If Instagram is bringing you customers, spending money on a website can feel unnecessary. Sometimes it is. Here is how to tell whether you are in one of the situations where it genuinely is not.
You have got an Instagram that works. People find you, message you, book with you. So why spend money on a website?
It is a fair question, and the answer is not simply "because everyone has one". Around a quarter to a third of UK small businesses still do not have a website, and plenty of them are doing perfectly well.1
But there are a few specific situations where not having one quietly costs you, and it is worth knowing whether you are in one of them.
This is the one people underestimate until it happens to them.
Your Instagram account is not yours. You are borrowing space on someone else's platform, under rules they can change without asking you. Accounts get restricted. Algorithms shift and reach drops overnight. Handles get impersonated.
If your entire business runs through one account and something goes wrong with it, you have no way of reaching your own customers.
A website is the one part of your online presence you actually own.
Here is the bit that surprises people. Someone searching Google for aesthetics clinic near me or brand designer London will almost never end up on your Instagram page.
Social platforms are not built to show up in search results the way websites are. So if people are looking for what you do without knowing your name yet, and you have no website, you are simply not in that race.
Around 81% of shoppers research online before buying, and a big chunk of that research starts in a search engine.2 Your Instagram serves people who already know about you. A website reaches the people who do not.
Open Google and search for what you do plus your area, the way a stranger would. Not your business name, the service. Are you anywhere? If not, that is the gap a website fills.
Fair or not, having a website reads as being an established business. Not having one leaves a small question mark, especially for anything involving money upfront or a booking.
Research suggests that using social media in place of a website tends to weaken credibility and limits how well you can generate leads.3 It is not that people distrust your Instagram. It is that they expect there to be somewhere else to go and check.
This matters more the higher your prices are. Someone booking a £20 service will not look. Someone booking a £500 one will.
This is not really an either-or. Small businesses with both a website and social media presence bring in significantly more revenue than those with social media alone.4
The way we think about it is simple. Social media is how people meet you. Your website is where they decide.
Instagram is brilliant at showing personality, work in progress, proof that you are real and active. It is poor at holding detailed information, at being searchable, and at guiding someone calmly towards booking without a dozen distractions in the way.
Ask each one to do the job it is actually good at.
We would rather tell you the truth than sell you a website you do not need. You can reasonably wait if:
All your work comes from referrals. If you are not trying to be found by strangers, search visibility matters much less.
You trade on footfall. A stall or a shop where people walk past daily is a different situation entirely.
You are still testing the idea. If you are not sure this is a long-term thing yet, a Google Business Profile and an active Instagram will hold you for now.5
If you are in one of those, put the money elsewhere for now. Just revisit it when you start wanting people who have never heard of you to find you.
Getting a website is not the same as getting a useful website. A lot of small business sites quietly fail because they load slowly, do not work properly on a phone, or never say clearly what to do next.
Most of your visitors will be on a phone. If it takes more than about three seconds to load, a big share of them leave before they see anything at all.
So if you do build one, the order of priorities is: fast, works on mobile, obvious what to do next. Everything else is decoration.
Open your own site on your phone, on mobile data rather than wifi. Count how long it takes. Then ask someone who has never seen it to find your prices and book something, without helping them. Watch where they get stuck.
If Instagram is bringing you all the work you can handle and you are not trying to grow, you do not urgently need a website. Keep doing what works.
If you want to be found by people who have never heard of you, if you are raising your prices, or if the thought of losing your account is frightening rather than annoying, that is when it starts to matter.
"Social media is how people meet you. Your website is where they decide."
You do not need a website to have a business. You need one to be found by people who do not know your name, to look established to people deciding whether to trust you, and to own something that cannot be taken away by a platform.
If none of those three matter to you right now, save your money. If any of them do, that is your answer.
If Instagram is your main channel, it is worth checking whether it is actually converting and what managing it properly costs.
Book a free thirty minute call. We will look at what you have got and tell you honestly what we would change. No pitch, no obligation.