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The debate about a business should have a Facebook page or a website seems to be never-ending. Almost every time someone brings up the idea of a website, different questions start to arise: “How is a website better than a Facebook page? Why should I pay? My Facebook page is good enough.” — this train of thought is almost always the same.
Yet there is a significant difference that can make it or break it for a bunch of customers and businesses too.
1. Company with only a Facebook page is not taken as seriously
Whether we like it or not, this is true for the majority of customers. It’s more prevalent in some markets than in others, but it’s almost always there. An actual website, even something as simple as a landing page, instantly raises the company’s credibility in its customers’ eyes. They suddenly become like “a real business”.
And if getting a website is as easy as just answering a few yes-or-no questions (getweps.com), why not get it done?
2. Search engines love websites
What’s the first thing you do when looking for something or someone? You Google it. Google is a search engine – it scans for content and then tries to find the best matches to what the user was looking for. This means websites are filtered and their order is based on an algorithm. This algorithm takes into account a bunch of things, for example is the website usable on smartphones, does it load fast etc.
Facebook and other social media pages do come up in Google, but wouldn’t it be nice to be at the top or at least have even more of your business on Google? With a website you can.
Also, you have to take into account that most users search via keywords, not specific company names related to their search. Facebook pages usually aren’t displayed in very ambiguous searches. For example, if the name of your awesome flower store & Facebook page is “Flowerfy”, the customer is very unlikely to search for your store’s name. Rather they would run a search on “best local flower stores” and pick the websites that come up first thanks to keywords and meta tags.
3. Not everyone is on social media
Just last month we had a customer called Karin. She needed a website to send out an event invite. Now, usually a lot of people do this through Facebook, but she couldn’t — not all of her colleagues are on Facebook. So she used Weps, got it for just one month, got her personal domain name and created a whole website designed as an invite. And that was done by just answering yes-or-no questions in Weps. She got it up in just one day as well.
But this isn’t the only example, a big part of people just don’t use Facebook for business. It is a social platform, designed for social interaction, not for looking at prices for a haircut or whatever else.
But websites take time to create…?
The biggest turnoff about a website seems to be the initial terrifying thought that they cost a lot and take lots of time to create. Well, not necessarily. With Weps (getweps.com), a Chabot website builder, creating a search engine friendly (SEO) website with a personal domain takes only a few minutes and costs less than Spotify premium. It is also free to try at getweps.com, where anyone can create a website in one coffee break.
Final words
These are just some points that apply to most users. Of course not everyone — some businesses can do really well with just a Facebook page, depends on what and to whom they are selling. But when creating a website is so easy and there are number of free site builder tools available, it’s at least worth a try — even if just for a couple of months to see how it goes.
