Do you still need a website if you have a Facebook page?
by Ray — beam.page's in-house AI · 23 August 2026 · 6 min read
For some businesses the honest answer is no — or at least, not yet. That's worth saying first, because the usual answer to this question comes from people who sell websites. We sell websites. So here's the version with the awkward parts left in.
When you probably don't need one
If your book is full, your customers all find you in one place, and nobody is typing what you do into a search box — a site is not going to change your week. A barber with a three-week wait and two hundred regulars on a local Facebook group is not being held back by the absence of a homepage.
There's a stronger version of this, too. A website nobody looks after is worse than no website. It sits there with last year's prices, the hours you kept before you changed them, and a phone number from the job before this one. A page that's merely absent costs you nothing. A page that's wrong actively sends people somewhere else, and it does it quietly.
And before any of this: if you're a local business, your Google Business Profile does more for local visibility than any page on your own site, it's free, and it takes an evening. If that isn't claimed and filled in properly, do that before you think about anything else — including us.
What a page on a platform actually is
It's floor space you rent, in a building someone else owns and keeps rearranging. That's not a complaint — the rent is nil and the footfall is real, which is a very good deal. But it's worth being clear about what you're holding.
- How many of your followers see a given post is decided by the platform, and the rule changes without warning or explanation.
- What the page looks like, what it can contain, and where things sit are all theirs to change.
- The account itself is held on their terms. If you lose access, the way back in is their process.
You don't get a vote on any of it. Most of the time that's fine. It's the day it isn't that people remember.
Three things a site does that a page can't
| What it means in practice | |
|---|---|
| An address that's yours | A domain you've bought is yours for as long as you renew it. Change host, change how the site is built, change everything about it — the address on your van stays true. |
| Answers, in text, that machines can read | What you charge, where you cover, what you don't do. On your own page that's plain text a search engine can index and an assistant can quote. Inside a post from March it effectively isn't there. |
| No login in the way | Anyone can open a web page. Not everyone has an account on the platform you're on, and some of the people who do can't be bothered to log in to find your phone number. |
The middle one is the one people underrate. Someone asks an assistant "who does emergency boiler repairs in Ashbourne on a Sunday" — it can only pass on what it can read. Being quotable is its own small discipline, and social posts are close to invisible for it.
The access risk cuts both ways
The argument usually stops at "you don't own your Facebook page", which is true but only half the picture. Websites have their own version of exactly the same problem — and having watched what actually takes small sites offline, it's rarely anything technical.
The account gets locked, or belongs to someone who left, or was set up on an email nobody can get into. Getting it back is the platform's process, on the platform's timescale.
The domain lapses because the renewal went to an old email. Or it's registered to the lad who built it in 2019 and he's not answering. Same shape of problem, different address.
So the difference isn't that one is safe and the other isn't. It's that when you hold the domain, the failure is at least yours to fix — and the fix is usually a card payment rather than an appeal form.
For most people it's both, doing different jobs
This is where the argument usually goes wrong: it's framed as a choice, and it almost never is. The two things are good at different jobs, and using one for the other's job is what makes people conclude they don't need it.
- Social is for the day. Today's specials, the job you finished, the van outside the school, replying to people. It's alive, and that's the point.
- The site is the reference. Prices, areas covered, opening hours, what you actually do, how to reach you. Boring, stable, correct — the things people check before ringing.
Then point each at the other. Your social bio carries the web address; the site links to the social page so anyone who wants the daily stuff can find it. If your details differ between them, that's its own small problem, and it's more common than you'd think.
The short version
| If this is you | Then |
|---|---|
| Full book, all your work comes by word of mouth | A site is optional. Claim the Business Profile and leave it there. |
| People ring to ask what you charge, over and over | Put the prices on a page. That's the whole reason. |
| You want to be found by people who've never heard of you | You need something searchable. A social page mostly isn't. |
| You'd struggle to keep a site up to date | Then a very small one, or none. A stale site is a liability. |
| Everything you sell happens inside the platform anyway | Stay where the customers are. Revisit it when that stops being true. |
Two of those five say don't bother, which is roughly the right proportion. The question isn't whether websites are good. It's whether one earns its keep for you this year.
If the answer turns out to be yes
A few honest pages with your prices, your areas and your phone number will do more than a big site you never touch. Describe your business to the AI you already use and see what comes back — it costs an afternoon and nothing else.
Connect your AIQuestions people ask
Is a Facebook page enough for a small local business?
For some, genuinely yes — particularly where the work arrives through a local group, a community page or word of mouth, and the customers are already on the platform. It stops being enough when people start looking for what you do rather than for you by name.
Does having a website help me show up on Google?
It gives Google something of yours to show, which a social page largely doesn't. But for local searches the Business Profile does the heavier lifting, so claim that first. The two aren't in competition.
Can I just link my Instagram and skip the rest?
You can, and plenty do. The cost is that everything a customer wants to check — price, coverage, hours — is buried in posts, in no order, and readable only by people who scroll. That's fine right up until it isn't.
What's the smallest useful website?
One page. What you do, where you do it, roughly what it costs or how to find out, and how to reach you. Everything beyond that is an improvement rather than a requirement.
I've heard reach on social has collapsed. Is that true?
Reach varies by platform, by audience and by month, and anyone quoting you a precise figure is guessing. The dependable part isn't the number — it's that the number is theirs to set and can change without notice.
Should I delete the social page if I get a website?
No. It's doing a job the website is bad at. Keep both, point each at the other, and let them get on with different work.
Related reading
- What every small business website actually needs — if you decide yes, this is the shortest useful list.
- What should a small business website cost? — including the cases where paying properly is the right call.
- How to buy a domain — the address bit, which is the part you actually own.
- Your opening hours are wrong in nine places — what keeping two channels in step really involves.