Do I need a website if I already have Instagram?
A fair question, because the feed is free and it works. Here is the honest split between what Instagram covers and what it quietly misses, whatever kind of business you run.
The short answer: for most local businesses, yes, a small one. Instagram reaches your followers and whoever the algorithm shows you to. Google reaches everyone else: 72 percent of people look businesses up there, 46 percent of all Google searches have local intent, and your posts are invisible to those searches. A one page website with your services, prices, hours and contact catches the half of your customers who search instead of scroll.
What Instagram genuinely covers
Discovery and trust. Your work lands in front of people who never asked for it, which no website does, and a feed with recent posts proves the business is alive and run by real people. Among 18 to 24 year olds, 67 percent use Instagram to look up local businesses. If your customers skew young, the feed is doing serious work, and nothing here says post less.
The three gaps, whatever business you run
Google cannot read your posts. Someone types what you do plus your city, and three years of good posts contribute nothing to that search. The businesses with actual pages get the click, and 76 percent of people check a business online before visiting in person.
Prices live in your DMs. Every “how much for…” message is a customer doing work they did not want to do. Some send it. Most just pick the business whose price was already on a page.
The account is not yours the way a website is. Locked out, hacked, or flagged by mistake, and your whole presence is gone while you argue with a support form. A website you own keeps standing, which is a bigger deal than it sounds the day it matters. We wrote about what owning your presence means in do you own your website.
What the small website needs
Less than you think. Services with prices, hours, address, one contact or booking button, a few of your best photos, and a link to your Instagram. The site catches the search and answers the price question; the feed shows the work and the person. They feed each other, and the whole thing is one page for most businesses on day one.
If you run a salon or do hair, we wrote a version of this for you specifically, including the booking tool question.
What it costs
With us: $499 one time for the website, $699 with a photoshoot at your business, $999 with video. No monthly fees, live in about a week, and the domain, the site and the photos are yours. Websites anywhere in Canada; shoots across Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, Langley and Abbotsford. Full numbers in the price guide.
Common questions
Busy on Instagram is invisible on Google. 72 percent of people search there, and posts do not rank. A small site catches them.
No. The feed does discovery and personality. The site does search, prices and hours. Keep both.
Services with prices, hours, address, one contact button, best photos, and a link to your Instagram.
A link list is better than nothing, but it is not a page Google can rank for what you do in your city, and it still answers no price questions.
$499 one time, $699 with photos, $999 with video. No monthly fees, and you own it.
Sources
- BrightLocal, local SEO statistics: platform use by age
- Backlinko, local search statistics
- Visual Objects survey: 76% check online presence before visiting
Keep reading: the salon version of this question · what a website costs in Vancouver
Feed full, Google empty?
Book a 15 minute call. A one page site that catches the searchers, live in about a week.
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