When your potential customers come across your business for the first time, what do you want them to think?

Would you like them to think “What a professional business!”?

Or would you be happy with your potential customers and clients thinking “That company looks like it’s run by someone who doesn’t really know about whether their business is going to last and whether it’s any good”?

It’s a rhetorical question, of course. Nobody seriously wants their potential clients thinking their business isn’t professional.

That’s why we go to networking meetings dressed smartly, have decent business cards printed, pay graphic designers good money to design us logos and think about what to say to people when they ask us what we do.

So here’s the thing.

Why do so many businesses have Facebook pages instead of websites?

I understand the advantages of Facebook pages, I really do. I tell all my clients to get one.

They’re brilliant for advertising, for keeping in touch with your clients, for getting pictures out there super quickly and for asking your current customers to share your business with their friends.

But a Facebook page (or a LinkedIn page, come to that) shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for a website.

I’m a web designer, so you may well be thinking “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”, but hear me out. I’ve got reasons.

A website opens up your business to all those people who aren’t on Facebook.

Only  5 out of 10 adults in the UK has a Facebook account. By contrast, as far back as 2020, 9 out of 10 households used a computer at home and more than 9 out of 10 adults had a mobile phone.

A website will match your brand.

Colours, fonts and images tell people the kind of business you are before they’ve read a single word on your site.

Your Facebook page allows you to upload images, but that’s about where the customisation ends.

Is branding important? You decide – but virtually every major organisation (including Meta, Facebook’s owner) has stringent guidelines covering its colours, logos and fonts and how they are to be used. They seem to think it’s important – shouldn’t you?

On Facebook, Meta owns your information, not you.

If you’ve ever tried to change the name of your Facebook page, you’ll almost certainly have discovered that Meta makes you jump through a good few hoops before it will allow it.

Meta is also completely at liberty to take down your page should it decide to. If you like the idea of staying completely in control of your online presence, then a website is by far your best option.

Recently, I talked about copying the top brands when it comes to designing a website – giving the Apple website as an example. When it comes to marketing, there really is nothing new under the sun – so copying what the most successful companies do is common sense.

Do you know any big, successful businesses that have a Facebook page and no website? I don’t.

Please don’t hear what I’m not saying.

• I’m not having a go at you if you’ve only got a Facebook page
• I’m not saying your business isn’t professional if you’ve only got a Facebook page

What I am saying, by contrast, is this: If you’ve got a Facebook page for your business but no website, you should strongly consider changing that.

That’s why I came up with a package for business owners who have Facebook pages but no website.

It’s called, wait for it, the “Website from a Facebook page” package.

Snappy title, huh?

Snappy service, though. Once you’ve signed up, I can get your website built and live within a working week.

(That means that if you tell me to get started on Monday, you’ll be showing off the site to your friends by the weekend).

All the work will be taken off your hands – I won’t be bothering you asking for words, photographs or anything else.

Your new site will be optimised for desktops, laptops, tablets and mobiles, will come with a domain name (like yourbusiness.co.uk) and will help your business get found by the hundreds of thousands of people searching for your services every single day.

As one business owner said recently, “What a great service!”

Want to find out more? Of course you do.

Visit beeswebsites.co.uk/facebook-page-to-website/ and you can.