What should you be using for your Business? A Website or Business Social Media Page?

Small businesses are taking advantage of the easy access that Social Media provides by giving their Business an online presence, and that’s great! The most popular platform for small business is by far having a Business Facebook page. We talk to businesses all the time who tell us that they get a lot of their business through this platform and they don’t even have a website. But we think they are missing out on potential customers by not having a website. This post will explain why!

We are going to concentrate on Facebook. We here at Webzlee like Facebook! (Shameless plug, go and like our page and share this post). We could spend all day going over why Facebook is an excellent place to be for business. Easy Access, billions of users and of course it’s free……..or is it?

To get the most out of having a Facebook page is going to cost you. That’s right. It is going to cost you a lot to get actual paying customers. By the way that’s not us just plucking this idea out of thin air. You can read the entire article on Forbes, “Facebook Pages Are a Bad Investment for Small Businesses.” This is a great article as to why Facebook is a bad investment, and we could just rehash what the article says, but we want to make our own point, which is this.

People Do Not Search For Businesses On Facebook!

If you were to ask yourself the usual process of what you do as a customer to look for the things, what would be the answer? Yup, you search for it using a search engine. Even if you were to use Facebook’s search function, it would only show results that are in Facebook’s index, so you would not be getting all the information available to you.

How Does This Relate to Business?

If you have a business, and you only have a Facebook for business page we will show you what is happening. Here we have Kevin. He is an electrician that is based in Newcastle. We know this because we here at Webzlee actually know Kev and that he doesn’t have a website, and he does have a Facebook for Business Page which is here if you need an Electrician in Newcastle.

But this is what happens when a search in Google was made for Electrician in Newcastle.

The first page brings up the knowledge panel (what is the knowledge panel?) and the actual first non directory result was Ridley Brothers, who also places in the knowledge panel too. Now we are guessing here, but we reckon that they will be getting a lot of business because they have a website that is making their business get found by people wanting an electrician in Newcastle! 

But Northern Line Contractors are on Facebook I hear you cry! Well we had a search for the same term in our Facebook search bar. We got three results. One for an Electrician in Stockton which is not the right location, and two others that we can only assume that they are there because of Facebook’s search algorithm of likes. Northern Line Contracts did not even show and we have even liked the page!

 Having a website is going to give you the opportunity to be shown in the search results for customers who are actually searching for the services or goods that you offer, and having a targeted website developed for your business goals doesn’t have to break the bank! Webzlee can get you online. If you would like to know how that can happen for you, take a look at our Website Creation Page for more information.

 Wrapping it up.

We are not saying that you shouldn’t have a Facebook business page, we actually think that you should have a Facebook page! But in an ideal world we would say that you should have a Facebook page that is pointing your customers to your website so that you can see what your customers are doing. Facebook gives you great insights as to basic information that your page generates, but if the customer came on to a website, you can see exactly what they are doing so that you can figure out how you can convert visitors into paying customers. 

 But the biggest advantage for having a website is that it is essentially your shop front. Even if you are an electrician like Kevin, your website is what the public sees about you and your business. It can give your business authority in the field that you are working in. It can help confirm that you are the business that they should be contacting, and by creating all this in a website, there is an extremely good chance that Google will see your site and show it to your customers who are searching for the things that you do.

 We would love to hear your thoughts and as ever feel free to share!