Is Instagram enough, or do you need a website too?
Instagram is for getting discovered and remembered. Your website is for when someone is already looking for you and has to decide: opening hours, prices, where you are, how to book. One doesn't replace the other.
By Cristian Lazzarini and Ismail Xhakerri · updated 5 October 2026
What Instagram does well
Instagram is perfect for showing your everyday work: the dish that's just come out of the kitchen, the haircut you've just finished, the building site half done. It gets you discovered by people who don't know you yet, especially through Reels, and keeps the relationship alive with the people who already do. Direct messages are handy for people who'd rather write than call.
On top of that, since July 2025 the public posts of professional accounts can also appear in Google results. It's an extra advantage, but it applies to individual posts, not to your business's information.
What Instagram doesn't do
It doesn't answer the people who are looking for you
Anyone searching Google for “hairdresser open Monday” or “takeaway pizzeria” finds Google Business Profiles and websites. If they land on your Instagram profile, they have to scroll through dozens of posts to work out your hours, your prices and where you are. Many give up before then.
It isn't yours
Your profile lives by another company's rules: the algorithm decides who sees what, the rules change, and a blocked or stolen account can make you vanish overnight. Your website and your domain, on the other hand, are yours: nobody else can switch them off.
Information gets lost
The menu in a post from March, the summer hours in a Story that has expired, the price list in a grainy image. On your website, every piece of information has its place and can be updated in a minute.
Not all your customers are on Instagram
Some customers don't use Instagram, or don't use it to decide where to go. A website opens on any phone, with no account and no app.
How to make them work together
- The link to your website in your Instagram bio, not a generic link to a page of links.
- On your website, a link to your Instagram profile, so people who find you on Google can see your everyday work too.
- The same information everywhere: name, address, phone number and opening hours identical on your website, Instagram and Google Business Profile.
- Posts that point to specific pages: “the autumn menu is on the website”, “book through the link in bio”.
- Your Google Business Profile linked to your website, because that's where people searching in your area end up. We talk about it in our guide on how to get found on Google.
When Instagram is enough
There are cases where Instagram on its own holds up: if you work to order with a community that already follows you, or if you've just started out and are still working out what to sell. Even then, it's worth registering a domain with your name on it straight away (it costs just a few euros a year), so you don't find it taken when you need it.
Instagram gets you known. Your website gets you chosen.
The bare minimum
You don't need a huge website. A single page, fast on a phone, with who you are, what you do, opening hours, where you are and how to get in touch already answers most of the questions. That's our Essential package, from €590; to see how it could turn out, open one of the demos on your phone.
Further reading
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We'll reply within 24 hours with a clear quote, free and with no obligation. If you're not convinced, you're still left with a list of things to fix.