Is a Facebook pageenough on its own? Often, yes. Not always.
We sell websites, so read this knowing that. We have still tried to write the honest version: when your page is doing the job fine, when it quietly is not, and what most small businesses actually end up doing.
- 93%of UK online adults use Facebook or Messenger
- 82%use Google Search
- Bothis the answer for most businesses
Starting with the awkward bit
When a Facebook page really is enough
If one of these is you, leave things as they are. We would rather say so than take £500 off you.
Facebook pages are genuinely good at some things, and the people who follow yours have chosen to. For a business that runs on regulars, repeat work and word of mouth, that is a real asset rather than a consolation prize. Photos of finished work land better in a feed than they do on most websites, and a recommendation from someone's neighbour in a local group carries weight that no amount of web design buys you.
We are also not going to tell you Facebook is fading, because it plainly is not. Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report puts Facebook and Messenger at 93% of UK online adults, and the Facebook app has grown three years running, from 81% of adult smartphone users in 2023 to 85% in May 2025. Your customers are on it. That was never the question. The question is what happens when somebody who has never heard of you goes looking.
- You are booked out already. If work arrives faster than you can do it, a website solves a problem you have not got. Come back when the diary loosens.
- Everything you sell is a photograph. Cakes, nails, hair, upholstery, barbering. The feed shows that off well and people share it, which a website does not do for you.
- Your customers message you. Some people will always rather send a message than fill in a form, and Messenger is already where they are.
- You post several times a week and enjoy it. A page that is genuinely alive beats a site nobody has touched since 2023, every time.
- You are testing something. If you are not certain the business exists in six months, do not spend £500 finding out. Post for a while and see.
The one you can test yourself
What happens when somebody Googles you
Try this on your phone before you read any further. Search your business name. A Facebook page can rank perfectly well for that, and if yours comes up first, good, because brand-name searches are the one part of search where a page competes properly. You are the only business with your name, and Google has very little to choose between. Plenty of small businesses are found exactly this way, by someone who was given the name in a pub and is checking you exist.
Now search what you actually do. "Electrician Paisley". "Dog groomer near me". "Emergency joiner Glasgow". That is a different contest and it is where the calls from strangers come from. Ofcom puts Google Search at 82% of UK online adults and around 3 billion UK web searches a month, with Google Maps the third most-used smartphone app in the country at 77%. What wins those searches is a Google Business Profile, which is free and which you should set up today whether or not you ever buy a website from anyone, and then pages about the specific thing being searched for. A Facebook page gives Google one page, one description box and a stream of posts written for people who already follow you.
Rented, not owned
The bit you do not own
Your page sits on land you rent. That is not a criticism of Facebook, it is simply the arrangement you agreed to, and it is the same arrangement for everybody. Meta decides who holds an account. If it decides wrongly about yours, or if somebody takes it from you, the route back is a web form and a wait. There is no number to ring and no person assigned to you, and in the meantime your shop window, your photographs, your reviews and your customer messages are all behind the same locked door.
This is documented rather than something we are inventing to worry you. In March 2024, a coalition of 41 US state attorneys general wrote to Meta about account takeovers and lockouts. The letter records the New York attorney general's office receiving 73 account takeover complaints in 2019, 783 by the end of 2023, and 128 in January 2024 alone. That is American data and we are not going to dress it up as British. The mechanism is identical here, and the practical point is small and boring: a domain you registered cannot be taken off you by a moderation decision.
Followers are not readers
Who actually sees what you post
Having 800 followers is not the same as reaching 800 people, and everyone who runs a page has felt this. The feed chooses, and it has been choosing more narrowly for years. We would like to give you the percentage here, but Meta does not publish an organic reach figure for Pages, and the numbers you will find quoted around the web mostly trace back through three blogs to nobody in particular. So we are not going to give you one. Anybody who does should be asked where they got it.
What we can give you is measured. Socialinsider analysed 25 million Facebook posts from 130,683 pages published between January 2024 and December 2025 and found an average engagement rate of 0.15%, which works out at roughly 1.5 reactions, comments or shares per post for every thousand followers. Whatever the true reach figure is, that is the shape of it. A post is a broadcast that may or may not go out, and it is gone by Thursday. A page on a site you own sits there and answers the same question for the next three years without you doing anything.
The unglamorous one
The five things somebody wants before they ring
Hours. Prices, or at least a range. Whether you cover their street. Whether you do the particular job they have got, as opposed to the four you are better known for. A phone number. That is very nearly the whole list for most trades, and a person deciding between you and two others will spend well under a minute hunting for it before moving on to the next name.
On a Facebook page, four of those five are usually somewhere: in a post from February, halfway down the About box, or in a reply to somebody else's comment. On a website they are a line in the header and a page each, in the same place every time. This is the least dramatic difference on the whole page and we suspect it is the one that quietly costs the most calls, because nobody ever rings to tell you they gave up looking.
