Are the Disadvantages of a Funnel?

Although funnels offer a few advantages, there are several limitations worth noting as well:

• No Domain Name – A company’s website has a unique domain that can be branded. ClickFunnels does not capitalize on this. 
• Limited Content – Since a funnel is intended to provide targeted information and a sequence of steps, additional content such as blogs that could drive interest to your funnel aren’t as effective.  
• Assumes Everyone Takes the Same Journey – With the variety of ways customers can interact with a brand, a singular approach may not be as effective. A multi-layered approach where unique issues can be addressed may improve lead conversion rates.

What is a Website?

A website is a company’s online presence. It is a collection of web pages providing information about your company, such as its product or service offerings, management team, and history.

While you can create a website through ClickFunnels using its many templated pages, a traditional website can lend validity to your company and help to generate organic traffic.

A traditional website is hosted by an outside company and uses a unique domain name as its address. A domain name used by a conventional site may be perceived as adding more validity to a company and its operations, as opposed to a non-traditional website that uses a ClickFunnels domain name.

Advantages of Using a Website

There is a wide range of benefits for a company to have a traditional website:

• Credibility – A website can be the equivalent of a physical location. It lends credibility to a company when it provides information about its history, vision and values, product and service offerings, and contact information. Customers may feel more secure working with a company that they can research. 
• Brand Awareness – A website’s domain name can help reinforce awareness around its brand.  A company’s brand sets it apart from rival firms.
• Customer Service – Providing a means for customers to ask questions or resolve issues can be done via a website. Additional content, such as frequently asked questions or product information, may be provided to help customers make their buying decision. 
• Search Engine Optimization – The content on a website can impact its search engine rankings. Optimizing keywords can make a company more visible when customers are searching the web.  Plus, written content, such as blogs, may make it easier for customers to seek answers to specific questions. 
• Generate Leads – Traffic is driven to a website that may result in leads that may convert to sales. The traffic generated is considered incoming or organic traffic. While it may not always end up in a sale, organic traffic is a no-cost way to create leads and increase brand awareness.

Disadvantages of a Website

While websites offer a variety of benefits, they also have their drawbacks:

• Difficult to Update and Maintain – Unless you are well-versed in coding or making changes, updating your website can be time-consuming and difficult. You’ll most likely need to consult a company specializing in website development, which costs money.
• Lack of Flexibility – Coupled with the difficulty of updating and maintaining sites, the lack of flexibility in making updates can leave a company with outdated or incorrect information on their website.
• Difficult to Navigate – Websites have multiple pages presenting a wide range of information. For a customer, finding what you are looking for can be difficult when trying to navigate through volumes of pages and data.

(Source: ClickFunnels)

Should You Use ClickFunnels or Websites?

Lead conversions that ClickFunnels can facilitate and search engine rankings that websites can achieve are both essential to a business; however, one may be more necessary than the other.

If you intend to use your online platform to generate traffic to your website and increase brand awareness, search engine rankings may be more valuable. How easily people can find your site can give you an edge over your competitors. When your website sits high on the search engine rankings, it may positively impact the customer’s view of your company’s credibility.

However, if your goal centers around sales, a funnel approach may be far more effective in converting leads. Companies looking to improve their conversion rates may gravitate toward the use of funnels.

(Source: Change Creator)

Which Gives You a Better Return for Your Investment?

If you advertise for leads on social media or other search engine sites, funnels may provide a better return on your investment. Their targeted approach makes it easier for interested customers to buy what you are selling.

If your goal is to build credibility and brand awareness for your company, you’ll find a better return on your investment through your website. It can engage visitors on your site by providing information about your company and content relevant to your base.

Can ClickFunnels and Websites Work Together?

ClickFunnels integrates certain aspects you’ll find on a traditional website, such as webpages, with its software platform. It is an easy way to create a non-traditional website around its funnel capabilities. For a business owner looking to build a website that they can manage, ClickFunnels is a good option.

If you plan to keep your traditional website, you can integrate ClickFunnels into the mix. This approach lets you keep your domain name but gives you the capability and ease of setting up sales funnels through ClickFunnels.

Integrating ClickFunnels with an existing website may be an excellent alternative option since funnels and websites serve two different purposes:

Websites

A website casts a wide net when promoting your company; it gives a customer a full view of your business, such as its mission, vision, and values. A website can also improve awareness of a company’s brand. Customers may be more willing and interested in working with a company with an online presence than one that doesn’t.

A website’s ranking on search engine sites can impact their ability to attract organic, incoming traffic. Search engine rankings may be influenced by keyword content on the site. Where you rank can impact the incoming, or organic, traffic that is driven to the site.

Funnels

Funnels, on the other hand, take a more targeted approach to engage a customer. They appeal to a specific action that you want your customer to take, such as buying a product or filling out an application. A funnel is a sequential process the customer walks through to complete the process. It limits the distractions that could take a customer off-track and not complete the process.

A funnel is used for converting paid leads to sales and monitoring your return on investment. They typically incorporate a distraction-free landing page, which keeps the customer focused on finishing the sales process. The main goal of a sales funnel is to complete a sale or capture a lead.

Websites and funnels can be designed to work together. ClickFunnels can be incorporated into your site, whereby targeted customers can still be directed to a landing page where they can start the process. A company could increase its lead-to-sales conversion through ClickFunnels, yet retain the benefits of brand awareness through a traditional website.

Final Thoughts

ClickFunnels can be an effective way to generate and convert leads to sales. For a company owner that does not want to take on the cost or complexity of designing and maintaining a website, ClickFunnels is a good option.

However, if a company values the features that a traditional website can bring, such as credibility and brand awareness with its domain name, this may be the better approach.