Do I Need a Website If I Have a Facebook Page? An Honest Answer for Local Businesses

Yes: if you want people who don't already know you to find your business and trust it, you need a website as well as your Facebook page. A Facebook page is good for staying in touch with people who already follow you, but you don't own it, some visitors get asked to log in before they can see much, and it isn't built to answer a stranger searching Google for your kind of work in your town.

If nearly all your work comes from people who already know you and you're booked solid, a Facebook page can carry you for a while. The trouble starts when a referral, an ad or the name on your truck sends someone new to check you out.

What happens when someone checks you out and only finds Facebook?

Picture it. A neighbor gives your name to someone two streets over. Good lead, warm as they come, somebody already vouched for you. She pulls out her phone right there on the porch and searches your business name.

What comes up is your Facebook page. A pop-up asking her to log in. A handful of job photos from eight months ago. No list of services, no service area, nothing that says who you are or why she should trust you with her project. She scrolls for a few seconds and taps back to the results. The next name down has an actual website: a home page, photos of recent jobs, reviews she can read without an account, a phone number she can tap. She calls that one.

You never find out it happened. The referral just never turned into a job. Nobody was rude, nobody complained. A warm lead checked, and leaned somewhere else.

What does a website do that a Facebook page can't?

• You own it. Your domain and your website are yours. A Facebook page lives under Facebook's rules. Pages get hacked, restricted or locked, and when that happens you're waiting on Facebook's support with no copy of your own.
• It answers the search. A page for each service and the towns you work in gives Google something to match when someone searches "water heater replacement in [your town]," not only your business name.
• Anyone can see all of it. No account, no login prompt, no feed of unrelated posts around it.
• You decide what people see first. On Facebook, the feed decides, and you don't control who sees your posts. On your site you choose: your best work, your service area, your phone number at the top.
• It's built for deciding. Services, photos, reviews, license, how estimates work, all in one place, laid out for someone comparing you with two other companies.

What does a Facebook page do better than a website?

Be fair to Facebook. It does some things well:

• Staying in touch. People who already follow you see your finished jobs and keep your name in mind.
• Local groups. Neighborhood groups are where people ask each other for a good plumber or roofer, and having a page makes it easy for someone to tag you.
• Recommendations. Happy customers can recommend your page, which is social proof for people who are already on Facebook.
• It's free and quick. You can post a finished job from the driveway in a minute.

So this isn't "quit Facebook." It's "don't make Facebook do a job it wasn't built for."

Is a Google Business Profile enough instead of a website?

A Google Business Profile is the other free piece, and you should have one: Google says creating a profile and listing your business on Google is free. It puts you on the map and holds your Google reviews. But it's a listing, not a place to explain your work. The simplest setup that covers the bases is all three: a Google profile that gets you found, a website where people decide, and a Facebook page that keeps past customers remembering you, each one linking to the others.

What should your website have if you already have a Facebook page?

It doesn't have to be big. It has to answer what a stranger wants to know in about a minute:

1. Your phone number at the top, tappable on a phone.
2. What you do, with a short page for each main service.
3. The towns you work in.
4. Recent photos of real jobs, the same ones you post on Facebook.
5. Reviews, or a link to your Google reviews.
6. Your license and insurance, if your trade requires them.
7. A link to your Facebook page, and a link from your Facebook page back to the site.

What's the easiest way to get a website?

You can build it yourself on a website builder over a few weekends, or pay someone to build it and keep it running. Our guide to what a website costs per month breaks down both.

If you'd rather have it done for you, Medalist builds websites for local service businesses: $1,500 to build, then $197 a month for Website Care, which keeps the site and your Google Business Profile current, or $297 a month to add missed calls answered by text and an AI chat on your site. There's no contract, and if you cancel, the website and the domain are yours. Details are at medalisthq.com/websites.

FAQ

Can I use my Facebook page as my business website? You can point people to it, and plenty of businesses start that way. But you don't own it, some visitors can't see much without logging in, and it isn't built to show up when someone searches for your services in your area.

Is a Facebook page enough for a small business? It can be, if all your work comes from people who already know you. If you want strangers to find you on Google and pick you over the next name, it usually isn't.

Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile? The profile gets you on the map and holds your reviews. The website is where people go to decide. They work best linked to each other.

Should I stop posting on Facebook once I have a website? No. Keep posting finished jobs. Facebook keeps past customers remembering you, and the website gives new people somewhere solid to land.

Want to see what a real one looks like? Here's a site we built: blackgoldflooring.com. Or call Henrique at (407) 890-7557 with a link to your Facebook page and ask what a stranger would be missing.