Short version: yes, but not to replace Instagram. Instagram is where people who already follow you see your work. A website is where everyone else finds you, checks you’re real, and works out how to book.
Plenty of good Island businesses run on Instagram alone, and for a while it works. The work looks great in the grid, regulars see the posts, and the messages keep coming. The gap only shows up when you think about who never makes it to your messages in the first place.
What Instagram does well
Instagram is the best tool there is for showing work to people who already know you. A new cake, a finished deck, this week’s specials. It’s fast, it’s free, and it’s where your regulars already are.
Daves’ Bakery in Campbell River uses it properly. Dave posts the daily soups and specials on Instagram and Facebook, because those change every morning and a feed is the right place for them. Everything that doesn’t change every morning, like the bread schedule, the counter prices and the story of the bakery, lives on their website.
What it can’t do
Show up when someone searches. When someone on Salt Spring types “excavator near me” or “facial Victoria” into Google, the results are Google Business Profiles and websites. An Instagram profile rarely makes it onto that page, however good the photos are.
Answer the boring questions. Prices, hours, where you are, what’s included, how to book. A grid of photos is a bad place for any of that, so people have to message you and wait, and a lot of them won’t.
Let people look without an account. Instagram asks visitors to log in before they can scroll very far. The customer who isn’t on Instagram, or won’t make an account just to see your prices, leaves.
Belong to you. Your followers live on Instagram’s servers, under Instagram’s rules. If the account gets locked or the algorithm changes, there’s nothing you can take with you. A website, a domain and an email list are things you own. Suzanne Gay, a musician on Salt Spring, has a “Stay in touch” box on her site that feeds her own mailing list, so the people who want to hear about her shows are hers to reach.
What a site for an Instagram business looks like
Not a lot. Most businesses that live on Instagram need one good page, not ten:
- What you do, in plain words, with your best photos
- Prices, or at least where they start
- Hours, location and the area you serve
- One clear way to book or get in touch
- A link to your Instagram, so the two work together
That’s a landing page, and it’s the smallest thing I build. It’s $750, and it comes with a dashboard so you can change your prices and photos yourself without calling anyone.
The site doesn’t need to keep up with your feed. That’s the point. Instagram handles today, and the website handles everything that’s true every day.
When you can skip it
If you’re booked solid from referrals and Instagram and you don’t want more work, a website won’t fix a problem you don’t have. Plenty of Island trades are in exactly that spot, and good for them.
The time to build one is when you want customers who don’t already know you: people new to the area, people searching on Google, people who asked a friend and then looked you up. Those people check for a website before they call. If they find a login screen instead, they call the next result.
Where to start
If you’re on Instagram and wondering whether a site is worth it, send me your handle. I’ll build you a free preview of your homepage from what’s already on your profile, so you can see the two side by side before deciding anything.
If you’d rather compare options first, here’s how Squarespace stacks up against a custom build, and what websites cost around Victoria.