Getting started
Do you need a website if you already have a Facebook page?
Sometimes a Facebook page really is enough. Here is how to tell which situation you are in before you spend a dollar.
I sell websites, so read this with that in mind. But I would rather tell you the truth and be the person you call in two years.
When Facebook is genuinely enough
- You are a one-person operation with as much work as you want.
- Your customers are all local, all repeat, and all already following you.
- Your business is essentially a stream of updates — a food truck's location, a shop's daily specials.
- You are testing an idea and do not know yet whether it will exist next year.
In those cases, put the money into photographs and posting consistently. That will do more for you than a website nobody visits.
When it is costing you
- People search for what you do rather than for you by name. A Facebook page rarely wins that search; a proper site can.
- You need to be taken seriously by someone larger — a commercial client, a lender, a school district. A social page reads as informal, fairly or not.
- Your customers are not on Facebook. Check the age of who you actually serve.
- You need something a page cannot do: bookings, a real price list, a form that reaches you, documents to download.
- You are tired of the reach question. You do not own that audience, and how many of your followers see a post is not up to you.
The middle answer
Most small businesses here need both, doing different jobs. The site is the permanent, findable, ownable thing — hours, services, prices, proof, a phone number. Facebook is where the ongoing conversation happens and where people share you. One is your address; the other is your voice.
If you are unsure, send me your Facebook page and I will tell you honestly whether a site would move anything for you. Sometimes the answer is that you would be better off spending the money on better photographs, and I will say so.