Tradie website vs Facebook page — why it matters
A Facebook page feels like enough when you are starting out. You can post photos of your work, collect a few reviews, and share your phone number. People can message you. It is free. For a sole trader trying to keep costs down, it seems like a reasonable substitute for a website.
The problem is that a Facebook page does not work the way most tradies think it does.
Facebook controls who sees your posts. Organic reach for business pages has declined steadily for years and now sits around 2 to 5 percent of your followers. That means if you have 500 followers, somewhere between 10 and 25 of them will see any given post. The rest will never know you published it unless you pay to boost it.
Your Facebook page also does not show up reliably in Google search. When someone searches "plumber near me" or "electrician in Joondalup," Google is not pulling up Facebook business pages. It is showing websites, Google Business Profiles, and map results. If you do not have a website, you are invisible in the place where most people start looking for a tradie.
And you do not own your Facebook page. Facebook can change its algorithm, restrict your reach, suspend your account, or shut down features at any time. Businesses have lost years of content and customer connections overnight because of platform policy changes they had no control over. Your website is yours. No one can take it away or throttle your visibility on it.
Where your customers are actually looking
When someone has a blocked drain at 7pm on a Tuesday, they do not open Facebook and scroll through their feed hoping a plumber shows up. They open Google and search for one.
Google processes billions of searches every day. The majority of local service searches happen on Google, and the results page is dominated by three things: paid ads, the local map pack, and organic website listings. A Facebook page does not appear in any of these positions in a meaningful way.
The customer journey for trades typically follows a pattern. The person has a problem. They search Google for a solution. They look at the top few results. They check the business's website to see if it looks professional and trustworthy. They call or submit a form.
If you do not have a website, you fall out of that journey entirely. The customer never finds you because you are not where they are looking. They find your competitor instead, the one whose website showed up when they searched.
This applies to every trade. Plumbers, electricians, painters, landscapers, roofers, cleaners, builders. The search volume for trade services on Google dwarfs the reach of any Facebook page. If your only online presence is social media, you are competing for a fraction of the available demand.
What a website does that Facebook cannot
A website gives you capabilities that no social media platform can match.
You rank in Google search
A properly built website with local SEO can rank in Google for the searches your customers are making. "Emergency plumber Perth," "electrician Fremantle," "house painter near me." These are high-intent searches from people who need your service right now and are ready to hire. A website is how you get in front of them.
You control the experience
On Facebook, your business page sits inside Facebook's interface, surrounded by notifications, ads, and other distractions. On your website, the visitor's attention is entirely on your business. You control the layout, the messaging, the photos, and the path to contact. There is nothing competing for their attention.
You look professional and trustworthy
A well-designed website signals that your business is established, professional, and worth trusting. Customers compare options quickly and a business with a clean, fast website will always beat one with only a Facebook page. This is especially true for higher-value jobs where the customer is spending thousands of dollars and wants confidence they are hiring someone legitimate.
You capture leads directly
A website can have a contact form, a click-to-call button, a booking system, and a quote request form. These are purpose-built conversion tools that make it easy for customers to reach you. On Facebook, the best you can do is a message button, which many people avoid because they do not want to use Messenger for business enquiries.
You build long-term value
Every page on your website, every blog post, every project photo with a description contributes to your search visibility over time. A website compounds in value. A Facebook post from three months ago is buried in your feed and generating zero traffic. A web page from three months ago can still be ranking in Google and bringing in enquiries every week.
A Facebook page rents you attention. A website builds you an asset. One stops working when you stop paying. The other keeps generating leads for years.
The numbers behind trades websites
The return on investment for a trades website is straightforward to calculate.
A typical tradie website costs between $3,000 and $8,000 to build properly. A single job for most trades is worth $500 to $5,000 or more. That means the website pays for itself with one to three jobs that came through it.
Consider the maths for a plumbing business. If your website generates just five enquiries per month and you convert two of them into jobs averaging $800 each, that is $1,600 per month in revenue directly attributable to your website. Over a year, that is $19,200 from an investment of a few thousand dollars.
