"Why do I need a website? My Facebook page is fine." We hear this all the time, especially from smaller, more relationship-driven businesses. It's a fair question. Here's the honest answer.
What social media does well
Social is genuinely good at things a website struggles with. It's the place to:
- Stay in regular touch with people who already know about you.
- Show personality and behind-the-scenes content.
- Run quick, low-cost local ad campaigns.
- Get found by people scrolling, who weren't necessarily looking for you.
What social media doesn't do
- Show up for "[your service] near me" on Google. Google indexes social profiles partially and inconsistently. Your website is what ranks.
- Give people a single, professional place to land. A Facebook page in 2026 feels like a holding page. A real website signals "real business."
- Show prices, services and policies properly. Anything that needs more than a caption gets lost.
- Belong to you. Meta can suspend your page, change its algorithm, or charge to reach the followers you spent years building. You can't move your followers anywhere; they're renting attention from a platform.
The owned vs rented question
This is the one that matters most. Your website, your email list, your domain — you own these. Nobody can take them away. Your Instagram followers, your Facebook page, your TikTok audience — you're renting access to them from a company that can change the terms.
Businesses that lean entirely on social are one suspension, one algorithm change, or one viral trend pivot away from invisibility. We've seen it happen. The owners who do best treat social as a marketing channel that drives people back to something they own.
What "site + social" looks like in practice
- Social is the conversation. Daily-ish posts, stories, replies, behind-the-scenes.
- The website is the resting place. Where the "tell me more, can I trust you, can I book" happens.
- Links go from social → site, not the other way. Every bio link points home.
- Email captures on the site catch the people social won't reach again.
- Reviews live in two places. Google reviews drive local SEO, social comments drive social proof. Both compound.
The half-answer: a one-page website
If "a full website" feels like too much, a single well-built page is dramatically better than nothing. What you do, where, prices, how to contact, links to your social. It costs a few hundred pounds done well and removes the worst of the "they don't even have a website" objection.
The fuller picture
We dig into the broader question in the pillar guide: The complete guide to small business websites. If you want a quote for a small, sensible site to sit alongside your social, our web presence service page covers how we approach it.