Do I need a website if I have a Facebook page?

Yes. Even with a great Facebook page, a UK small business still needs a website. Facebook does one job well: telling your existing customers what you're up to. It does three other jobs badly. Ranking on Google for “plumber near me” and similar searches. Showing your prices and service areas to a stranger in ten seconds. Surviving when the platform changes its rules. Your website does all three.

A lot of small businesses we speak to have a Facebook page and not much else. They post photos of their work, message customers directly, and it does the job. The question they ask is whether they actually need a website on top of that.

We're not going to pretend Facebook is bad. It's genuinely useful and it costs nothing. But there are three things it can't do, and those three things are the ones that bring you new customers.

1. Customers can't find you on Google through it

Google does index Facebook pages. They show up in search. But they rank below proper websites and below Google Business Profile listings. When someone Googles “dog groomer in Wakefield”, they see a map at the top with three pins, then a list of websites underneath. Your Facebook page is on page two.

Most people never get to page two.

A real website on your own domain ranks. A Facebook page mostly doesn't. The numbers aren't close.

2. You don't own it

This is the boring point but it's the one that bites people.

Facebook can suspend your page, change how the design works, hide your posts from your followers, or shut their platform down. None of that is your decision. The people who built businesses on MySpace and Vine and Google+ all learned this the same way.

On your own domain, you control everything. You can move hosts, you can change designers, you can take the site offline and put it back on. The address (yourbusiness.co.uk) belongs to you, not to a US tech company that might be on a different platform in five years.

A Facebook page is a flat you rent. A website is a flat you own.

3. It looks like a side project

Right or wrong, this is what people think. Customers Google a business before they call. If they find:

A clean website: prices, what you do, where you cover, a real photo of you. They call.

A Facebook page from 2018 with three posts: they assume the business is dormant. They call the next one in the search results.

This isn't about which is “better” in some abstract sense. It's about what the next person reading their phone at 7pm on a Tuesday decides to do. (And if you're already worried about the cost, here's what a small business website actually costs across the three options.)

What to actually do

Keep both. Use your Facebook page for what it's good at: posting daily updates, sharing photos of finished work, replying to messages. The conversation with existing customers happens there.

Use a website for the bit that needs to look professional: your prices, your services, the area you cover, how to contact you. The first impression with a new customer happens there.

Your website links to your Facebook page. Your Facebook page links to your website. Both pull their weight.

A managed site like ours is £20 a month. A new customer is worth considerably more than that. The maths isn't hard.