Do I need a website if I already have Instagram?

Reach you could not buy. A stranger discovers you because the algorithm decided to show them a video. No website does that. Anyone who tells you a website replaces social reach is selling you something.

Proof. Comments, followers, tagged photos — social evidence that you exist and people like you. A website can display testimonials, but it cannot manufacture the same credibility.

Speed. You can post in a minute from your phone.

Everything above is on loan, and the terms can change without notice.

The account is not yours. Accounts get suspended by automated systems, for reasons that are often wrong, with no meaningful appeal. It is not common. It is also not rare, and when it happens the business is simply gone that afternoon.

The audience is not yours. You cannot export your followers. You cannot email them. If you move platforms, you start from zero. A mailing list of 300 people you own is worth more than 10,000 followers you rent, because you can actually reach all 300.

The reach is not yours. Organic reach on every major platform has fallen year over year, deliberately. What reached 30% of your followers a few years ago now reaches a small single-digit percentage unless you pay.

You cannot be found on purpose. Someone searching "emergency plumber" at 2am is on Google, not scrolling. Social is discovery by accident; search is discovery on purpose, by someone who has already decided to buy.

Social media is where people find you. A website is where people who are ready to buy come to check you are real.

It shows up in search. Someone typing what you sell, plus your town, into Google. That person has intent. Instagram will not put you in front of them.

It handles the transaction. Bookings, payments, quotes, availability — a DM thread is a workable ordering system until you have more than a handful a week, at which point it becomes a job. Every message you answer manually is time you could bill for.

It survives. Domains and websites do not get suspended by an algorithm. Ten years of posts can vanish. A site you own does not.

Skip the website, for now, if:

• You are testing whether the business works at all. Prove demand first.
• Your entire trade is walk-in or word of mouth, and nobody searches for what you do.
• You genuinely have no budget. A bad website is worse than none — a slow, ugly, out-of-date site actively costs you credibility. Do it properly or wait.
• You sell exclusively through a marketplace that already handles discovery and payment, and you are happy with that arrangement.

In every one of those cases, do one thing anyway: buy the domain name. It costs about the price of a coffee per year and it stops someone else having your name when you are ready.

You do not have to choose between nothing and a full site. In rough order of what they return:

1. A domain, pointed at a single page with who you are, what you sell, where you are, how to reach you, and a link to your socials. An hour of work.
2. A Google Business Profile, filled in properly with hours, photos and posts. Free, and often the single highest-return thing a local business can do. It is what appears in the map results.
3. A way to collect email addresses. Even a simple form. This is how you start owning an audience instead of renting one.
4. The real site, when the volume of manual messages starts costing you more than the site would.

Most businesses that ask me this question need steps one to three, and would be wasting money on step four this year. That is a fine answer, and it is usually the true one.