Do I Need a Website If I Have a Facebook Page?

Yes — but probably not for the reason a web designer usually gives you.

We're obviously biased here, so let's get the bias out of the way: we sell websites. Which means the useful version of this answer has to include the cases where a Facebook page really is enough. Those cases exist. They're just narrower than people hope.

The problem isn't that Facebook is bad

It's that you don't own it.

Everything on that page sits on land you're renting from Meta, and the lease terms change without notice. Reach gets throttled. A page gets restricted because an automated system flagged something in a photo. Someone gets into your admin account through a fake "copyright violation" message and locks you out. Try getting a human at Meta on the phone about it. We've watched business owners lose a decade of posts, photos, and customer messages in an afternoon, and the recovery process is a form you submit into a void.

A website you own can't be taken from you by a moderation algorithm. That's the whole argument, and it's a bigger deal than any feature comparison.

The search problem

Facebook pages do get indexed by Google. They just rarely win the searches that bring paying customers.

When someone types "fence repair Rocklin" they get a map pack and then a list of business websites. A Facebook page usually turns up for one search only: your business name, typed by someone who already knew about you. That's useful for people checking you out. It does nothing for people who've never heard of you, and those are the ones who grow a business.

There's a second, quieter problem. Your Google Business Profile has a website field. Pointing it at a Facebook page instead of a real site means every visit and every signal that could be building your own domain's standing goes to Meta instead. You're doing the work; somebody else banks the equity.

What a page genuinely can't do

Take bookings on your terms. Show a real service menu with prices. Load a quote form that emails you directly. Explain a complicated service across a few pages instead of a post that's buried under sixty newer ones. Sell anything without handing over a cut. Rank for a search you didn't know people were making.

And there's the trust thing, which is hard to quantify but easy to feel. Plenty of people — especially anyone spending more than a few hundred dollars — check for a website before they call. No site reads as smaller and newer than you probably are.

When Facebook alone is actually fine

Honestly? More often than our industry admits.

If you're a side thing that isn't trying to grow — a weekend baker, someone selling at two farmers markets a season — a page and a Google Business Profile will cover you. If your entire customer base genuinely lives inside one Facebook group and finds you there, a website is a nice-to-have, not a fix. If money is tight enough that it's a website or a van repair, get the van fixed.

And if you've got a Facebook page and no Google Business Profile, stop reading and go claim the profile. It's free, it takes twenty minutes, and for a local business it will do more for your phone volume than anything else on this page.

The setup that actually works

The businesses doing this well don't pick. They run all three, and each one does a different job.

The Google Business Profile catches people searching for what you do right now. The website is the thing you own, the place that ranks and converts, and the destination everything else points at. Facebook is where you stay visible to people who already know you — posts, photos, the occasional five-star screenshot.

One direction of travel: social points to the site, the site captures the lead. Not the other way around.

So what does that cost?

Less than most people assume, and more than the $12/month ads suggest. We put the actual numbers in a separate post — DIY builders, freelancers, agencies, and the costs nobody itemizes.

Our own sites start at $899, and here's what that includes. Whoever you end up hiring, ask them one question before you sign: who owns the domain and files? Getting locked out of your own website is the same trap as getting locked out of your Facebook page, and it happens more than it should.