We build websites, so you would expect us to say yes. Sometimes the answer is no, and you should keep your money. Here is how to tell which one you are, including the risk most people only think about once it has already happened.
We build websites, so you would expect the answer to be yes. It is not always. Sometimes a Facebook page is genuinely enough, and being told otherwise by someone who wants to sell you a website is not useful.
So here is the honest version, including when to keep your money.
If all of the following are true, you probably do not need a website yet:
Plenty of good businesses sit exactly there. A mobile dog groomer with a full book and a waiting list does not need a website. She needs to keep posting photos.
The gaps are specific, and they matter more the more you want to grow.
You do not own it. This is the big one. Your page exists because Meta allows it. Pages get disabled by automated systems, and the appeal process is a form and a wait. If you lose the page, you lose your photos, your reviews, your messages and your entire contact history, and there is nobody to ring.
You do not control who sees your posts. Reach is decided by an algorithm that changes without notice. You can have two thousand followers and be seen by ninety of them. You are renting an audience you cannot access directly.
You do not appear in search the same way. When someone searches for a plumber in Wigan, or a florist near them, Google is mostly showing websites and Google Business Profiles. A Facebook page can rank, but you are competing with one hand tied behind your back, and you have almost no control over what it says about you.
Some people will not use it. A significant number of adults do not have a Facebook account or will not message a business through it. Older customers and commercial customers in particular expect a phone number and an email address, not a Messenger thread.
It looks the same as everyone else. Every page has the same layout. You cannot show your prices clearly, structure your services, or explain anything complicated.
You cannot capture anything. No enquiry form that lands in your inbox, no way to collect email addresses, no way to follow up with people who did not buy.
The page belongs to a personal Facebook account. When the person who set it up leaves, or falls out with you, or simply forgets which account it was, recovering an orphaned business page is genuinely difficult. We have seen businesses rebuild from zero because the only admin was a former employee.
Not magic, and not traffic on its own. What it gives you is:
They do different jobs and they are not in competition.
Facebook and Instagram are for showing the work and staying in front of people who already follow you. That is what they are good at, and a website will never do it as well.
The website is the thing you own, the thing that turns up in search, and the place you send people when they want detail. Put the link in your page bio and in your posts, so the audience you are renting gradually turns into visits to something you control.
If you only have the energy for one, keep posting on social and get a single page website that says what you do, where, and how to reach you. That combination covers most small businesses properly.
A one-page business website from us is a fixed £350. We write the words from a fifteen minute conversation, so there is no homework sitting on your desk for a month, and it is usually live within about a week. Care plans covering hosting, daily backups, security updates, monitoring and a monthly plain English report start at £25 a month. Domains are from £20 a year and always registered in your name.
Everything is a fixed quote in writing and nothing starts until you have accepted it. If we look at what you have got and think a website would not earn its money yet, we will tell you that.
You can see recent work on our portfolio, and the full breakdown on the Business Websites page.
Not always. If your work comes from people who already know you and you are at capacity, a page may be enough. You need a website once you want to be found by people who do not know you exist, or you deal with customers who research before they buy.
It can appear, but you have very little control over what it says or how it is presented, and you are competing against businesses with their own sites and Google Business Profiles. For local searches, a website plus a Google Business Profile is a much stronger position.
It is difficult to recover, particularly if the only admin was a personal account belonging to someone who has left. You would lose the photos, reviews, messages and contact history with no practical route back. A website on a domain registered in your name cannot be taken from you the same way.
A one-page site from Klariq is a fixed £350, with care plans from £25 a month covering hosting, backups, security updates and monitoring. Extra pages are quoted separately at a fixed price before any work starts.
Tell us what you do and where your work comes from. You get a straight answer and a fixed quote, and if a site would not earn its money yet we will say so.
See Business WebsitesMore in this series: all Klariq guides.