Do you need a website, or is a Facebook page enough?
A Facebook page alone isn't enough for a contracting business that wants to grow. It barely shows up in Google search, and most homeowners still check for a real website before they call. Once referral work is steady and you want to start ranking on Google instead of hoping people remember your name, a website starts paying for itself: it's the one piece that's actually yours, built to turn the leads the others attract into calls.
By Jacob Graber, founder of Blessed Arc Media · Updated
Doesn't a free Facebook page work just as well?
Free comes with a catch: you're renting the page, not owning it. Facebook can change how it ranks your posts, cut your reach, or shut your account down overnight, and you have no say in any of it. Your reviews, your photos, five years of posts: none of it belongs to you. A website is different. A domain runs about $12 a year, hosting a little more, and once it's set up, it's registered in your name, not a platform's. If you ever switch marketing companies, change platforms, or sell the business one day, the site and everything on it goes with you. A Facebook page doesn't.
Will a Facebook page show up when someone searches Google?
Search "roofer near me" and a Facebook page almost never turns up in the results. Google's local rankings run on your Google Business Profile and your website's own SEO: the words on your pages, your service area, your reviews, how fast and clean the site itself runs. Facebook plays no real part in either one. Get your GBP right and you can land in the map pack, the three local results with a photo and a star rating. Get your website right and you show up in the organic results underneath it too, and that traffic keeps compounding for years. Whether what shows up passes the trust test when someone checks you out right before calling is a separate question, one we answer in detail elsewhere on the site.
When's the right time to actually make the jump?
There's no revenue number or crew size that means you're ready, but there are real signs. You're booking enough work from referrals that you're comfortable turning some jobs down. You want new customers coming in, not just repeat ones, and word of mouth alone isn't bringing enough of them anymore. You're paying for Facebook ads or boosted posts and noticing the results dry up the moment you stop paying, so nothing you're building actually compounds. Any one of those is a good reason to stop treating a website as optional. That's what we build: fast, mobile-first sites for home service businesses, made to rank and made to close on their own, without you feeding a platform every month just to stay visible.
Key takeaways
- Facebook and a Google Business Profile are a fine, free way to get started when you're brand new.
- Facebook has almost no pull in Google's actual search rankings; your site and your GBP are what get you found there instead.
- Once referrals alone aren't bringing in enough new customers and you're tired of paying for reach that disappears, that's usually the point a website is worth the investment.
Ready to own something that actually ranks?
Take a look at what we build for home service businesses, no pressure, just a plain answer on what you need.
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