Do you need a website if you have a Facebook Page?

The short answer: keep the Page. Get a website too.

A lot of good contractors run their whole business off a Facebook Page. Photos of jobs. A phone number. A few reviews from neighbors. Work comes in, so why pay for a website?

Fair question. Here's the blunt answer. Facebook is a good place to show your work to people who already know you. It's a bad place to be found by strangers, and it's a risky place to keep the only copy of your business online. A website fixes both. You don't have to pick one.

This article walks through what the numbers actually say, what Google says about using a social page as your website, and what a small, cheap setup looks like for a plumber, roofer or pool guy who doesn't want another thing to manage.

Your Page reaches fewer people than you think

When you post on your Page, Facebook doesn't show it to all your followers. It shows it to a slice. Socialinsider, a social media analytics company, tracks this across millions of brand posts. Its 2026 reach study, covering January 2025 to August 2026, put the numbers like this:

Do the math on a typical trade Page. Say you have 1,500 followers. At the small-Page rate, a post reaches around 65 of them. That's a rough estimate, not a promise. And most of those 65 already know you. They're past customers, family, the guy from church.

Look at the link row too. Posts that send people off Facebook get the lowest reach of any format in that study. Facebook wants people to stay on Facebook. That's fine for them. It's a problem if your Page is supposed to be the front door to your business.

People who need you right now search Google, not your Page

Think about how a stranger finds a roofer. Water's coming through the ceiling in Riverside. They don't open Facebook and scroll. They type "roof leak repair near me" into Google and call one of the first few names that look legit.

Facebook is still huge. Pew Research Center's 2026 survey of 5,511 U.S. adults found 70% say they ever use Facebook. YouTube was higher at 84%. So yes, your customers are on Facebook. But being on Facebook and searching Facebook for a contractor in an emergency are two different things.

Search is where intent lives. Someone searching is ready to hire. Someone scrolling is killing time. Your Page can win the scroller. A website, paired with a solid Google Business Profile, is what wins the searcher.

What Google says about using Facebook as your "website"

Plenty of owners paste their Facebook link into the Website field on their Google Business Profile. It feels like the same thing. Google treats them as different things.

• Google's guidelines ask for "a website that represents your individual business location."
• The same guidelines say not to provide URLs that refer users to landing pages other than those of the actual business, "including pages created on social media sites."
• Social links have their own spot. Google lets you add one link per platform (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and others) under "Social profiles," in regions where that feature is available.
• Google also says it "does not currently provide performance metrics or click tracking for social media links."

So the clean setup is simple. Your real website goes in the Website field. Your Facebook Page goes in Social profiles. Both show up, each in the right place. If you haven't cleaned up your profile in a while, our Google Business Profile guide for contractors walks through the rest.

You don't own your Page. Meta does.

This is the part most owners don't think about until it's too late. Your Page lives on someone else's property. They set the rules, and they can change them.

In August 2025, the Small Business Development Corporation, a government agency in Western Australia, warned small businesses about this. It said Meta had "allegedly shut down Facebook or Instagram pages set up by small businesses without warning." It cited a TV news report that around 10 million accounts had been disabled since the start of 2025. That figure is from a media report, not from Meta. But the warning was clear: "The financial impact can be sudden, with no ability to take bookings or contact clients."

The agency's advice was just as clear. Be careful "about having all your eggs in the Meta basket." Build your online presence through your own website. Grow an email list so you can reach customers directly.

Picture a pool service in Orange County with five years of before-and-after photos, 40 reviews and every customer message living on one Page. The Page gets locked by mistake. The appeal takes weeks. In the meantime, there's nothing to send a new lead to. A website doesn't make that problem go away, but it means the business doesn't disappear with it.

Reviews: one site is not enough

Facebook reviews are worth having. They're just not the whole picture.

BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2025 found that 74% of consumers use two or more review sites before deciding on a local business. Only 27% use just one. The same report cites BrightLocal's 2023 research, which found 43% of U.S. consumers find the information they see on Facebook untrustworthy.

Trust in reviews overall has dropped, too. BrightLocal says 79% of consumers trusted reviews as much as personal recommendations in 2020. In 2025 that was 42%. People check more places and believe less of what they see. A website is where you back up the reviews with proof: real job photos, your license number, the cities you serve, what a typical job costs.

Facebook Page vs website: what each one does

Facebook wins on cost and on staying in touch. The website wins on getting found and staying in control. That's why the answer is both.

The minimum setup that works

You don't need a 40-page site. For most one-truck and two-truck shops, this is enough to start:

1. Buy your domain in your own name. Not your nephew's. Not the agency's. Yours.
2. One strong page. What you do, where you work, your phone number big at the top, a quote form, real job photos and your license info.
3. Put the site in the Website field on Google. Put your Facebook Page under Social profiles.
4. Link the site from your Facebook Page. Add it to the Page's contact info so people who find you there can get the full picture.
5. Collect emails or phone numbers from every job. That list is yours, no matter what happens to any platform.
6. Keep posting on Facebook. It's still where neighbors see your work and refer you.

Later, add a page for each main service and each city you want calls from. That's how you start showing up in more searches. Our breakdown of what a contractor website costs covers what to expect at each level.

When a Facebook Page alone is fine

To be fair: some businesses can get by without a site for a while. If you're booked out months ahead from referrals, you're not trying to grow, and you never take work from strangers, a Page may be all you need right now.

But if you want calls from people who don't already know you, or you'd be in trouble if your Page vanished tomorrow, you need a place online that's yours.

How NOCTURNE handles it

We build websites for local trades in LA, Orange County, the Inland Empire and for contractors nationwide. We start with a free demo: after a 10-minute call, you get a real page on a live link within 24 hours. No call? It's $50, credited to launch.

Our Launch package starts at $1,500. It's a single page on your domain, live in 5 days, with a quote form and Google Business Profile cleanup, which includes putting your site and your Facebook Page in the right fields. You own the domain, the account and the files. Hosting runs free to about $10 a month, paid to the host. No annual contract.

See how we build websites or check pricing. Built first. Paid after.

Questions

Sources

• Americans' Use of Social Media in 2026 (Pew Research Center, Oct 2026)
• Social Media Reach Statistics 2026: Instagram & Facebook (Socialinsider, data Jan 2025 to Aug 2026)
• 2026 Organic Facebook Engagement Benchmarks (Socialinsider)
• Local Consumer Review Survey 2025 (BrightLocal)
• Guidelines for representing your business on Google (Google Business Profile Help)
• Manage your social media links (Google Business Profile Help)
• Manage your contact info (Google Business Profile Help)
• Meta shutdowns: What small businesses need to know (Small Business Development Corporation, Western Australia, Aug 2025)