If your business does fine on Facebook or Instagram alone, asking “why would I need a website?” is fair. Social media works, and we wouldn’t tell you to drop it. It does a different job, though, and some things can’t happen inside somebody else’s profile.
The profile is not yours
This is the biggest difference. Your page exists under the platform’s rules and for as long as the platform allows. An account can be restricted or suspended after a report, an automated check or a stolen password. Getting it back means forms and waiting, with no deadline and no guarantee.
Your followers aren’t yours either. The list can’t be exported, and there is no way to contact those people outside the platform. If you decide to move elsewhere tomorrow, you start again from zero.
A domain works the other way round. It is registered in your name, stays yours for as long as you renew it, and nobody else decides what goes on it.
When people need something, they search
On Facebook, people come across you while looking at something else. Once they actually need something (the boiler has broken, they want a dentist nearby, they need a quote for a kitchen) they open Google and type it in.
That moment needs a page built to answer that search, with a clear heading, a description of the service and the town. A social profile isn’t built for it, and you control very little of it.
A post sinks, a page stays
A post is news for a day or two. The price list you put up eight months ago is still there, but nobody will scroll that far, and the platform’s own search rarely finds it.
On a website, the “Services and prices” page has a permanent address, the same today and in two years. You can send it in a message or print it on a business card, and a friend who recommends you can simply forward it. When prices change, you update them yourself from the site’s admin panel.
Reach is not up to you
How many of your followers see a post is decided by the platform’s algorithm. Its rules change without anyone asking you, and the same post can reach plenty of people or almost nobody.
On your own site there is no middleman: whoever opens the address sees everything. There’s no competitor’s ad sitting next to your text either.
Some things don’t fit in a post
A social feed puts the newest thing on top and pushes everything else down. Some information needs to stay in order:
- a separate page for each service, with details and a price, because someone looking for one service doesn’t want to read about the rest;
- a catalogue with search and filters, once you have more products or listings than anyone will scroll through;
- an online enquiry or booking form that reaches you with a name, a phone number and a time, instead of a chat you have to keep an eye on;
- frequently asked questions, arranged so people find their own without having to message you;
- delivery, warranty and returns terms, somewhere a customer can still find them after buying.
All of this could be written as a post. On a website, though, it stays where people will look for it.
The data and contacts stay with you
An enquiry from your website’s form goes straight to your inbox. It’s your contact, and it won’t disappear if your profile is ever suspended.
With your own domain you can also have an email address on it instead of a free mailbox. In our view, for some clients and partners that is the first sign there’s a real company on the other end.
What a website doesn’t do
A website doesn’t replace social media. People don’t visit it every day to see what’s new, and that is exactly what they do on Facebook and Instagram. That’s where they get to know you, see the day-to-day side of the business and recommend you to each other.
So we split the work like this: social media is for being discovered and staying in touch, the website is for the decision and the enquiry. A post gets attention; the website takes over when someone is ready to ask about a price.
If all you have today is a social media page, the minimum we think makes sense is a one-page website with your services, prices and a way to get in touch, plus a free Google Business Profile so people find you when they search in your town. With us that’s the Start Website package, from €450. Your profiles stay as they are.