A Facebook Business Page Isn’t Enough

Last week we talked about the importance of a website for small business. In addition to the competitive edge a website can provide we also looked at several other benefits.

I suspect many readers thought – “I have a Facebook business page, I’m all covered.”. That’s what we are looking at this week. A Facebook Business Page is definitely a tool in the arsenal of the Internet marketer, but it shouldn’t be the only tool.

Let’s look at reasons your small business shouldn’t substitute a Facebook Business Page in the place of a website.

Ownership

When you utilize the Facebook Business Page system, you are agreeing to Facebook terms and conditions. This is entirely fair and they do provide a valuable service to businesses. A small business owner should be aware of this and take it into account as they plan their Internet marketing strategy.

While today the terms may suit you just fine, a future update or change at Facebook could negatively impact how your business uses Facebook. What will you do while you adjust to the new terms and conditions? If Facebook isn’t your primary Internet presence, you can adapt as necessary with less impact on you. If Facebook is your primary presence though, you might have to scurry a little more to adapt.

Control

You are not truly in control with a Facebook Page. Facebook provides a framework for businesses to work within. This makes page setup easy, but has downsides.

The options within the framework are fairly limited, with only minor modifications available. This leads to Facebook Business Pages all having a very similar look and feel. This makes it much more difficult to stand-out from your competition.

The Facebook framework does not cater to you wanting to highlight a key component of your business.

For example, perhaps you want to highlight your commitment to service with a story. Where are you putting that on the Facebook Business Page?

To highlight that service commitment you’ll need a text area. Maybe the Long Description field is one possible location. But, we’re already feeling a little limited – does the Long Description title really match what I want to highlight? We’ll go with that anyways.

Now we have our Long Description content all polished and up on the page. A potential customer lands on our main Page. Wait – the content I want to highlight is at least another click away.

You’re edge is your commitment to service, but it is difficult to present that up front on a Facebook page.

Branding

Branding is important to a company. A successful brand will resonate with your customer and gain your business a loyal following. When leveraging Facebook Business Pages as your only presence, your ability to fully brand the page is very limited. You will always be competing with Facebook’s larger brand presence.

With a website for your company, you can reinforce your branding to customers. You easily utilize your brand’s colors consistently on your website. You also have full control to make sure the content on the website promotes your brand.

Search Implications

A business limits their organic search options when only using a Facebook page. If your company name is the search term (or contains the search term), then your Facebook page will generally rank reasonably high in the search results.

What about new customers who are looking for companies that perform the service you do? But they aren’t searching on your company name – they are using more general terms. It is much harder to rank well with organic search terms with just a Facebook page. There is very little room to tweak things to improve those results.

With a dedicated website you have many more options to utilize search engine optimization techniques. These techniques can rank you higher in organic search results and in return, bring more new customers to you.

Wrap Up

There are several advantages to having a small business website and not relying solely on a Facebook Business Page. The element of control and flexibility obtained by your own website will help give you an edge over your competitors. An edge that can generate more revenue for your business.

Facebook is an important tool in the Internet Marketing toolbox and your business does need an active presence there. Just don’t let it be your only presence.