Do I need a website if I already have Instagram?
Not always. Instagram can carry a small business while people find your work there and ask in the DMs. Add a website when the same questions keep coming in, or people need somewhere to book that isn't a chat.
What does Instagram do well for a small business?
It shows your work as it happens, and lets you talk to the people who react to it.
If what you do is visual, like cakes, interiors or mehndi, customers can work out what they like before they message you. Enquiries, bookings and sales can all run through DMs, with a UPI link to take payment.
Don't assume Instagram's shopping features are on for your account; they aren't for everyone. And Meta describing the path from Reels to messages to shopping isn't a promise that anyone sees your posts.
Source: Meta, From Scroll to Chat to Cart.
What does a website add that Instagram doesn't?
A page for each service that Google can read and a customer can forward to a friend.
Each page says what the service is, answers the usual questions and gives one next step. A post can link to the right page instead of telling people to scroll back.
Public Instagram posts sometimes show up in search, but don't count on it.
A domain in your own name is an address you keep, whatever happens to any account. Accounts do get locked, so keep your own list of orders outside Instagram either way, with a phone number or email each customer has agreed you can use.
What should a simple business website include?
Whatever customers keep asking you. One page is often enough.
- What you do and who it's for, in plain words.
- Where you deliver or which areas you cover, if that decides whether someone can buy.
- Work you actually did, with the customer's okay to show it.
- The questions that usually hold up a booking, answered.
- One obvious way to contact or book you. Test it, and see where the enquiry lands.
- A link to Instagram for recent work, and a line on what you do with details people type into a form.
How do I connect Instagram and a website?
Point your bio link at whatever customers usually want next.
That might be a service page, a booking page or a short page that helps them pick. Send it to a friend who doesn't know your business and see if they find the next step without asking.
Keep what doesn't change on the website, and use Instagram for what's new. Having a website doesn't oblige you to post more.
Meta's newer business profile features are arriving gradually, so check your own account before you plan around one.
Source: Meta, Introducing Meta One.
When is Instagram alone enough?
While customers can find what they need and you can keep up with the DMs:
- You're still working out what people want, and the offer changes every few weeks.
- Customers find what they need without ten messages back and forth.
- Nothing gets double-booked.
- There's nothing you'd put on a website that you aren't already answering fine in the DMs.
Put a page up when one of these stops being true, like the same question every day, and check after a couple of months whether anyone used it.
If there's a step customers keep missing
Tell us what people keep asking you in the DMs, and what you reply. That's usually enough to know whether one page would take the load off.