A social media page is a brilliant place to show your work and talk to customers. For a lot of businesses it is the first thing they set up, and rightly so. But there is a difference between a page on someone else’s platform and a website that is yours, and that difference matters more than it first appears.
The thing nobody tells you: you don’t own your page
This is the big one. Your Facebook or Instagram page lives on their platform, under their rules. They decide who sees your posts, how much reach you get, and what the page looks like. They can change the rules overnight, and occasionally they suspend accounts by mistake with no easy way back. If your entire business runs through that page, you are building on rented land.
A website is different. You own the domain, you own the content, and nobody can throttle your reach or switch it off. It is the one place online that is unarguably yours.
A social page is rented: great footfall, but the landlord sets the rules and can change them. A website is owned: you hold the keys, and it works the way you decide. Smart businesses use both, but they build the important things on the land they own.
What a website does that a social page cannot
- It shows up on Google. When someone searches “plumber near me” or “cafe in Carlisle”, Google shows websites and business profiles, not Facebook posts. No website, and you are invisible for exactly the searches that bring ready-to-buy customers. (See our guide on being found locally.)
- It looks like a real business. Fair or not, customers judge credibility by whether you have a proper website. A polished site says you are established and serious in a way a social page does not.
- It works the way you want. Your services laid out clearly, your prices, your booking, your enquiry capture, all designed around how you actually sell, not squeezed into a social template.
- It can answer customers for you. Every site we build includes an AI assistant that replies to questions day and night. A social page waits for you to see the message.
What a social page does better
To be fair to the other side: social media is excellent for discovery, personality and community. It is where people share your posts, see your latest work, and get a feel for who you are. It is often how a customer first hears of you. That is a real strength, and a website does not replace it.
Social media is where people find you. Your website is where they decide to buy. You want both, doing the job each is best at.
How they work best together
The strongest setup is simple. Use your social pages for reach and personality, posting regularly, showing your work, talking to people. Then point all of that traffic to a website you own, where the serious decisions happen: reading your services, checking prices, getting a question answered, making an enquiry. Your social bio links to your site; your site can link back to your socials. Each does what it is best at, and nothing important sits on rented land.
“But a website sounds expensive and complicated”
It used to be. It does not have to be now. A done-for-you studio can build you a premium, multi-page site, written and set up for Google, in days, for a fixed price. You do not need to learn anything or manage anything. See what it costs, browse the designs, or read exactly how it works.
In short
- You don’t own your social page — the platform sets the rules and controls your reach.
- A website is yours — owned, always on, and impossible to switch off.
- Google favours websites for the ‘near me’ searches that bring ready customers.
- Use both: social for discovery and personality, website for credibility and decisions.
- It needn’t be hard: a done-for-you site is built for you in days, at a fixed price.