You Need A Website In Addition To Your Facebook Page And These Are The Top 10 Reasons Why

Written by, Julie Anne Hite, October 23, 2019

Facebook (FB) is a wonderful platform to use. I have a personal profile and a business profile on FB. I am constantly learning more about their advertising. What is confusing is the FB offerings to business owners. In my opinion, there are too many gray areas between,Pages, Groups and Events Policy, Platform Policy, Merchant Policy, Commerce Policy, etc.

If I own a business that sells products and services then I would consider this commerce. The definition of commerce is the activity embracing all forms of the purchase and sale of goods and services and social relations and exchange of opinions, attitudes, etc. If I sell to the general public I would think that I am a merchant too. There are several policies and terms and conditions, but Facebook does not define those specific audiences so I can only assume that you are to abide by all of their terms of use and policies.

Therefore, own a website, write your own policy and abide by the laws of the countries that you do business in and you will succeed. Let’s get on with the top 10 reasons:

1. You do not own your Facebook (FB) page. Facebook states that you own all the content and information, but you do not own the page and it is subject to FB TOS at all times.  When you own a website, you also own the domain, the content, the images, the data, etc. In some cases, you can own the server and the hosting service too.

 

2. Facebook can suspend or terminate your business page at any time.  FB may find your content in conflict with their terms of service (TOS).  I have a client that was deleted from FB, he sells tobacco products in his retail store and was not aware that they were not acceptable to be advertised or posted, even though he had already set up his page. This client was new to the CBD products that are new to the market and a fast-growing segment of the smoker’s demographic. His store sells CBD oils, cigarettes, pipes, vaping pens, marijuana paraphernalia, etc. He was upset that he was not allowed to post on FB about some of his products, so I designed him a website that he loves and is welcomed on many other platforms.

 

3. You may already be in violation of FB TOS. You can’t believe what FB enforces as Prohibitive Content and Restrictive Content in their Marketplace. For example, some prohibited products that you cannot market or sell on FB are vitamins, protein bars and protein powder. Some services that are prohibited to be marketed or sold on FB include: Medical, cosmetic, personal wellness services including hair styling or spa services. Also prohibited are lawn care services, electrician services, cleaning services, plumbing services, photography services, financial services, etc. For the whole list click here. It is really surprising! Just about every type of client that I want to design a website for is listed there.  When you own a website, you are free to engage in just about any type of content, market and sell your products and services that you like within the context of what is legal or not against the law. I have a really hard time trying to understand the harm in the people offering to cut your lawn or prepare your tax return or style your hair!

 

4. Fb restricts you from selling or marketing gift cards and event tickets. You are also not allowed to accept any donations. It is not clear to me if this is just in their Marketplace or on pages too. What should be most obvious to you is if you have a page on FB today that holds events and sells tickets or receives donations then you are in possible breach of some of their TOS. FB may be allowing you to market your business if you are in one of these areas even though you are in the prohibited zone. What does that mean to you? Do you think that they can delete or disapprove of you at any time?

 

5.  FB allows you limited control over negative comments. Sadly, many business owners lose a good amount of traffic and potential customers due to a few negative reviews or comments on their page. When you own your own website you can delete comments and monitor who is allowed to comment at all. FB does allow you to hide some comments, but they are still visible to the person that commented and that persons friends (gee that is a relief!).

 

6. With FB you have extremely limited database management. With your own website, you can easily import your user information into an email contact management system to build your email list for future promotions.  You can use Facebook Pixel, which is an important component to their advertising system, and I can code your pixel into your website. Pairing FB Pixel with Google Analytics you will have a good grasp on your traffic sources and how your ad dollars are working.

 

7. FB offers limited design and call to action prompts. The whole point of customer traffic is to drive your customer to make a purchase, book an appointment, request information, etc. You need a website to bring the transaction full circle or through the sales funnel. I can build you landing pages that get sales results.

 

8. FB does allow for you list your company information, but you really need a website so that I can get it indexed on Google search, Bing, Yelp, and many other local indexes. You need google analytics to understand your traffic and to be able to test and improve your advertising. A dedicated ‘Contact Us’ page on your own website will have a google map so that your customers can find you locally.

 

9. FB has a limited audience. Believe it or not, I have yet to find a person under the age of 30 that uses FB. I personally like FB and have a business page there myself, but I am also not under 30.  The exodus seems to be an attitude that older people dominate the audience. As long as that is not your age demographic then FB may be a good audience for you.

 

10. FB is only one social media platform. Last that I counted, there are approximately 65 viable and impressive platforms out there and you should be on at least 5. You can’t accomplish this with FB alone. So how do you do it? Hire me today to build and design for you a website. To create blog posts/articles, I can set you up a system that runs all on its own. You can  write your own content or use other people’s content with proper citation of the author and source.  I will teach you how to get the content, then I will schedule those posts to go out automatically to FB and other social media or media platforms. It is like you have your own PR firm right inside your website. You can’t do that with FB alone, although you can still use FB ads. I do like FB ads and can help you there too.

In closing, it is important to have a Facebook business page and to really understand all of their terms of service. It is more important to own your own website. I can easily list 20 more advantages to owning a website. Let’s get started designing your new website and along with your FB page, you will see your business grow exponentially. Contact me today by phone at 248-242-5689 or email me julie@sitesbyjah.com