Many small businesses start on Facebook or Instagram, and some never go further. A page is quick and free, and many of your customers are already there. A website does other jobs: it’s found on Google, it answers questions at any hour, and it’s yours. Here’s what each does well, and why most businesses do best with both.
By the NeuWP team · Updated 22 October 2026 · 6 minute read
the short answer:
the page: brings people
the site: answers them
Google, Maps: the site helps
bookings: the site
yours to keep: the site
most need: both
first
What each does well
They’re good at different things.
In short: a page is for news, photos and talking with the people who already know you. A website is for the people who don’t yet, and for the facts that should stay put.
In Bulgaria, Meta’s ad tools could reach 3.6 million people on Facebook at the end of 2025, about 54% of the population, and 1.95 million on Instagram, DataReportal says. Meta adds that such figures aren’t the number of people who use it every month. Either way, many of your customers are there.
The job
A Facebook or Instagram page
A website
News, photos, this week’s offer
Its strength
Possible, slower to post
Talking with regulars, and their comments
Its strength
Only if you add it
Found on Google by people who don’t know you
Sometimes
Its strength, with a Google Business Profile
Prices, a menu, opening hours, how to find you
Lost down the feed
Always in the same place
Bookings, enquiries, orders
Messages
Forms, bookings and a shop
Who sets the rules
Meta
You
If the account is locked
All of it out of reach
The site stays
To start
Free
A domain, hosting and the build
rented space
What you don’t own on a platform
The page is yours to use. The place it lives in isn’t.
In short: a platform decides who sees your posts, what you may post, and whether your account stays open. Use it fully, and keep an address of your own.
1Who sees your posts
Facebook’s own systems decide what appears in each person’s feed. Meta describes how: it gathers posts from the friends and pages a person follows, scores each one by signals such as who posted it and how the person has reacted before, and shows them in order of their score. So your followers don’t see everything you post, and how it works is Meta’s to change.
2What you may post and sell
Meta’s terms and policies set the rules, for posts, ads and selling, and Meta can change them.
3Whether the account stays open
Meta’s terms say that where it decides, at its discretion, that someone has clearly, seriously or repeatedly broken its terms or policies, it may suspend or permanently disable their access. If that happens to your account, or someone breaks into it, your page, its followers and its messages are out of reach until you get it back.
4Your address
On a platform your address is the platform’s, with your name after it. A domain of your own stays yours wherever your site is hosted, and your email can use it too.
being found
Google Search and Maps
Where people look when they don’t know your name yet.
In short: set up a free Google Business Profile whatever else you do, and give it a website to point to.
A Google Business Profile puts your business on Google Search and Maps, free, and links to your website, your social profiles and your bookings. It’s worth having with a page, a website or both.
Google says its local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that prominence takes in how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have.
A search that doesn’t name you, such as “physiotherapist for back pain in Plovdiv”, is answered by pages about exactly that. A feed says what happened this week. A website’s pages say what you do, for whom, what it costs and where you are, and they stay where they are.
when people want to come
Bookings and enquiries
Answering someone at eleven at night, without you.
In short: messages are fine for a quick question. A booking, an order or a detailed enquiry is easier on a site that asks the right questions itself.
Messages are quick and personal, and they wait until somebody answers.
A booking on your site can show the free times, take the details and send a confirmation, while you’re asleep.
A form can ask what you need before you call back: the date, the number of people, the photos of the job.
The facts people ask about most, such as prices, opening hours, the menu and where to park, can be read on the site without asking at all.
In Germany, a business’s Facebook or Instagram page needs an Impressum too. Our guide to the Impressum, privacy and cookies says what.
money and time
What each costs
Free to start is not the same as free.
A page costs nothing to make. Reaching people beyond those who already follow you usually means paying for ads.
A website costs a domain and hosting every year, the build, and someone to keep it updated. Our guide to what a small business website costs has the prices in Denmark, Germany and Bulgaria.
Your time goes into both. A page wants new posts to stay alive. A website wants its facts kept right, and is quiet the rest of the time.
the answer
Why most businesses need both
The page brings people, and the site answers them.
In short: post where your customers are, and send them somewhere that’s yours for the details and the booking.
Link your website from your page, your profile’s bio and your Google Business Profile.
Link your page and your profile from your website.
Use the same name, address, phone number and opening hours everywhere.
When you post an offer or a new menu, link to its page on your site, where it can be found later.
Keep prices, hours and how to book on the site, and say them in posts as well.
Ask happy customers for a review on Google as well as on Facebook.
our side
What we do
The website half, built around what you already have.
If you have a website, type its address and see a free new version of it in about ten minutes. If you only have a page, or nothing yet, tell us about your business and we design a home page from your words.
If you like it, people build the whole site on WordPress, hosted in the EU. It’s yours to keep, and never locked to us. Your Facebook and Instagram stay yours, just as they are.
