If your Facebook or Instagram page is busy and customers message you there, it is fair to ask why you would pay for a website at all. Plenty of business owners ask us exactly that, and we give them the straight answer, even when it is "not yet".
What a social page does well
Be fair to it. A Facebook or Instagram page is free to set up, quick to update, and easy for your existing customers to follow. It is good at showing that you are active, sharing a new product or a recent job, and keeping in touch with people who already know you.
Reviews and comments from real customers sit right there as well. For a business that runs on word of mouth and local community, that matters.
Where a page falls short
A page is a room in someone else's building. That is not a criticism, it is just how it works, and it brings a few limits.
You do not control the rules. The layout, the features and what gets shown to people can change whenever the platform decides. You find out afterwards.
Accounts can be restricted or closed. It does not happen to most businesses, but it does happen, sometimes by mistake and sometimes with no easy way to get a person on the phone. If your whole business presence lives in one account, that is a risk worth knowing about.
It is built for scrolling, not for answering questions. A customer who wants your prices, your service area and your opening hours has to dig through posts to find them. A website puts the answers where they can be seen at once.
People who do not use that platform. Not everyone has an account, and not everyone wants one. Some customers will simply go and look for a business with a proper website instead.
What a website gives you that a page cannot
- An address that belongs to you. Your domain is registered in your name and stays yours. Here is the difference between a domain, hosting and a website if those words are fuzzy.
- A place for the full story. Services, prices, areas you cover, how to book, answers to the questions you get every week.
- A fixed home for your details. Your phone number and hours are in one clear place, not buried in a post from March.
- Something to link to. Your Google Business Profile, your email signature, your business card and your van can all point at one address you control.
They work best together
This does not have to be either or. The setup that works well for most small businesses is simple.
- The website holds the facts: what you do, where, for whom, and how to get in touch.
- The social page holds the conversation: what happened this week, new work, a bit of personality.
- Each one links to the other.
When someone sees a post and wants to know more, they should land on a page that answers them. When someone finds your website and likes it, they can follow along for the day to day.
When a social page alone is fine
If you are brand new, testing whether the idea works, and your customers all find you through one community group, a page by itself can be the right call for now. Do not spend money before you need to.
The time to build a website is when people are asking things the page cannot answer easily, when you lose enquiries because the details are hard to find, or when you want to be found by people who have never heard of you. If you want to know whether you are already losing work, our ten minute self check is a good place to start.
A word on keeping it tidy
If you have both, make sure the details match. Same phone number, same address, same hours, same business name. Mismatches make a business look unreliable.
To be clear about what we do: we build websites. We do not run your Facebook or Instagram posting, and we will say so up front. What we will do is make sure your website is set up properly and links neatly with the rest of your presence.
For what it costs to get a proper site, the numbers are here.