Do you need a house if you have a camper?
Do you need a car if you have a motorcycle?
Do you need a bed if you have a cot?
Do you need a coat if you have a sweater?
Do you need a website if you have a Facebook page?
The answer varies from person to person, but for most the answer is yes. And, for most, a website is better and more important than a Facebook page.
What are the advantages of a Facebook page?
A Facebook page is free. It’s easy to set up. And it provides a presence in the most popular social media platform in the world. It’s also necessary to have if you are going to use paid Facebook advertising.
Some small businesses can do fine with just a Facebook page. It might be all they need. But for almost all serious businesses a website is expected and necessary.
What are the advantages of having your own website?
First of all, you’ll have total control over your own website. You can change the formatting and colors. You can change the font types and font sizes. You can’t do those things on your Facebook page.
Your website is the foundation of your online presence. Other websites, including many online directories like Google Business directory, Yelp, Bing, Yahoo, Angie’s List, Tripadvisor, and many many more can link to your website. But only if you have one.
Most people expect businesses to have a website. Most businesses do have a website so that’s part of the reason they expect it.
A website provides another way for people to find your business. Even if they’ve never heard of it. Your business is much more likely to be found in Google searches if you have a website. And it’s much, much less likely to be found if you don’t have a website.
A website provides easily accessible information about your business. This makes it very convenient for people who already know about your business to look things up. How late are you open. How early. What do you sell. Do you have reviews and testimonials. There’s a lot of information that people want to know when considering using your services or buying your products.
What else do you need?
If you want your business to do even better on the web there are a few more things to consider.
Here’s the top things that will get you the most:
- Website
- Google Business Directory
- Facebook Page
For more power add these:
- Website analytics and SEO features
- Paid Facebook advertising
Make sure your Google business directory listing is claimed (by you so you can make changes) and filled in with accurate information. Go here to find your listing, or create one if it doesn’t exist. It’s a good idea to claim and update your business listing on various other online directories as well.
Set up your Facebook page here.
Set up Google Analytics here.
Add a Facebook advertising account here (or simply boost a post and Facebook will walk you through it). Or even better, set up your Facebook business manager account here. The business manager makes it easier to manage your ads accounts and pages as well as giving permission to others who will be helping you run ads and post to your Facebook page.
What about Google ads?
The one thing I did not mention is Google advertising. Adwords. It can be more complicated to get started with Google advertising and it can be expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing. Here’s some advice if you do want to try it. Start with the search network only. Start small, only two ads within an ad group. Only a handful of specific keywords within each ad group. Make your ads and keywords very specific and send the clicks to a page on your website that matches the topic of your ads and keywords exactly. Never send clicks to your home page.
Get these things going (except Google ads unless you really want to) and you’ll be in good shape.
For more information see my website and other articles about all of these topics.
Thanks for reading!
