Getting started
Does my business actually need a website?
Not every business does. An honest look at when a website earns its money, when a Facebook page is genuinely enough, and how to tell the difference.
I build websites for a living, so you would expect me to say yes. But I have talked several people out of one, and it is worth explaining when and why.
When you probably do not need one yet
You are completely booked and turning work away. A website generates enquiries. If you cannot service the enquiries you already have, it solves a problem you do not have. Come back when the diary opens up.
You are testing an idea. If you are three weeks into something and not sure it will still exist in six months, a Facebook page or Instagram account is a perfectly sensible holding position. Prove the business first.
Every customer comes from one place you do not control but that works. If you get all your work through a single referral partner or one marketplace and it is reliable, a website is a nice-to-have. Worth noting how uncomfortable that dependency is, but it is not urgent.
You genuinely cannot afford it. A website you paid for by not paying a bill is a bad trade. It will still be there in three months.
When a website earns its money
People search for you and find nothing. Someone recommends you, the customer searches your business name, and finds an unclaimed Google listing or a Facebook page last posted to in 2023. You lost that job and you will never know.
You are explaining the same things on the phone every day. Prices, areas covered, opening hours, whether you do that particular kind of job. Every one of those calls is time you are not billing. A website answers them at 11pm without you.
Your competitors look better than you online. This is the painful one. You might do better work than the company two towns over, but if their site looks professional and you have nothing, the customer comparing you both makes a decision on the only evidence available.
You are competing on trust for a high-value job. Nobody spends £12,000 on a kitchen based on a phone call. They want to see finished work, read about the company, and feel like it is a real business. A portfolio does that.
You want to be found for what you do, not just who you are. People searching your name will find you eventually. People searching "emergency electrician Potters Bar" will not, unless you have pages built for that.
You are relying on a platform you do not own. Your Facebook page can be restricted, hacked or lost in an algorithm change tomorrow. It has happened to plenty of businesses. A domain you own cannot be taken away by someone else's policy update.
"But I get all my work from Facebook"
This is the most common objection and it deserves a real answer rather than a sales pitch.
Facebook is genuinely good at some things. It is free, people already use it, and messaging is frictionless. If it is working, do not stop.
But be clear about what it does badly:
- It is not searchable in the way that matters. Nobody googles "plumber near me" and gets a Facebook post.
- Your information is buried. Prices, services and coverage areas are somewhere in a post from four months ago.
- You do not control it. Reach changes, rules change, accounts get locked.
- It looks the same as everyone else. A page is a page. There is no way to signal that you are the more established, more careful operator.
The strongest position is usually both: keep the Facebook page for the day-to-day and the audience you already have, and point it at a website that does the selling.
A quick test
Answer these honestly:
- If someone hears your name today and searches it tonight, what do they find?
- Could a stranger work out what you charge, roughly, and whether you cover their area?
- Do you have photos of your work anywhere a customer would actually look?
- If you disappeared from Facebook tomorrow, would customers still find you?
- Have you turned down or lost a job because someone "went with someone else" and you never found out why?
If you are uncomfortable with two or more of those, a website is likely to pay for itself quickly.
What "enough" looks like
If you decide yes, it does not have to be a big project. For a lot of small businesses, one well-built page covering:
- What you do
- Where you work
- Photos of real jobs
- What people say about you
- How to contact you, on a phone, in one tap
...is genuinely enough. It costs less than a decent set of tyres and it works every night while you are asleep.
Start there. You can always add more when the business asks for it.
