Do I Need a Website If I Have a Facebook Page?
You'd expect someone who builds websites to say yes. So let me start with the cases where the answer is no.
When you don't need one
Your work comes entirely by word of mouth and you're busy enough. If you're a plasterer with a full diary until next spring and every job comes from someone who knows someone, a website is not your priority. Spend the money elsewhere or keep it.
You're testing an idea. If you're not sure the business will still exist in six months, a Facebook page is a sensible place to start. Prove there's demand first.
You genuinely sell through Facebook. Some businesses do — resellers, certain craft sellers, people whose whole trade runs through local buy-and-sell groups. If that's actually where your money comes from, don't let anyone talk you out of it.
You're a subcontractor with a handful of clients who already know you. If your work comes from four main contractors and always has, a website isn't going to change that.
You'd never update it. A site showing last year's prices and hours from two moves ago is worse than none at all. If you know you won't touch it, either pay someone to look after it or don't get one.
That's a real list, not a token one. Plenty of businesses are fine without a website and there's no point pretending otherwise.
Where a Facebook page falls down
You don't own it. This is the big one. Your page exists at Meta's discretion. Pages get suspended by automated systems, sometimes wrongly, and getting one back is difficult with nobody to ring. Your posts, followers, reviews and photos can go overnight, and there's no appeal you can rely on.
Ask anyone who's had a page disabled for no reason they could identify. It happens more than people think.
Not everyone is on it. A significant share of people don't use Facebook, and plenty who do won't log in to look up a supplier. If someone has to sign in to find your opening hours, some won't bother.
You can't control what appears around you. Your page sits in a feed with ads, arguments, and whatever else is going on that day. You've no say in what a potential customer sees next to your work.
It's built for posting, not explaining. Facebook shows the most recent thing. It's poor at answering "what do you do, what does it cost, and where do you cover" — which is what a customer actually wants. Your best explanation of your services is buried under sixty posts.
Google can't read most of it. This is the one that costs real money. When someone searches "commercial electrician Carlow", Google returns websites and Google Business Profiles. It largely doesn't return Facebook pages. Every one of those searches is happening without you in it.
Reach is at their discretion. Facebook decides how many of your followers see a given post, and that number has only gone one direction. You're building on land you're renting, and the rent goes up.
What changes once you have staff
Two things that don't apply to a one-person operation.
Hiring. People research employers before they apply, and a Facebook page tells them nothing about what it's like to work somewhere. If you're competing for tradespeople, technicians or office staff in a tight market, a careers page with real photos and a plain description of the job does work no social post will. Candidates who can't find anything about you assume there's a reason.
Consistency. With several people posting, a Facebook page drifts. Someone puts up a price that isn't current, or answers a question wrongly in the comments, or posts something that reads badly. A website is the version you control, and it's what you point people at when the answer matters.
What changes if you sell to other businesses
If your customers are companies rather than the public, the calculation shifts considerably.
You get vetted. Before a company puts you on a supplier list, somebody looks you up. They want to see what you do, who you've worked for, your accreditations, your insurance position, and that you look like a going concern. A Facebook page fails that check, and you rarely find out you failed it.
Procurement and tendering. Anything involving a formal process — public works, framework agreements, larger private contracts — assumes you have a website. It's often where they'll look for your capability statement, your certifications and your track record.
Longer decisions, more research. A consumer picks a takeaway in thirty seconds. A facilities manager choosing a maintenance contractor reads everything they can find first, and they're comparing you against two others who do have proper websites.
Your buyer isn't on Facebook at work. They're at a desk, on Google, during working hours.
What a website does that a page can't
It's yours. Your domain, your content, nobody's algorithm. If it goes down you can ring someone. Nobody can take it away.
It answers questions in the right order. Services, areas covered, prices, how to get in touch — laid out as a customer would want them rather than in reverse chronological order.
It shows up in search. Along with a Google Business Profile, this is how people who don't already know you find you.
It looks like a real business. Fair or not, www.yourbusiness.ie reads differently to a Facebook link — particularly when someone is deciding whether to spend serious money with you.
You can send people to it. One link, on your vans, your invoices, your cards, every email signature, and it works for everyone regardless of what they use.
The answer for most people: both
This isn't really an either-or, and treating it as one is where the question goes wrong.
Your website is where people go when they're deciding. It's your shop front, it's what Google finds, and it's the thing you own.
Your Facebook page is where you keep in touch with people who already know you. A job you finished, a change in hours, something you're offering this month.
They do different jobs. Facebook is a conversation; a website is an answer.
And crucially — your Facebook page should link to your website, so people who find you there can get the full picture, and so the traffic ends up somewhere you control.
The one to do first
Neither, actually.
If you have to pick one thing this month, claim your Google Business Profile. It's free, it takes an hour, and for a local business it does more than a website and a Facebook page combined.
It's what puts you on the map when someone searches "near me". It shows your hours, your number, your photos and your reviews directly in the search results, before anyone has to click anything.
Anyone trying to sell you a website without first asking whether your Google listing is sorted isn't looking after you.
How to decide
Ask where your next ten customers will come from.
"People who already know us." Facebook page, Google listing, and put the money elsewhere. Come back to the website when you want to grow beyond that.
"People searching online for what we do." You need a website and a Google listing. A Facebook page won't get you into those searches.
"Other companies who'll check us out first." You need a website, and it needs to look like the business you actually are.
"A mix." Do the Google listing now, get a website when you can, and keep the Facebook page ticking over for the people who already follow you.
If you do get one, keep it tight
The most common mistake isn't skipping the website. It's getting one that's bigger than the business needs.
A one-person operation needs four or five pages: what you do, who you are, where you cover, how to get in touch, and your prices if you're willing to publish them.
A company with several distinct services needs a page for each, because that's how you get found for each one — but it still doesn't need twenty pages of background nobody reads. Give every page a job. If you can't say what a page is for, it doesn't need to exist.
Smaller is cheaper, faster, easier to keep current, and far more likely to actually get finished.
Not sure which side of this you fall on? The first conversation is free and there's no obligation. If I think your money is better spent on your Google listing than on a website, I'll tell you that.