Are Instagram and a Google Profile Enough Instead of a Website?
Quick answer: Instagram plus a Google Business Profile is enough as long as your business runs entirely on walk-ins, referrals, or a platform – and you don't want to grow. The moment prospects check you out before deciding – and they do, on Google and increasingly via AI – the website becomes the place where trust is won or lost.
"My customers come through Instagram and referrals – what do I need a website for?"
It's a fair question – and "Everyone needs a website!" isn't an answer to it; it's a sales line. So let's start where the answer genuinely is: you don't need one.
Three cases where you (currently) don't need a website
1. You're at capacity – and want to stay there. The salon with a months-long waiting list, the garage turning regulars away: if you don't want to grow and your customer base renews itself, you don't have a visibility problem. (One caveat on this at the end.)
2. Your business hangs on three large clients. If you live off a handful of long-standing B2B relationships, new business comes through network and reputation – a website there is a business card, not an engine.
3. You sell exclusively through a platform – deliberately. If your entire trade runs through a marketplace and you accept its fees and rules as the price, you can postpone your own website. Just know that you're building on rented land.
If you recognise yourself in one of these: save the money – genuinely. For everyone else, here comes the part that Instagram enthusiasm tends to overlook.
The moment it flips: the check before the decision
Watch your own behaviour: an acquaintance recommends a tradesperson. What do you do next? You type the name into Google.
Your customers do exactly the same – after discovering you on Instagram, after the referral, after finding you on the platform. The name search is the silent checking step before almost every contact, and the bigger the job, the more thorough it gets: for the €25,000 kitchen, the funeral, the treatment series, people want to know who they're dealing with. What appears in that check – a well-kept website with team, services, and answers, or an abandoned profile from 2021 – co-decides whether the referral becomes a job.
Then there's the new checker: almost every second consumer now also gets local recommendations from an AI assistant – 45%, according to a recent analysis of local AI visibility. And AI systems build their answers from sources they can read and quote – directory entries, reviews, and above all websites with clear content. Instagram profiles are largely mute to these systems; ChatGPT can't build a recommendation out of a reel. A business that exists only on social media mostly doesn't exist in the AI answer. (The ChatGPT self-test shows it in five minutes.)
What Instagram does well – and what it structurally can't
No wrong impression intended: for many businesses, Instagram is an excellent channel – a shop window for craft and results, closeness to regulars, visibility with younger customers. We'd never talk anyone out of it. But the channel has structural limits that no amount of effort removes:
- Nobody searches there with intent. The search "garage [city] brakes" doesn't happen on Instagram – it happens on Google and increasingly lands in AI answers. Instagram reaches people who aren't currently buying; the website receives people who are looking for a provider right now.
- Content decays. Last week's post is practically unfindable. On a website, the once-written "costs and process" page answers every enquiry for years – working for you permanently.
- The platform makes the rules. Reach depends on the algorithm, the account can be restricted or suspended, and there's no moving out. Your profile is rented; your website runs on your own domain.
And the Google Business Profile on its own?
The profile is non-negotiable – free, powerful, often the first contact for local searches (our guide to it). But on its own it stays half an answer: it shows that you exist, but hardly why anyone should trust you. For the questions that precede bigger decisions – How do you work? What does it roughly cost? Who are the people behind it? – the profile points to… your website. If there is none, the check ends in a void, and Google and AI systems likewise lack the source they'd draw substance about your business from.
The division of labour that works in practice is not an either-or: Instagram creates awareness. The Google profile makes you findable. The website answers and convinces – people and machines alike. Most businesses have the first two by now. The third link is where referrals most often quietly die today.
A postscript on "but we're fully booked"
Full capacity is a snapshot. Competitors, demographics, and search habits shift quietly – and visibility can't be bought at short notice when the waiting list thins out. It's an asset built over months. Whoever starts building it only when they need it is two years late.
Frequently asked questions
Do businesses really still need a website in 2026? If new customers should be able to check you out before making contact – yes. The website is the only digital place at your own address that answers questions permanently, and that Google and AI systems use as the source about your business. It's dispensable only if your business works without that check.
Is a Facebook page enough as a website substitute? No – the same limits as Instagram apply: barely any search visibility, decaying content, platform dependency. As an additional channel for regulars and local groups, Facebook can still be worthwhile.
I get my jobs through a platform – why a website? Platforms deliver contacts, but the same rule applies there: before the booking, the name gets googled, especially for bigger sums. The website turns platform contacts into jobs – and is at the same time the path to depending less on platform fees over time.
What does getting started cost if all I have is Instagram? In the classic project model, several thousand euros up front (all market prices at a glance). With us, the complete presence is part of an ongoing service and goes live within 14 days; we quote the price in a written offer after the free consultation.
Do I still have to keep posting on Instagram then? If the channel works for you: absolutely. Website and social media don't compete – the website catches what Instagram sets in motion. Content can also be used twice: the article on your website supplies the material for your posts – our service produces one such article a week – link to it in your posts, and every post leads back to your website.
Sources
- Die Mainagentur: Local AI visibility – does ChatGPT recommend your business? (German)
- IHK Karlsruhe: Winning customers with local SEO (German)
About the author: Nils Ehrenfried is the founder of The Presence. He started out on the agency side – with projects for clients including TSG Hoffenheim and Springer Verlag – then switched perspectives and built a company of around 250 employees, which he led up to its exit. Now back on the services side, he knows both roles: the craft of an agency, and the daily reality of a real business that hires one.
Unsure whether a website would pay off for your business? In a free consultation you'll get a clear assessment – even if it's: "Your Instagram is enough for now." Book a free consultation