Your Facebook page has a few hundred followers. You post regularly. You get occasional messages from customers. It works. So when someone asks if you have a website, it's a fair question: do you actually need one on top of all that?
The honest answer is yes - and the reason comes down to a fundamental difference between what a Facebook page is and what a website does.
You don’t own your Facebook page
This is the most important point, and it's one most business owners don't think about until something goes wrong. Your Facebook page is not yours. It belongs to Meta. They can change what it looks like, how it works, how many of your followers see your posts, or whether it exists at all - and you have no say in any of it.
Facebook has significantly reduced organic reach for business pages over the past decade. A page with 500 followers might have reached most of them with a post in 2012; today, the same post might reach 20-30 people unless you pay to boost it. The platform is designed to charge businesses for the reach they once got for free.
A website is different. You own it (or subscribe to it on predictable terms). No algorithm decides how many people see your homepage. No platform can shut it down arbitrarily or change the rules without warning.
Google doesn’t index Facebook pages the same way
When someone searches "electrician in Bristol" or "dog groomer near me", Google shows websites - not Facebook pages. Social media profiles do appear in some searches, but they rank far lower than dedicated websites for service and location-based searches.
This matters enormously for local businesses. The customers you most want to reach - people actively searching for your service in your area right now - will not find you through your Facebook page. They'll find the businesses that have websites, and those are the businesses they'll call.
Think about your own behaviour: When you need a local service, do you scroll through Facebook looking for a business page? Or do you Google it and click one of the websites that comes up?
The trust gap
A Facebook page, however well-maintained, does not convey the same credibility as a professional website. When a potential customer finds your Facebook page, they see your posts, your reviews, and maybe some photos. When they find your website, they see a business that has invested in its professional presence - one that is more established, more serious, more trustworthy.
This matters most in service industries where customers are inviting someone into their home or trusting them with something important. A plumber with a website is, in the perception of most customers, a safer bet than a plumber with only a Facebook page.
What Facebook is genuinely good for
This isn't an argument against Facebook - it's an argument for using both tools for what they're each good at.
Facebook is excellent for:
- Staying in front of people who already know you
- Sharing news, offers, and updates
- Engaging with your existing community
- Running targeted paid ads to a specific local audience
- Getting and displaying reviews
It's not good for:
- Being found by people who don't already know you exist
- Ranking in Google for local service searches
- Giving detailed information about your services and pricing
- Building long-term authority in search results
Add a website alongside your Facebook page
Get a professionally designed, fully written website for £34.99/mo. No setup fee. Keep using Facebook for what it’s good at — and add Google to your customer pipeline too.
Get my website →The combination is what works
The businesses that do best online typically use both. A website that ranks in local Google searches, combined with a Facebook page that keeps existing customers engaged and drives referrals - that's a proper local marketing presence.
If you only have Facebook, you're relying entirely on people who already know you or who happen to be scrolling when you post. A website opens a second, independent channel: people who have never heard of you but are searching for exactly what you offer.
The bottom line
A Facebook page is a good thing to have. A website is a different kind of asset - one that works independently of any platform's algorithm, that Google can index and rank, and that signals professionalism in a way a social media profile cannot. For most small businesses, having both is the right answer. Having only a Facebook page means you're invisible to a large proportion of the customers who are looking for you right now.