It drives me absolutely crazy when I ask a business owner “what’s your website so I can check it out” and they say “oh I don’t have a website, I use Facebook for everything”…grrrrr
So I thought I’d put together a little rant list of why you absolutely MUST have a website if you have your own business, regardless if you’re a solopreneur, freelancer, or employ a team.
- Facebook isn’t indexed by Google. If someone is looking for your services, a list of websites is what’s going to appear, not Facebook pages.
- You can’t do build your email list on Facebook. One of the basic components of building your email list is offering a lead generation gift, aka opt-in, freebie, or lead magnet. You can’t do this on Facebook unless you have a website.
- You don’t own Facebook, so they can do whatever they want. They are in it to make money which is in the form of advertising. You could have a competitor ad displaying next to your content. With a website, you own it outright and you can do what you want…as long as it’s legal and ethical.
- It’s been proven that Facebook doesn’t have your best interests at heart. They don’t want people leaving their platform, because people that stay on their platform are exposed to advertising which is revenue for them.
- The general public (people without a Facebook account) will never see your content. Remember, not everyone is on Facebook.
- The algorithm dictates what posts people see, even though you may have 1,000 followers, not all 1,000 followers will see your content. They run on a pay for play model…if you want your posts to show up to more people, you’ll need to buy advertising.
- You can’t control the look of Facebook, but you can control what your website looks like. A Facebook page isn’t memorable, but a well-designed website with a positive customer journey will stick in your ideal customer’s mind for a long time.
- You are at the mercy of Facebook terms, rules, and the algorithm. They can ban/cancel your account for any reason and there isn’t a darn thing you can do about it. Recently, I was locked out of my Facebook account. I wasn’t able to contact a human being and didn’t have access to anything for a week until miraculously I was able to log back in. I didn’t care one bit, because my website is the face of my business. I only set up Facebook so I could create a Facebook group and test out if my ideal customer is on Facebook. But if I was running my entire business solely on Facebook, I would have been in trouble.
- If Facebook were to disappear tomorrow, what would you do? Remember MySpace? Google Plus and Vine? Facebook isn’t immune…there will always be a better mousetrap to come along.
Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t use Facebook at all, I’m saying use Facebook to drive traffic to your website. After all, the goal is to capture leads and convert them into customers on your website. Not to put money in Facebook’s pocket.
End of rant and thank you for making it this far.
So if you are a business owner or freelancer and don’t have a website, what’s stopping you? no judging.
Until next time, stay inspired.
Gisèle
Absolutely, makes sense.