What social media does really well
Instagram and Facebook are brilliant at showing what's new. A salon can post today's balayage, a restaurant tonight's special, a builder a finished bathroom. Followers see you regularly, which keeps you in mind, and it costs nothing but time.
Social pages also make it easy for people to message you, tag you and share your posts with friends. For a business that relies on regulars and word of mouth in one town, that can carry a lot of weight.
Where social pages fall short
Feeds are built for scrolling, not finding. If a customer wants your bridal package price, they may have to dig through months of posts, or message you and wait. Pinned posts and highlights help, but they're still squeezed into the platform's layout.
Some people simply aren't on Instagram, or won't log in to look around. Older customers, businesses looking for a supplier and visitors who use different apps at home can all find a social-only presence harder to use.
You don't own your social accounts
This is the point many owners only think about after something goes wrong. Your page lives on someone else's platform, under their rules. If the account is hacked, reported by mistake or locked, the followers you built up may be out of reach until it's sorted, and sometimes for good.
Changes to how feeds work can also mean fewer of your own followers see your posts. A website on a domain registered in your name stays put whatever happens to an app. It's a home base you control.
How Google fits in
When someone searches "tiler in Mosta" or "birthday cakes Gozo", Google looks for pages that clearly answer that. A website with a page for each main service, written in plain words with your area mentioned, gives Google something solid to show.
Social posts can appear in search too, but less reliably, and a caption written for followers rarely matches what a stranger types. Together with a Google Business Profile, a simple website gives you a much better chance of being found by people who don't follow you yet.
An honest comparison
- Cost: social pages are free; a website has a setup cost and a yearly fee for domain and hosting.
- Effort: social media needs regular posting; a small website needs updating mainly when prices or hours change.
- Finding information: a website lays out prices and services clearly; a feed shows the latest posts first.
- Reach: social media reaches followers; a website helps you reach people searching on Google.
- Control: you can lose access to a social account; a domain in your name stays yours while you renew it.
Make them work together
You don't have to pick one. Let social media do the showing and the website do the explaining. Put your website link in your Instagram bio and Facebook page, and add your social icons to the website so people can see your latest work.
When you post about a new service, link to the page that explains it in full. When you answer the same question in your DMs for the tenth time, send the link to the website page instead. Over time, each one sends people to the other.
If you decide a website makes sense
Start small. A few pages with what you do, your prices and how to contact you will cover most of what customers need. Boost builds a [small business website] of up to 3 pages(/small-business-website-malta/) for €150 once, with WhatsApp and Google Maps buttons and a domain in your name. When you're ready, start with our brief, and we reply within 1 working day.