Do you still need a website if you've got a Facebook page?

It’s one of the most common things we hear from tradespeople and small business owners: “I don’t really need a website — I’ve got my Facebook page.” And on the surface it makes sense. The page is free, you already post on it, customers message you there, and setting up a website sounds like hassle and expense you don’t need.

For some businesses that genuinely is enough. For most, it’s quietly costing work — you just never see the jobs you didn’t get. Here’s the honest version of when a Facebook page is fine, and when it isn’t.

What a Facebook page is genuinely good at

Let’s be fair to Facebook first, because it does some things well:

• Staying in touch with people who already know you. Posting a finished job to your followers keeps you front of mind with past customers and local contacts.
• Word-of-mouth that travels. When a happy customer tags you in a “can anyone recommend a good…?” thread, that’s real, valuable referral traffic.
• It’s free and familiar. No setup cost, and you already know how to use it.

If your work comes almost entirely from repeat customers and recommendations in local community groups, your Facebook page is pulling real weight. Don’t dismiss it.

What a Facebook page can’t do

The trouble starts with the work you’re not getting from referrals — the strangers actively searching for what you do. That’s where a page falls down, in ways that are easy to miss because you never see the lost job.

People search Google, not Facebook, when they need a tradesperson

When someone’s boiler packs in or they want a quote for an extension, they go to Google and type “plumber near me” or “builder [their town]”. They do not open Facebook and search. A Facebook page barely shows up in Google for those searches — so to every one of those ready-to-buy strangers, you’re invisible. A website is how you appear in those results at all. We break the mechanics down in how to rank for “plumber near me”.

You don’t actually own it

Your Facebook page sits on rented land. The reach of your posts is throttled by an algorithm you don’t control and which increasingly favours paid promotion. Pages get suspended by mistake, locked out, or hit by hacks — and when that happens, your entire business presence vanishes overnight with no way to get it back. A website is an asset you own outright. Nobody can switch it off.

It looks the same as everyone else’s

Every Facebook page looks like every other Facebook page. There’s no way to make yours feel like a professional, established business rather than a hobby. For higher-value work especially, that sameness costs you — a homeowner choosing who to trust with a £10,000 job reads a generic Facebook page as “small and informal”, fairly or not.

It’s a poor shop window

A customer who wants to understand what you offer has to scroll a reverse-chronological feed, past your dog photos and your “back in the office Monday” posts, to piece together your services. A website lays it out instantly: what you do, where you cover, your prices or quote process, your reviews, and a clear way to get in touch. We cover what that shop window needs in 5 things every tradesperson’s website needs.

The honest test: do you need one?

Ask yourself one question: are you getting all the work you want, purely from people who already know you or were told about you?

• If yes — genuinely, your order book is full from referrals and repeat custom — then a Facebook page may be all you need, and that’s a fine position to be in.
• If you’d like more work, or steadier work, or higher-value work than your referral circle brings — then the jobs you’re missing are the ones starting with a Google search. A page can’t catch those. A website can.

Most people, when they’re honest, land in the second camp. The work you wish you had is out there being searched for right now; it’s just going to the businesses that show up.

”But websites are expensive and complicated”

This was true for years, and it’s the real reason so many businesses stuck with Facebook. A web designer wanted £1,500 and six weeks, or you wrestled with a builder tool for a fortnight and gave up. We wrote about the £500 mistake that comes from that.

It isn’t true any more. A focused, fast, mobile-first site with your services, area, reviews and a contact button can be live in well under an hour for the price of a couple of pints a month. The barrier that justified relying on Facebook has largely gone.

The best answer: use both

This was never really Facebook or a website. The strongest setup is both, each doing what it’s good at:

• Facebook keeps you in touch with people who already know you, and carries word-of-mouth.
• Your website catches the strangers searching Google, gives you a professional shop window, and is an asset you own.

Link them together — your website in your Facebook bio, your Facebook on your website — and they reinforce each other. The page nurtures your existing audience; the site brings in the new.

The webfascia bit

If the missing piece is the website — the bit that catches people searching Google for what you do — that’s exactly what we build. A fast, mobile-first site you own, live in around 30 minutes, for £29.99 a month with the first 30 days free and no card needed.

Not sure whether you’re missing out? The free 60-second analyser will show you how findable you are right now. If your only presence is a Facebook page, the result is usually eye-opening.