Now compare that to Facebook advertising. To get meaningful reach on Facebook, you need to spend on ads. A reasonable monthly ad budget for a local trades business is $500 to $1,500. That gets you visibility while you are paying for it, but the moment you stop spending, the leads stop. There is no compounding value.
A website with good local SEO generates leads organically. The traffic grows over time as your pages rank for more searches. After the initial investment, your ongoing costs are hosting and occasional updates, typically under $50 per month.
What makes a good tradie website
You do not need a complex website. Trades websites work best when they are simple, fast, and focused on getting the phone to ring.
A clear homepage. State what you do, where you serve, and how to contact you. No clever taglines. Just "Licensed Plumber in Perth — Available 24/7" with a phone number and a contact form.
A services page. List every service you offer with a brief description of each. This helps Google understand what searches to show you for and helps customers confirm you do what they need.
A project gallery. Before and after photos, completed jobs, anything that shows the quality of your work. Tradies often underestimate how much customers care about seeing real examples. A photo of a clean bathroom renovation or a neatly wired switchboard does more than any paragraph of text.
Reviews and testimonials. Display your Google reviews on your site. Social proof is the single strongest trust signal for local service businesses. If you have good reviews, put them where every visitor can see them.
Contact on every page. Your phone number and a contact form should be accessible from every page on the site. A sticky click-to-call button on mobile is particularly important for trades because most of your customers are searching from their phone.
Local SEO foundations. Your business name, address, and service areas should be clearly stated. Each suburb or area you serve can be mentioned. This helps Google connect your website to local searches in those areas. Pair your website with a properly set up Google Business Profile and you cover both the organic results and the map pack.
Common objections and why they do not hold up
"I get all my work from word of mouth." That is great, but even word-of-mouth referrals Google your business before they call. If they search your name and find nothing, or just a Facebook page with outdated posts, some of them will hesitate. A website confirms the recommendation and makes it easy to get in touch.
"I'm too busy already, I don't need more work." If you are fully booked, a website lets you attract better work, not just more of it. You can position for higher-value jobs, be selective about what you take on, and build a pipeline for quieter periods. Every tradie has slow months. A website keeps leads coming in when referrals dry up.
"Websites are too expensive." A basic trades website that ranks locally and generates leads does not have to cost $20,000. Purpose-built packages for tradies start from a few thousand dollars and pay for themselves quickly. The question is not whether you can afford a website. It is whether you can afford to keep losing jobs to competitors who have one.
"I wouldn't know what to put on it." That is what a good web designer handles for you. You provide your services, service areas, photos, and reviews. The designer turns that into a site that ranks and converts. Most trades websites follow a proven structure that works. You do not need to be a writer or a marketer.
"My Facebook page has hundreds of reviews." Those reviews are valuable, but they are locked inside Facebook. Google does not use Facebook reviews in its ranking algorithm. Your Google reviews are what matter for search visibility. A website gives you a place to showcase both, while your Google Business Profile builds the review signals that help you rank.
Facebook still has a role
This is not about deleting your Facebook page. Facebook is still useful for staying in touch with past customers, sharing project photos, and building community. It works well as a supporting channel.
The mistake is treating it as your primary online presence. Facebook is a social platform. Your website is your business's home on the internet. One supports the other, but they are not interchangeable.
The strongest approach is to have both, with your website as the foundation. Your Facebook page links to your website. Your Google Business Profile links to your website. Your directory listings link to your website. Everything points back to the asset you own and control.
What to do next
If you are a tradie running your business off a Facebook page, the single highest-return investment you can make in your marketing is a proper website with local SEO.
It does not need to be complicated. A clean, fast, mobile-friendly site that ranks for your trade and location will generate more consistent leads than any amount of Facebook posting. And unlike social media, it keeps working for you year after year.
We build websites specifically for trades and service businesses. Every site includes local SEO, lead capture, click-to-call, and mobile-first design. If you want to see what a website could look like for your business, get a free mockup and we will put something together for you.