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Do I need a website if I have a Facebook page?

Yes, and keep the page as well. They do different jobs. A social page reaches people who already follow you, and it's good at that. A website is what somebody in the next town finds when they search the job and the town, because that search goes to a page about that job in that town, and a social page can't be one.

What the page is good at

It reaches the people who already know you. Post a finished driveway and it shows up for customers, neighbors and the guy who referred you last spring. That's real work and it's worth keeping up.

It also gives somebody checking you out a second place to see the work, which matters when they're deciding between you and one other name. Keep posting there. This isn't an argument for dropping it, and the jobs you post are the same photos the site wants anyway, so nothing gets done twice.

What it can't do

It can't be a page about one job in one town, because it's one page about your whole business, in feed order, with the newest thing on top. The search that brings a stranger in wants the opposite: a page that stays put and is about one thing.

You also don't own it. The layout, the reach and the rules change without asking you, and anything you've built sits inside somebody else's account. A website you own doesn't move under you.

And your Google listing wants a website address. That's a field on the listing, it points at the page you choose, and pointing it at a social page wastes the strongest link you get.

Where the work comes from

Word of mouth reaches as far as your customers' friends. Everybody else picks up a phone and searches the job and the town, and Google gives each town its own list built from businesses whose websites say they work there.

That's the gap a page can't close. The towns you drive to every week have their own lists, and there's nothing on a social page for Google to put on one.

Running both without doubling the work

Post the jobs to the page, because that's where they're easy to post. Let the site carry the part that stays true: what you do, where you go, what the work involves, how to reach you, and a page for each job in each town.

The one thing to keep in step is your name, your number and your service area. When those match across the site, the listing and the page, you never have to think about it again.

One customer's before and after

A concrete coating company

River Falls, Wisconsin. Same 81 days before and after we rebuilt their site.

more often on Google
3,864 to 22,885
5.9x
more visits from Google
106 to 284
2.7x
Towns they show up in
Wisconsin and Minnesota
27

What this means for you

Open your Google listing and look at the website field. If it's empty or pointing at a social page, that's a real gap, and it's the first thing to fix. Then write down the towns you'd drive to and the jobs you'd take, because that list is the pages the site needs.

Bindingstone builds the site and points the listing at it, with a page for every job in every town you work in, and your social page keeps doing what it already does well.

Ready to show up in every town you work in?

Your site can be live in about ten days. After that, the towns you drive to can find you.