It’s a tempting bit of logic: the page is free, people are on it, so why pay for a website? The trouble is that a social page and a website do two very different jobs, and one of them you don’t actually own.
You rent your page. You own your website.
Your followers, your posts, your reach — all of it sits on land you rent from a company that can change the rules, throttle your reach to sell you ads, or suspend the account over a misunderstanding. It happens to good businesses every week. A website is the one place online that is unambiguously yours.
A page reaches followers. A website reaches strangers.
A social post mostly reaches people who already follow you. A website is how the person who has never heard of you — the one searching “{your trade} near me” at the exact moment they’re ready to buy — finds you at all. That stranger is your next customer, and your page is invisible to them.
A post lasts a day. A website works for years.
- A post is gone down the feed by tomorrow; a website page earns its keep every day for years.
- A website can take a booking, a deposit or an order; a page sends people to your inbox to chat.
- A website tells Google who you are and where you trade; a page does almost none of that.
Keep the Facebook page — it’s a fine market stall. Just don’t mistake it for the shop.
The businesses that do best use both: the page to chat and show face, the website to get found, get booked and get paid. One feeds the other.
While you’re here