Do you need a website if you already have Facebook and WhatsApp?
I get asked this constantly, usually by someone whose Facebook page is doing reasonably well. The honest answer is: sometimes not. Here is how to tell which side you fall on.
When social media alone is genuinely fine
If you sell through relationships and repeat customers, your work is visual, and everyone finds you by word of mouth, a well-run Facebook page and WhatsApp Business can carry the business for a long time. A hairdresser with a full book and a waiting list does not urgently need a website. Spending R6 000 on one would be worse advice than spending nothing.
When the absence starts costing you
- People search for your service, not your name. Nobody types "Thabo's plumbing" into Google unless they already know you. They type "plumber near me", and social pages rarely appear there.
- You want bigger clients. Companies, schools, estate agents and government buyers check whether you look established before they call. A Facebook page reads as informal.
- You need to be found at 2am. Emergency trades live on searches made at terrible hours by people who do not care who you are, only that you answer.
- You are tired of retyping prices. A website answers the same fifteen questions while you sleep.
The part people miss: you do not own the audience
Your Facebook page is rented ground. The account can be restricted, the reach can drop overnight, and nobody at Meta will take your call. A domain and a website are yours, and the contact details you gather through them stay with you.
The sensible order
Do not throw the social media away. Use both: the website is where you get found and where you prove you are real, social is where you stay in people's minds between jobs. Start with a small site of four or five pages, link it in every profile bio, and keep posting exactly as before.
If money is tight right now
Set up a Google Business Profile first. It is free, it puts you in the map results, and it fixes the "nobody searching can find me" problem before you spend anything at all. Build the website when the enquiries justify it.
