Do I need a website if I already have a Facebook page?
Short answer: your Facebook page is doing a job, keep it - but it's rented ground, and rented ground is a risky place to build a business. Here's the fair comparison.
What a Facebook page does well
- It's free, and posting is easy from your phone.
- Your customers are already there, especially in local community groups.
- Reviews, messages and photos in one place.
For a brand-new business testing an idea, a page is a perfectly good first step. We tell people that honestly.
Where the rented-ground problem bites
You don't control it. Pages get restricted or hacked, and support is a black hole - every business owner knows someone who lost a page and started from zero. Google barely sees it. When someone searches "electrician Ballito", Facebook pages rarely rank; websites do. Reach is throttled. Even your own followers only see a fraction of your posts unless you pay to boost. And it reads as temporary. Fair or not, "find us on Facebook" signals side-hustle; yourname.co.za with a matching email address signals established business.
The email address alone is half the argument
Quoting a customer from thabo.plumbing.durban@gmail.com versus thabo@yourplumbing.co.za - same plumber, different level of trust. A professional domain email comes with any decent website package and works with the Gmail app you already use.
When the website starts paying for itself
The moment any of these are true:
- Customers ask "do you have a website?" and you change the subject.
- You're quoting bigger jobs or corporate clients who check you out first.
- You want to be found on Google by people who don't know you yet.
- You're spending on ads that point at a Facebook page you don't control.
The right setup: both, doing different jobs
Website = your home ground: found on Google, looks established, takes enquiries, can't be taken away. Facebook page = your megaphone: posts, community, specials - each post linking back to the site. That combination is what we set up for clients every week, and it doesn't need to cost agency money: a professional one-pager with hosting and email runs a few hundred rand a month.