Does your business need a website, or are WhatsApp and social media enough?

Social media works (up to a point)

Many businesses sell only through WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, and they do well. It makes sense: it’s free, your customers are already there every day and you can start today. Nobody should pay for a website just because “you have to have one”.

The useful question isn’t whether you need a website, but at what point social media starts to fall short of what you want to achieve.

When WhatsApp and social media are enough

You probably don’t need a website yet if:

• You sell a few products or services and they rarely change.
• Your customers already know you or come through recommendations.
• You can answer all the day’s messages yourself.
• You don’t mind whether someone who doesn’t know you can find you by searching on Google.

In that case, make the most of what you already have. Switch to WhatsApp Business, which is free: it lets you show a catalogue with photos and prices, set up automatic welcome and out-of-hours messages, save quick replies and label each customer according to where their order is.

Signs that it’s falling short

• You answer the same questions twenty times a day. Price, opening hours, where you are, whether you deliver. Each of those answers is time you’re not spending on selling.
• People look for you and can’t find you. Someone types what you sell and your city into Google, and other businesses come up.
• Companies or institutions ask for more. To work as a supplier, bid for a contract or simply inspire confidence, a website and an email address with your own name (info@yourbusiness.com) carry far more weight than a phone number.
• Your catalogue gets lost among posts. If you have many products or they change often, on social media they sink beneath newer posts and nobody sees them again.
• You depend on something you don’t control. If your account gets blocked or the platform changes its rules, you lose your shop window and your contacts in one go.
• You want to take orders or bookings while you sleep. Social media doesn’t take orders by itself; a website with a form or a store does.

What your own website brings

• People find you on Google when they search for what you sell near them.
• An address that belongs to you: your own domain and your own email, which don’t depend on any social network.
• All the information organised in one place: what you sell, prices, opening hours, location with a map and how to order.
• Credibility with companies, institutions and customers from abroad.
• A place to link to from your social media, your WhatsApp, your business cards and your premises.

It’s not one or the other

What works best is combining all three pieces, each with its own role:

1. Social media attracts. You post, people discover you.
2. The website informs. Anyone who wants to know more finds everything organised, without having to ask.
3. WhatsApp closes. A visible button on the website leads straight to the conversation to order or book.

That way you don’t have to choose. Social media and WhatsApp remain your day-to-day; the website is the base that organises everything.

How to start without overspending

• Start simple. A one-page or few-page website with who you are, what you offer, where you are and how to contact you already solves most of the problems above.
• A WhatsApp button on every page. It’s the most natural way for your customers to get in touch.
• Real photos. Of your premises, your products and your team. Generic images from the internet don’t build trust.
• Designed for mobile. Most of your visits will come from a phone, sometimes with poor coverage: the website has to load fast.
• Create your Google Business Profile. It’s free and helps you appear on Google Maps when someone searches for businesses like yours nearby.
• Keep it up to date. A website with prices or opening hours from two years ago does more harm than good.

Quick test

Answer honestly:

1. Am I asked the same thing many times a day?
2. Do I want to be found by customers who don’t know me yet?
3. Do I work, or want to work, with companies or institutions?
4. Do I have more products or services than fit in a few posts?

If you answered yes to two or more, a website will help you. If you want to know what affects the price, we explain it in How much does a website or an app cost in Equatorial Guinea?.

How we do it at BKLN

We design websites for businesses built mobile-first and for slow connections, with a WhatsApp button and, if you need it, a dashboard so you can change prices, photos and opening hours yourself without depending on anyone. Tell us what you sell and we’ll tell you what you need — and also what you don’t.