With all the awesome stuff you can do on a Facebook brand page, who needs a website? Well, you do.
Facebook is a tool every marketer should possess, but it can’t be the whole tool box. There’s still great value to be had in a brand website.
I can’t find you
Search, search, search is the new location, location, location. If you can’t be found on Google, you might as well not exist.
SEO MIA: You can’t apply search engine optimization techniques to a Facebook page. SEO is still a mystical, far-off concept for a large chunk of brand managers. It’s simply the process of getting the organic – read “free” – listings on a search engine. With a real domain and website, you can apply these techniques, thus increasing your chances of search engines finding and indexing your page – and ultimately being found by customers.
So why should you care about getting Google’s attention? Depending on who you ask, there are between 300 million and 2 billion Google queries made a day. Either way, that makes Google the Great and Powerful Oz. Here’s another number for you: Google crawls 20 billion pages a day. If you’re using only Facebook and not a standalone website, you could very well not be included in that number. With upwards of 300 million looking every day, I bet you wanna be in that number.
I’ve got the power … or not
Remember when Facebook did its overhaul to the new timeline and changed everything? Did you like all the changes? Was there anything you could do about it if you didn’t?
OUT OF YOUR HANDS: You’re kidding yourself if you think a major shift won’t happen again. Facebook is an ever-evolving, social site – whether you, I or nobody likes the changes. But if your online presence is solely through Facebook, you’re at its mercy for how you present yourself to the public.
But wait, there’s more. What are you going to do if your competitor’s ad appears right next to your latest post? I’ll tell you what: Nothing. It’s not as if you’re a “customer” of Facebook and can complain about bad service. (It’s free, remember?) You’re playing in someone else’s backyard and they make the rules. That’s why you need to build your own treehouse and not let anybody else play in it.
It’s not all about you
There’s a lot vying for people’s attention on Facebook. Their friends are talking over you, meaning you don’t have their full attention. You can’t control the experience.
BRANDING: You can customize your Facebook page as much as it will allow, but you’ll still be competing with Facebook’s logo and all that blue. On your own website, sky’s the limit for the amount and type of information you provide and the overall feel you want to portray.
What’s in a name? Pretty much everything. Don’t underestimate the power of branding a domain. Sure you can say your website is www.facebook.com/myawesomebusiness, but that’s risky because A) Heaven forbid you print that address on marketing material and then lose it and B) you’re still competing with Facebook for name recognition. Now, www.myawesomebusiness.com is yours forever. As long as you pay the bill, of course. There’s no fear it’ll go extinct and it’s all about you.
A final thought
It may sound like I’m hating on Facebook, but I’m really not. Facebook is an amazing tool for growing your brand, but its true power lies in its ability to complement your standalone web presence.
Thanks for reading,
