This question comes up in the contractor forums every few months, worded slightly differently every time. Where should I advertise. How do I get jobs. Do I even need a website, because Facebook's been fine.
I sell websites. So you already know what I'm supposed to say.
For some guys, Facebook is enough on its own, and I'd rather tell you that than sell you something you don't need and have you cancel in four months anyway.
So figure out which one you are first. The rest of this post walks you through how to tell.
When a Facebook page is actually enough
If all of these are true, you're fine. Leave it alone.
- You're at capacity. Booked far enough out that you're turning work away. Marketing is not your problem. Pricing might be.
- Your work comes from people who already know you. Neighborhood groups, past customers, the same three builders. That's a referral business, and referrals don't check websites.
- You're not trying to grow. One truck, you like it that way, the goal is a full week and home by six.
- The jobs are small and local. Under a certain size, people just don't research much. They ask the group who did their neighbor's fence and they call that guy.
That's a real business. A lot of good ones look exactly like that. Nobody needs to sell that guy a $4,000 website, and the ones who try are the reason contractors think marketing is a scam.
What Facebook can't do
Four things, and they matter more the bigger the job gets.
It doesn't catch the person searching. Somebody with water coming through a ceiling at 11pm is typing into Google, not scrolling a feed. Those are the calls that come with urgency and less price shopping, and Facebook is not in that conversation at all.
It doesn't hold still. A post is gone in two days. A page of yours about a specific service can sit there for four years catching the same search every month.
It's not yours. The page, the followers, the messages, all of it lives on somebody else's platform under rules they change without asking. People do get locked out. Ask around, somebody you know has lost a page.
And it's hard to check you out on. When a homeowner is deciding on a $12,000 job, they want to look at your work without a stranger seeing that they looked. A profile makes that awkward. A website is anonymous, which is exactly what people want when they're being cautious about money.
The moment it stops being enough
Watch for these. Any one of them is the signal.
You start bidding bigger jobs. The line is where a homeowner would call it a project instead of a repair. Above that, people research, and they research on Google.
You want work outside your immediate area. Facebook reach follows your social circle. Search follows geography, and geography is what you actually sell.
You start losing bids to guys who aren't better than you. When a customer has nothing to compare on but a feeling, the guy who looks more established wins. That's usually a website and a stack of reviews, not better work.
Or you notice you're spending real money on Facebook ads. Once there's a monthly ad spend, you're renting attention, and you own nothing at the end of the year. That's the point where owning something starts making sense.
The cheapest right answer, which isn't a website
This next part costs me money to write.
If you've got a Facebook page and no website and no Google presence, the first thing to fix isn't the website. It's the Google Business Profile. It's free, it takes an evening, and for most trades it brings more calls than a website does on its own.
The profile is what puts you in the map when somebody searches your trade and your town. It holds your reviews, your photos, your hours, and a call button. For a service business, that's the storefront now.
So the order I'd go in is: Google profile first, reviews second, website third. Anybody who tries to sell you step three while step one is empty is selling in the wrong order. How the local ranking part works is written out here, in normal words.
The part where people get burned
There's a reason the guys in those threads are skeptical, and it isn't stubbornness.
A lot of them did buy a website once. Somebody built it, took the money, and left. It sat there for three years with the wrong hours on it and a form nobody was reading. Then a company called about SEO and took $400 a month for a while and nothing happened. That's the actual history behind "Facebook's been fine for me," and it's a reasonable conclusion to draw from that history.
So if you've been burned, make the next purchase smaller, and make it one you can check. Something cheap, something you own outright, and a number you can watch for 90 days. If it doesn't move, you stop, and you're out a little instead of a lot.
Anybody who needs you to sign for a year before it works is asking you to trust them with the exact thing you already learned not to trust.
If you do get one, what it has to actually do
A website that exists is not the goal. Plenty of contractors have one and it does nothing, which is where a lot of the skepticism comes from and honestly it's earned.
It needs to load fast on a phone, because that's where every single one of them is. Your number goes at the top as a tappable link. Each service you want more of gets its own page, in the words a customer would use. Proof means real photos of real jobs. And the form has to go somewhere you check every day.
That's five things. It's not a big build. If you want to try it yourself first, the breakdown of doing it yourself versus hiring somebody is here, including the parts of DIY that go wrong.
What I'd tell you if you called me
If you're booked and happy, keep the Facebook page and don't spend a dime. I'd rather tell you that now than take a setup fee off you.
If you're trying to grow, or you're chasing bigger work, or you've started noticing bids going to guys who aren't better than you, then you need something that catches people who don't know your name yet. Facebook does not do that job. It was never built to.
The middle answer, which fits most people asking this question, is a Google profile and a small website you own, and no monthly anything until you can see it working. Keep posting on Facebook the whole time. It costs nothing and it's already working for you.
Not sure which one you are, tell me your trade, your town, and how many weeks out you're booked. If the answer is that you don't need me yet, I'll say that, because a guy who isn't ready is going to cancel in month three anyway and neither of us wants that.