Do you need a website if you already have Facebook or Instagram?

Guide · Updated 3 July 2026 · Written by James

It's a fair question, and the honest answer isn't "yes, obviously". Plenty of local businesses get real work through Facebook and Instagram. But building your whole online presence on social media has a structural problem that only shows itself when something goes wrong.

The short answer

Social media is rented ground. A website is land you own. Rent can be fine for a while, but the landlord sets the rules, changes them without asking, and can evict you without notice. Most established local businesses need both: a website as the permanent base, social feeding people towards it.

You don't own your Facebook page

Meta does. Accounts get locked by automated systems every day, sometimes for violations that turn out to be nothing, and getting a human at Meta to look at your case is notoriously difficult. If your page is your only web presence, your business can vanish from the internet overnight through no fault of your own, taking your reviews, your photos, and your follower list with it.

Your website can't be taken away like that. The domain is registered to you. The content is yours. If you fall out with your hosting company, you move the files somewhere else and carry on.

Google is where buying decisions happen

When someone in Norwich needs an electrician, a dog groomer, or a wedding cake, they don't search Facebook. They type it into Google. What Google shows them is websites: the map results, the reviews, and the organic listings underneath. A Facebook page can rank, but it competes poorly, shows Meta's interface rather than your brand, and greets some visitors with a login wall.

There's a compounding effect too. A Google Business Profile performs noticeably better when it links to a real website, and a website can rank for dozens of specific searches ("emergency electrician norwich", "dog groomer near costessey") that a social profile simply can't target.

Reach isn't what it was

Organic reach on Facebook business pages has been declining for a decade. The platform's incentive is to charge you to reach the audience you built. So the followers you worked for see a fraction of what you post, unless you pay. That's not a conspiracy, it's the business model, and it's their lever to pull, not yours.

What a website does that social can't

• Answers questions instantly. Prices, services, opening hours, areas covered, all one click from Google, no scrolling through months of posts.
• Takes bookings and enquiries properly. A form or booking system beats "DM us" for anyone older than 25, and plenty who aren't.
• Passes the credibility check. Many people quietly look for a real website before spending real money. No site reads as "not established", fairly or not.
• Belongs to you. No algorithm change, policy update, or account lock can touch it.

When social alone is genuinely fine

Honesty cuts both ways. If you're testing an idea, fully booked through word of mouth, or running a hobby that pays for itself, a well-kept Instagram might be all you need right now. A website is an investment, and investments should wait until the foundation is real. The time to build one is when strangers start needing to find and trust you.

Use both, with the website as the base

This isn't website versus social media. The setup that works is a fast website as your permanent base, a Google Business Profile pointing at it, and social media doing what it's actually good at: showing your work, your personality, and your latest jobs, with a link in the bio that sends people somewhere you own.