Building a website is no longer something reserved for specialists. In an era shaped by self-publishing platforms, businesses, individuals, and all kinds of organizations can put up their own sites. In practical terms, it has become almost as straightforward as opening a public account on WeChat or starting a Douyin channel. With so many site-building tools and mature systems available, the technical barrier is now very low.
People no longer rely only on newspapers, radio, or television to get information. The internet has turned everyone into a potential publisher, whether the goal is to share ideas, distribute information, or promote something.
That leads to a common question: if platforms like WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, and Kuaishou are already so dominant, does it still make sense to build a website?
How websites, social apps, and short-video platforms get organic traffic
WeChat and Douyin are both media channels. A website is also a media channel, just with a different way of distributing content and reaching audiences. No matter the format, it only matters if people actually see it. The real issue is where natural traffic comes from, excluding paid promotion.
Social platforms such as WeChat mainly spread through social connections. When people find something interesting, they can forward it to friends or post it to their social circles. Users can also subscribe to accounts they like and keep receiving content from them.
Short-video platforms such as Douyin rely much more on recommendation algorithms. The system pushes content to users it believes may be interested. That means there is always some unpredictability: one post might suddenly match the algorithm and explode overnight, while another may remain unnoticed with very few views.
Websites are older than these app-based platforms and have long been one of the internet’s core media forms. A website is made up of individual pages, and each page should have its own unique URL. Its natural traffic usually comes from search engines, external links, and internal links between pages.
Why apps became so popular
Apps are a product of the mobile internet era. But as web technology has advanced, most functions that an app can provide can also be built on the web, including on mobile web pages. So why have apps become so dominant in recent years?
From a traffic perspective, social apps and short-video apps have one clear advantage: once a user follows an account, that account gains a relatively stable audience. The connection between publisher and follower tends to be much stronger. Most websites do not have that same level of user stickiness, though there are exceptions such as niche communities and forums.
There is also the question of access. Websites are entered through browsers, and the browser market has long been dominated by giants such as Google and Microsoft. More importantly, browsers are open to any webpage.
Large internet companies that want to create a moat around their own ecosystem prefer closed applications, and apps serve that purpose well. WeChat Mini Programs are a good example. They grew out of web-based technologies and are not inherently more advanced than existing web development methods. Their importance lies more in fitting inside the WeChat app and building a closed wall that keeps users within that environment. In that sense, it is closer to a business model than a technological revolution.
The success of public accounts and Mini Programs came largely from WeChat’s massive user base, its broad reach, and the amount of time users spend inside it. Competitors have found that difficult to replicate. Alipay still has not reproduced the same model, and Baidu Mini Programs have long been following a similar path without surpassing it.
Apps also have obvious drawbacks. Going from zero to one is extremely hard. For a small company trying to launch a public-facing app, the chance of success is close to zero. A website can gain traffic through a simple hyperlink; an app first has to be installed. If users do not know the app, how do you persuade them to install it? Apart from spending heavily on promotion, there does not seem to be a more effective path.
Development and maintenance are also much more demanding for apps than for websites. The technical threshold is higher, and the ongoing costs are higher too. For many startups and small businesses, promotion costs and maintenance expenses can drain resources long before the app has any chance to succeed.
For that reason, building an independent app is not a practical option for most individuals or small businesses. Yet many still want the convenient interaction and relatively closed traffic loop that apps can offer. The realistic solution is to use platforms that already have huge user bases: open an account there, operate within the platform’s rules, and attract followers in that environment.
A website and platform accounts are not mutually exclusive
This is really the key point.
Whether you build a website or open accounts on content platforms, the goal is the same: traffic. Every additional channel is another possible source of visitors. Just as someone with a Douyin account might also open a Kuaishou account, a website can exist alongside platform-based media accounts.
Opening an account on a major platform is easy, but the rules are set by the platform. It can make a creator popular overnight, and it can also make that creator disappear just as quickly. Gaining substantial organic traffic through a website is usually slower and more difficult, but the website is your own space, and you control it.
Building a website is also much easier than many people assume. You do not necessarily need specialists, and you do not need to know how to code. A mature CMS is often enough, such as WordPress.
Platforms can complement one another, and websites and platforms can also drive traffic to each other. One does not have to replace the other.
In the end, whether an account on a platform gets traffic or a website gets traffic depends mainly on the content itself—unless, of course, you are simply buying traffic.