Website or Facebook Page? What your business actually needs
Almost every enquiry we get opens the same way: "We have a Facebook Page, do we still need a website?"
The honest answer is often no. Not yet. And a studio that tells you otherwise before asking a single question about your business is selling, not advising.
So here is the reasoning we actually use.
A Facebook Page is a genuinely good start
It's free, it's where your customers already spend their evenings, and Messenger is how Filipinos prefer to ask "open pa ba kayo?" You can post a photo of today's stock from your phone in ten seconds. For a small shop, a canteen, a home baker, or a service you sell through referrals, a Page plus a phone number is a complete, working setup.
Plenty of businesses never need more than that. We will say so.
Where a Page runs out
The problems show up slowly, and they're usually one of these five.
Nobody finds you by searching. Someone typing "aircon cleaning Cainta" or "dental clinic near me" into Google is a customer with their wallet already out. Facebook Pages rank poorly for those searches — Google mostly shows websites and Google Business Profiles. That traffic isn't small, and right now it's going to whoever does have a site.
You don't own the audience. Your followers live on Meta's platform, under Meta's rules. Reach gets throttled, accounts get restricted by mistake, and appeals take as long as they take. We've watched businesses lose their only sales channel for a fortnight because of an automated flag.
Information is buried in the feed. Your prices, hours, service list and location are in a post from four months ago. Customers ask the same five questions in Messenger every day because there is nowhere to point them.
No proper transactions. Taking orders in DMs works until it doesn't. Around the point where you're reconciling GCash screenshots against a notebook at midnight, you need a real cart or a real booking form.
Credibility with bigger clients. If you sell to consumers, a Page is fine. If you want corporate accounts, government work, or overseas clients, the first thing procurement does is look for a website. Not having one reads as "too small to bother with," fairly or not.
The trigger list
Skip the website until at least one of these is true:
- People search for what you sell, not just for your business by name
- You're answering the same questions in Messenger over and over
- You need bookings, orders or payments to happen without you
- You're pitching clients who will check whether you exist
- Losing the Page tomorrow would seriously hurt
None of those apply? Put the money into stock, staff, or ads instead. Come back when one of them does.
What we'd actually recommend
If you cross that line, the first version should be small. A handful of pages that load fast on mobile data, your services and prices where Google can read them, hours and directions, and one clear way to get in touch. That is enough to start collecting search traffic.
And don't retire the Page. The two do different jobs: the Page is where you talk to people who already know you, the website is where people who don't yet know you find you. Keep posting. Link the site in your bio. Let Messenger stay the front door for chatty enquiries — we put a Messenger button on our own contact page for exactly that reason.
Set up a Google Business Profile too. It's free, it takes an afternoon, and for a local business it often brings in more enquiries than the website does in the first few months.
If you're not sure
Tell us what the business does and where things get slow. If the answer is "you don't need a website yet, fix your Google listing first," that's what we'll say — and we'll tell you how to do it yourself.