A website, or just a Facebook page?
A Facebook page costs nothing, takes an afternoon, and people you know will actually see it. For a firm just starting out that is a perfectly sensible first move.
The trouble starts when it is the only thing you have.
What the page does well
- Shows a stream of recent work with no effort beyond taking the photo.
- Gets shared in local groups, which is genuinely how a lot of trade work arrives.
- Lets people message you in a way they find easy.
- Costs nothing.
Where it quietly costs you
People without an account often cannot see it. Facebook shows a login wall to logged-out visitors more often than page owners realise. If someone was given your name and searches it, they may hit a wall.
Everything scrolls away. Your prices, your service area and your qualifications are somewhere in a feed from March. A website has a page for each and it stays put.
It does not do search. Somebody typing 'roofer in Chesterfield' into Google is not going to find your Facebook page.
It is not yours. The page belongs to Meta, and if the account attached to it goes wrong you can lose access with nobody to ring.
The combination that works
Facebook for the stream — the job you finished today, the van, the local group. The website for the things that do not change: what you do, where, what it costs, how to reach you, and photographs of your best work in one place.
Then link them both ways. The page gets a website link, the website gets a Facebook link. Somebody who finds either can get to the other.
If you only ever do one thing
Set up the Google Business Profile first. It is free, it takes twenty minutes, and for a local trade it brings more work than either of the other two.
Then a website, then Facebook. That order surprises people, and it is the right one.
Common questions
Can I just link my Facebook page from Google?
You can put it in the website field, and it is better than leaving it empty. It is still worse than a real site, because of the login wall and because the profile cannot show anything specific about the service somebody searched for.
What about Instagram?
Excellent if your work is visual — kitchens, gardens, tiling, joinery. Much less use for emergency plumbing. Same limitations as Facebook: it is a stream you do not own.
I get all my work from a local Facebook group. Why change?
Do not change, add. Keep doing what works, and notice that when someone recommends you in that group, the next person searches your name. That search is what the website is for.
Isn’t a website a lot of upkeep compared with a page?
It is less, not more. A page dies if you stop posting. A website with your services, your area and your prices sits there working, and needs looking at once or twice a year.
Want to see what yours would look like?
Send me a few lines about your firm and within a few days you will have a mock-up of your site, with a price on it. Free.
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