But why would I need a Website when I have Facebook anyway?

The topic of this blog is actually a question that comes up quite often when discussing the idea of Designing a Website with Small Business owners, and frankly it's a valid question.  Websites cost more to create, they take more time to maintain and they may not have the same social network viral sharing quality that Facebook has, but there are also some very valid reasons as to why it's a wise move to have both a dedicated Website AND Facebook.

First there is content.  Content is the energy that powers an effective website, but there are times that content can actually risk knocking your entire Facebook page offline and in accessible to your Customers.  For this lets use a Comic Book Shop as an example. 

Lets say our shop has a practice of scanning in the covers of each week's new releases and uploads them to their Facebook page, and we happen to get a controversial cover released for an issue.  If that cover either violates the Facebook Terms of Service or gets enough complaints about being offending, it's quite possible for Facebook to remove the post, suspend the account or even delete the account over all.

Now, if that same edition's cover is on the Shop's stand alone Website, any complaints about it are going to be addressed to the Shop's ownership, who can handle each one personally and deal with their own policy on what is posted on their Webspace.

The next detail that a Business Owner needs to take into account is that Facebook, like all Businesses, is in the business of making a profit. This is done through allowing Businesses to purchase promotion for their Facebook posts.  This causes a two tier post system called Organic and Inorganic Reach.  

Organic Reach is your post's reach just on it's own, and is simply the number of screens your post crosses and is seen in the timelines of without it benefitting from Paid Promotional Status. Inorganic, of course then means the number of people who have seen your post as a "Sponsored Post" or side bar ad.

There has been some problems with this method of promoting one's page, as the video, Titled Facebook Fraud,  linked below goes into detail about

Youtube: Facebook Fraud

Taking all this into account, a Small Business Owner needs to also remember that not everyone has, or wants a Facebook page, but they may still use computers to research out a purchase before hand.   Having a dedicated Website, properly formatted to return results based off location (Done through the use of Meta Data in the HTML Code of the Website) can produce a Site that returns high results in the Google and Bing rankings, without having a person needing to access the Facebook platform first.

I hope this brings some insight into the question of "Why Do I need a Website when I have Facebook?"