Business Website vs. Facebook Page: Do I Really Need Both?

It can be difficult to keep up with maintaining a Facebook page and a website. Many business owners will wonder if it’s necessary to have both.

So do I need a website if I have a Facebook page? You should have both a website and a business Facebook page to reach your potential customers. There are pros and cons to both, but you will need both to help to convey your brand, messaging, and product or service offering.

This can be difficult for some business owners to comprehend, so I’ll break down the pros and cons of having a website and a facebook page. I’ll also help explain why both are necessary.

Business Website: Pros and Cons

Let’s start with the benefits of having a website for your business.

You control the user experience. Part of having a great website is making sure that your visitors can easily navigate between all your pages and find the information they need to make a buying decision. This is called “user experience” or UX.

With a company website, you can set up your website layout and navigation to make sure your customer is seeing all the information you want them to see. This would include information such as call to action boxes, contact information, etc. With a website, you have complete control over how your user experiences your website.

Keep your visitor’s attention. Unlike Facebook, when someone lands on your website, there are a bunch of other pages and notifications competing for the user’s attention. With good web design and helpful information, you can keep your visitors undivided attention for quite some time.

You own the leads. When someone submits a form and fills out their contact information or provides their email address for some sort of free product, you own that lead 100%. On Facebook, it’s difficult to gather that type of information and legally use it.

There are some strict rules about collecting email addresses and what is acceptable and what isn’t. It’s much easier when you collect someone’s information on your website and then use it the way they expected you to when they signed up (whether that be for you to contact them, send a newsletter, or a free product of some sort).

Make sure your visitors always see valuable information. Whenever I design a company website, I ALWAYS make sure that the companies contact and location information is visible and easily accessible on every page. With a Facebook page, this is very difficult to do. Whether you put something in the header or footer, makes sure the phone number, address, or even a contact form is visible and functional.

When I say they should be functional, this is what I mean:

the phone number should be clickable (especially for mobile devices)
addresses should open a map for directions
contact forms should be tested to ensure they are sent and received correctly

Get Google on your side. While you will probably see a Facebook page rank every now and then on Google, your best bet to get in Google’s good graces is to have a website. With some simple on-page SEO practices, you can get your website found on Google for 100s to 1000s of keywords and searches. There is more potential for drawing search engine traffic with a website than there is with a Facebook page!

Now let’s look at the disadvantages of updating a website.

Takes time and money to set up. While a Facebook page is completely free, setting up a website costs a small investment unless you know how to do the technical stuff for yourself. When I do websites for other companies, I charge a minimum of $1500 because it does take time and skill to get the job done and make it look professional. There is a lot that goes into setting up a website! From the look and layout to the functionality and user experience, you’re likely going to want someone who has experience in building websites for companies… and it’s going to cost you to get that expertise.

It needs to be updated over time. Pictures get outdated, content becomes irrelevant, and things go out of style. Plus you’ll probably want to add things along the way. If you don’t have much website experience, this can be a little overwhelming and you’ll probably need to hire a webmaster to maintain everything for you.

Business Facebook Page: Pros and Cons

Now let’s see what the benefits of a business Facebook page are.

Engage with your community. It’s much easier to engage with your community with a Facebook page. You can make new posts and share new information much quicker, reply to comments, receive private messages, etc. If you decided to have a special sale or need to make an announcement, your Facebook page is the best place to get the word out quickly.

Easier to update. When you have new pictures to share are want to share something new, Facebook is much easier to update and a website. Pretty much everyone knows how Facebook works and how to make changes to their page whereas a website is much more complicated.

Here are some of the disadvantages to a Facebook page.

Facebook can stop showing your posts. Facebook is fickle. If you followers don’t like, comment, or engage in your posts enough Facebook will simply stop showing them. This means, of your 200 likes on your page, there could be only about 30 people actually seeing your posts.

Another thing Facebook often does is change their algorithm. This is they’re method for deciding what shows up in news feeds and what doesn’t. You are probably familiar with the viral digital published called Little Things. They almost shutdown the site completely in 2018 because Facebook had an algorithm update that stop their posts from displaying with brought traffic to a halt.

Likes don’t mean much. A lot of people put a lot of focus on growing that little number on the side of their page that shows how many “Likes” they have. Well, that’s really just a number… it doesn’t mean a whole lot. Unless you’re getting users who will actually benefit and engage with your posts, they’re never going to see your page again anyway.

Why Your Business Needs Both a Facebook Page AND a Website

Now that we know the advantages and disadvantages of websites and Facebook pages, you can see how by having one and not the other can be a huge disadvantage in itself.

Where one lacks, the other works better. By solely using a Facebook page, you’re missing out on the brand and customization capabilities that a website provides. However, by solely using a website, you’re missing out of the opportunity for customer engagement and traffic generation that comes from sending Facebook followers to your website.

This is why you need to be using both. Think of it this way…

Your website is like your brochure or magazine. it contains all the information about the different products and/or services that you offer. It tells customers how to contact you and where to find your company.

Your Facebook page is the megaphone that gets that information in front of people and sends them to your website.

They both serve their purposes but are inefficient without each other.

best social media platforms for business

What is the Importance of Social Media in Business?

Not all social media networks are created equal and you’ll need to decide which ones are best for your company to utilize. However, whether you use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc, here are some of the benefits that make social media an important marketing tool for your business.

Drive traffic. Driving traffic to your website is pivotal and can be easily accomplished with social media accounts. From sharing information about your products and services to directing your followers to specific landing pages that have a direct call to action, traffic can lead to more sales. This is why a well designed and thought out website is beneficial in combination with social media.

Consistent communication. Being able to stay in communication with your audience is important. This is because the old adage is true… out of sight, out of mind. If you plan to have social media accounts, you need to have a consistent posting schedule. You also need to be able to dedicate the time to reply to comments and messages. Some businesses simply don’t have time for this so they choose to hire a social media manager that can do all this for them.

Reputation management. We live in a time of online reviews and testimonials. People look at online reviews before making buying decisions so it’s great to give your clients a place to share their experiences. This works both ways though. Good reviews will encourage new customers and bad reviews will scare people away. You need to commit time to monitoring your reviews and replying promptly when there is a negative comment is left.