Facebook Page vs Website: Which Is Better for a Local Trades Business?
Facebook has been quietly convincing a generation of Irish tradespeople that a Facebook page is enough of an online presence. It’s free. It’s familiar. You can post photos of jobs, respond to messages, get recommendations in local groups. It does something.
The problem is what it doesn’t do. And what it doesn’t do is increasingly the thing that determines whether new customers find you or don’t.
What Facebook is actually good for
To be fair to it: Facebook is genuinely useful for certain things in a trades business.
Local community groups (the Dundalk Noticeboard, the Drogheda Buy & Sell) are active and real. Recommendations happen there, and a business with an active Facebook presence that gets tagged in those recommendations benefits. If someone posts “anyone know a good roofer?” and your previous customers tag you, that has value.
For warm leads, people who’ve been pointed in your direction by someone they trust, your Facebook page provides reassurance. They can see recent jobs, read comments, send a quick message. It does conversion work for leads that are already half-way there.
Facebook can also work for certain types of advertising. Targeted local ads on Facebook and Instagram can be cost-effective for reaching homeowners in a specific area, promoting a seasonal service, or running a time-limited offer.
So Facebook is not useless. It has a legitimate role.
What Facebook is bad at
Facebook is not a search engine. When someone opens Google and types “electrician Navan”, your Facebook page will almost never appear in those results. The people who do searches like that, which is most new customers, will not find you through Facebook.
This is the fundamental problem. The highest-value customer behaviour, actively searching for a trade in a specific location, right now, ready to hire, happens on Google. Facebook doesn’t capture that behaviour.
Facebook engagement also has a short shelf life. A photo of a job you posted two weeks ago has already been seen by the people who were going to see it. Your page is not accumulating value the way a well-optimised website does. A website page about “bathroom installation in Dundalk” keeps working for you indefinitely, appearing in searches for months and years after you wrote it.
The ownership problem you probably haven’t thought about
Here is the issue that doesn’t get talked about enough: you don’t own your Facebook page.
Meta (Facebook’s parent company) owns it. They set the rules. They can change the algorithm at any time, meaning content you paid to create reaches fewer of your followers. They can suspend your page if they believe you’ve violated a policy, even if you haven’t and even if the decision is later reversed. It has happened to perfectly legitimate businesses.
Every follower you’ve accumulated, every review left on your Facebook page, every message conversation. None of it belongs to you. If Facebook shut down tomorrow (unlikely, but once unthinkable), it would all be gone.
Your website, on your domain, with your content. That’s yours. It doesn’t disappear when a platform changes its rules. It builds value that compounds over time and belongs entirely to your business.
What a website does that Facebook can’t
Four things that matter for a local trades business:
Google ranking. A well-built website with good local SEO is how you appear in map pack results and organic search for local queries. Facebook provides almost no help with this.
Credibility with higher-value customers. Larger residential projects, commercial work, property management companies. These clients do more due diligence before hiring. They want a proper website, a clear service list, evidence of past work, and a way to contact you professionally. A Facebook page doesn’t clear that bar.
Searchable, permanent content. Blog posts, service pages, location pages. These accumulate over time and continue to generate traffic long after they’re created. Your Facebook posts are forgotten within days.
Lead capture at any hour. A contact form on your website captures enquiries at 11pm on a Sunday. Facebook Messenger does too, technically, but customers are less likely to send a formal enquiry through Messenger and more likely to send a message that gets buried in your inbox.
How they work together
The right answer isn’t to abandon Facebook. It’s to understand which job each platform does.
Facebook: community presence, recommendations, social proof for warm leads, seasonal promotions.
Website: Google ranking, new customer acquisition, credibility, lead capture, permanent showcase of your work.
The website is the foundation. Facebook is a supplement. If you have to choose where to invest time and money, and most tradespeople do have to choose, the website and Google Business Profile will generate more tangible return for a local trades business than any amount of Facebook activity.
The minimum you actually need
Website: a clean, mobile-optimised site covering your services, your areas, photos of your work, customer testimonials, and a prominent phone number and contact form.
Google Business Profile: fully completed, with photos, services, and regular reviews coming in.
Facebook: an active page you update a few times a month with photos of completed work.
In that priority order. The website and GBP first. Facebook as a secondary presence that supports the primary channels.
Not sure where to start with your online presence?
Our Digital for Trades service gives you the foundations that actually generate enquiries (website, GBP, and local SEO) for a flat monthly fee with no setup cost.
Book a free 30-minute call. We’ll audit your current presence and tell you what will make the most difference.
Or read next: How to Get Your Trades Business to the Top of Google in Ireland