For some businesses, a Facebook page really is enough — at least for now. If you're a local sole trader who gets every job through referrals and word of mouth, and your customers never need to Google you to confirm you exist, you can keep running on social alone. But that's a narrow set of circumstances, and for most small businesses the honest answer is yes, you do need a website — because the moment a customer searches for what you do, a Facebook page is not what finds them.
The longer version: social pages are good at certain things and genuinely bad at others. A website fills the gaps that matter most to customers who are actively comparing their options. The two work better together than either does alone.
What a Facebook Page Does Well
A Facebook or Instagram page does several things well, and none of them cost you anything upfront:
It's where your existing customers already are. Most small business owners find that their Facebook page gets more day-to-day engagement than their website ever does. People comment, share posts, message directly. The familiarity is real.
Reviews. Facebook reviews are visible, public, and trusted. They're one of the first things a referred customer will check before they call. A strong review section on a Facebook page carries genuine weight.
Local reach. Facebook's local discovery features — maps integration, local groups, the ability to show up in feeds of people nearby — can drive real business, especially for food, services, and retail.
It's free. Zero cost to set up, zero monthly fees. For a business in its first few months that isn't sure yet whether demand exists, that matters.
None of this is imaginary. I work with plenty of small businesses, and Facebook pages drive real enquiries for many of them. The question is what happens when those advantages run out.
What You Don't Control
Here's what a Facebook page gives you alongside all the above: nothing you actually own.
The algorithm decides your reach. Facebook organic reach — the percentage of your followers who actually see a post without you paying to boost it — has been declining for years. You can have thousands of followers and have a post seen by a small fraction of them. You have no lever to pull on that.
Account lockouts are real. Facebook suspends accounts, often through automated systems, sometimes with no clear explanation and no fast path to resolution. If your only customer contact point is a platform you don't control, a single automated decision can make your business invisible overnight. I've seen this happen to businesses who had years of reviews and followers built up — gone until they resolved the appeal, sometimes weeks later.
No Google presence beyond the social profile. Your Facebook page does appear in Google — but it appears as a Facebook page, not as an answer to a customer's question. If someone searches "plumber in Bristol" or "dog groomer Harrogate," a Facebook page is not what shows up. The businesses that appear are the ones with websites.
You don't own the customer relationship. Your follower list belongs to Facebook. You cannot export it, you cannot email it, you cannot reach those people except through Facebook's platform. If you've been building an audience there, you've been building it on rented land.
When the Page Stops Being Enough
The gap usually shows up in one of three situations:
Customers Google you before they call. This is extremely common — people get a recommendation, then search your name to check you're legit, see what your pricing looks like, or find your phone number. If you only have a Facebook page, they find a social profile with no opening hours, no clear description of what you do, and no obvious way to contact you beyond a message request. Some of them call anyway. A lot of them don't bother.
You're in a comparison-shopping category. For anything where customers get multiple quotes — building work, web design, bookkeeping, photography — they're looking at several options at once. A website is the thing that makes you look established. Without one, you're competing on price alone because you look less credible.
You need leads you own. If you want to collect enquiries via a form, build an email list, or run Google ads to people who are actively searching, you need a website. You cannot do any of this properly from a Facebook page.
The Minimum Viable Website
If you're convinced you need something but don't want to spend serious money yet, the bar is lower than most people think.
A single page covering four things is a legitimate website:
- Who you are
- What you do (and where, if you're location-based)
- Why you're worth calling (a few testimonials or your background)
- How to contact you
That's it. A builder like Squarespace or Wix will cost you $15–50/month, and you can have a single page live in a weekend without touching any code. It will give Google something to index, give referred customers a professional-looking place to land, and give you a web address you can put on a van, a business card, or a quote.
I should say clearly: for many businesses at the early stage, this DIY approach is genuinely the right call. Don't pay a developer $1,000–$5,000 for a five-page site when a one-page builder site will do the job and you haven't yet confirmed customers are searching for you online. Start cheap, see if the website generates any enquiries, and invest more when you have evidence it's worth it.
If you do want to understand what the costs look like at each tier, How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost breaks down the options from builders to agencies.
Keep the Page, Add the Site
The answer is not social or website — it's both, because they do different things.
Your Facebook page handles the social layer: existing customers who follow you, local discovery, reviews, the day-to-day relationship. Your website handles the search layer: people who don't already know you but are looking for what you do, credibility checks from referred customers, and any business function that requires a form, a booking system, or an email list.
The moment you have a website, you can also link to it from your Facebook page — which means the people who do find you on social have somewhere to go that you actually control.
The one thing a Facebook page does that a website can never replicate is algorithmic local reach. The one thing a website does that a Facebook page can never replicate is showing up when someone searches for your service on Google. Both are worth having.
One practical note: once you have both, keep them consistent. Your phone number, opening hours, and service description should match across your website, your Facebook page, and your Google Business Profile. Inconsistent information confuses customers and can suppress your local search ranking — Google weighs consistency across sources as a trust signal.
If showing up on Google feels like the urgent problem — because you know customers are searching and you're not appearing — Why Your Website Isn't Showing Up on Google covers what's usually causing that and what to do about it.
For a look at what a properly built site can do for a small business, you can see how I work at Buno Labs.