Side by side
A page and a site, on the things that matter
Not a scorecard. Two different tools, and they are good at different things.
| Feature | Facebook page | £500 website |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns it | Meta. You hold an account | You, outright |
| If the account goes | Page, photos, reviews and messages go with it | Nothing happens. It is on your own domain |
| Getting help | A web form and a wait | Ring or text Michael |
| Google searches your name | Often finds you, and that is fair enough | Finds you |
| Google searches your trade | Very little to match on | What a site and a Google Business Profile are for |
| Hours and service area | In the About box, if kept current | A line in the header, on every page |
| Prices | Usually in an old post, or a message | A page, written once |
| Who writes it | You, forever, every week | We do, from one 20 minute call |
| Reach of a post | The feed decides | Not applicable. Pages sit there |
| Cost | Free | £500 once, then about £20 a year for the domain |
| Monthly fees | None | None you have to pay |
| Best at | Photos, regulars, messaging, recommendations | Being found, and answering the same questions |
Facebook and Google usage figures on this page are from Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report, published 10 December 2025, using Ipsos iris data for May 2025. The engagement figure is Socialinsider's 2026 Facebook benchmark study, based on 25 million posts from 130,683 pages. The account lockout figures are from the March 2024 letter to Meta signed by 41 US state attorneys general, and are American rather than British. Our £500 covers five pages, the words written for you, your own domain for the first year, hosting and the Google setup, paid half up front and half on approval. The roughly £20 a year afterwards is the domain renewal, paid to the registrar rather than to us. Optional care plans are available from £24.99 a month and the figures above assume you do not take one.
The actual recommendation
For most people the answer is both
Keep the page. It is doing something a website cannot. Just stop asking it to do the parts it is bad at.
The version of this argument where Facebook is the problem is neither true nor useful. The page is your shop window: it is where regulars see you, where photographs work hardest, and where somebody's cousin recommends you in a local group at half nine on a Sunday. What it is not is the thing you own, and it is not what a stranger finds at eleven at night when their boiler has gone. Those are two different jobs. Here is the order we would do it in, and the first two cost nothing.
Set up a Google Business Profile this week
It is free, it puts your hours, phone number, service area and photos into Google Search and Maps, and for near me searching it does more than either a page or a site on its own. Do this even if you never speak to us.
Keep posting on Facebook exactly as you are
Finished jobs, before and after, the van outside somewhere recognisable. Nothing on this page is an argument for stopping.
Put a website address in the About section
This is the whole trick. The page catches people, the site holds the answers and belongs to you.
Put the boring five on the site
Hours, area covered, what you do and do not do, a price range, and a phone number that is a tap on a phone. Same place, every page.
Register the domain in the business name
And keep the login. It is the only part of any of this that nobody can take away from you.
Get a quote
Tell us what you do. We'll send back a price and a plan.
Two fields is enough to start. You'll have your price within one working day, and a free one-page plan for your business alongside it. If the job's bigger than the £500 build, we'll tell you straight and quote it properly.
- A free plan comes with it. One page: where you come up on Google for what you do, who is above you, and the three things costing you calls. Yours to keep, whether you use us or not.
- We reply within one working day. Usually much sooner.
- No obligation, and no chasing. If it's not for you, that's the end of it.
- Rather just talk? Call or text Michael directly on 07508 750017, or message on WhatsApp.
If we emailed you first, the easiest thing is simply to hit reply.
Questions
The things people ask about this
Can I just use my Facebook page instead of a website?
Yes, and some businesses do it well for years. If you are busy enough, your work is visual, and your customers already message you, a page is a real answer and not a compromise. Ofcom has Facebook and Messenger at 93% of UK online adults, so the audience is genuinely there.
Where it stops working is strangers. Somebody who does not know your name searches for what you do, not who you are, and a page gives Google very little to match against that. If most of your work already comes from people who were given your name, you are fine. If you want the other kind, you need something else.
Will my Facebook page show up on Google?
For your business name, often yes, and that is a genuine strength of a page. You are the only business called what you are called, so there is not much competition for Google to weigh up.
For "electrician near me" or "joiner in Rutherglen", it is a much harder ask. Ofcom puts Google Search at 82% of UK online adults and Google Maps at 77% of smartphone users, and what tends to win those searches is a free Google Business Profile plus pages written about the specific service. Set the Google Business Profile up regardless. It costs nothing and it is the single highest-value hour you will spend.
How many of my followers actually see my posts?
Fewer than you would expect, and we are not going to invent a percentage for you. Meta does not publish organic reach figures for Pages, and the numbers you will find quoted online usually trace back to somebody quoting somebody else.
What is measured is engagement. Socialinsider looked at 25 million posts from 130,683 pages between January 2024 and December 2025 and found an average engagement rate of 0.15%, or about 1.5 interactions per post per thousand followers. Take that for what it is worth, which is that a post is a broadcast rather than a delivery.
What actually happens if I lose access to my page?
You fill in a form and you wait. There is no phone number and nobody is assigned to your case. Meanwhile the page, your photographs, your reviews and your customer messages are all on the other side of it.
This is a documented problem rather than a scare story. In March 2024 a coalition of 41 US state attorneys general wrote to Meta about account takeovers and lockouts, recording a rise from 73 complaints to the New York attorney general's office in 2019 to 783 by the end of 2023. That is American data and the picture here may differ, but the mechanism is the same one. A domain registered to your business cannot be lost this way.
Is Facebook only for older people now?
No, and it is worth being careful with this one because a lot of what gets said about it is wrong. Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report has the Facebook app growing three years running among UK adult smartphone users, from 81% in 2023 to 85% in May 2025, with 63% using it daily.
What Ofcom does say is that Facebook and Messenger use is slightly weighted toward 35+ users, while YouTube and Instagram skew strongly towards 18 to 34 year olds. Slightly weighted is the accurate description. If your customers are mostly homeowners and families, that weighting is arguably in your favour.
Do I have to choose between them?
No, and we would rather you did not. They do different jobs. The page is where regulars see you and where recommendations happen. The site is what a stranger finds, what answers the same five questions every time, and the part you own.
The practical version is small: keep the page, keep posting, add a Google Business Profile, and put a website address in the About section. If you would like us to build the site, it is £500 fixed, five pages, words written for you from one 20 minute phone call, half up front and half only once you have approved it. If you would rather keep things as they are, that is a perfectly respectable answer and we will tell you so on the call.