Do I need a website if I've got a Facebook page?

Plenty of trade businesses run for years on a Facebook page and word of mouth. If that is working and your calendar is full, nobody should be talking you out of it.

It is worth knowing what it does not do, so you are choosing rather than assuming.

What a Facebook page is good at

Showing people who already know you that you are still working. Photos of last week's job, in front of an audience that already follows you. That is a real thing and a website is worse at it.

What it is not good at

Being found by somebody who has never heard of you. When a person searches for a trade in their suburb, Google mostly shows Google Maps listings and websites. A Facebook page can appear, but it is competing in a race it was not built for.

Being read by somebody deciding whether to ring you. A page shows your most recent post. It does not show what you do, where you work, what you charge or whether you are insured, unless the visitor scrolls until they find a post that happens to mention it.

Being yours. The page lives on somebody else's platform under rules that change without asking you. That is a small risk most weeks and a total one on the week it is not.

The honest answer

If your work comes from repeat customers and referrals, a website is a nice-to-have and you should not let anybody panic you about it.

If you want work from people who do not know you yet - a new area, a quieter season, a change of trade - then you need somewhere that turns up in a search and answers the obvious questions without a scroll. That is the whole job.

The two are not a choice. Most trade businesses that do well online have both, and the website is what the Facebook post links to.