"Do I own my website and code?"

"Yes, 100%. Everything I build is yours — the design, the code, the content. No lock-in, no proprietary systems. If you ever want to move on, you take everything with you."

"I already have a website. Can you rebuild it?"

"Absolutely. Most of my work is replacing underperforming template sites with custom builds. I'll migrate your content, preserve your SEO rankings, and handle the entire transition."

"Do you build more than websites?"

"Yes. I build custom web apps and integrations too — booking systems, custom checkout flows, third-party API integrations, internal tools, Shopify customizations. If a template can't do it, that's usually my specialty."

"Can you integrate my site with other tools we already use?"

"Yes. I regularly connect sites to existing CRMs, booking platforms, shipping carriers, payment processors, and inventory systems. If your tools have an API, I can usually wire it in cleanly."

"How long does a project take?"

"Typically 2–5 weeks depending on the package. A Business Website runs 2–3 weeks, a Growth Website 3–5 weeks, and a Custom Build 4–8 weeks. I'll give you a clear timeline before we start."

"What happens after launch?"

"Every project includes a bug-fix window (7–14 days depending on the package) to catch anything I missed. After that, the site is yours to run. If you want ongoing help, I offer monthly maintenance starting at $149/mo."

"What does monthly maintenance include?"

"Software updates, security monitoring, daily backups, and up to 1 hour of content changes per month. It's optional — your site will work fine without it, but it keeps things secure and current."

"Do I need to provide the content?"

"I'll need your input on messaging and any specific copy you want, but I guide you through the whole process. I can also help with copywriting and source stock photography if needed."

"Will my site work on phones and tablets?"

"Every site I build is fully responsive from day one. I design mobile-first and test across devices and browsers before launch."

"What about hosting and domains?"

"I handle the full setup — hosting, domain configuration, SSL certificates, and email. All included in your package price, no hidden fees."

"Do you only work with businesses in Sault Ste. Marie?"

"I'm based in the Soo and love working with local businesses, but I take on clients across Northern Ontario and beyond. Everything's handled remotely — I just happen to live here."

Do you need a website if your business runs on a Facebook page?

A lot of good businesses in Sault Ste. Marie run on a Facebook page, a phone number, and word of mouth. The contractor booked six months out. The cafe with the Saturday lineup. The stylist you can only get in with if you know somebody. No website, and business is fine.

So here’s the honest answer to whether you need one. A Facebook page can carry a small business for a while, but it’s a storefront you rent on someone else’s street, and the rent comes due in ways you don’t notice until you’re chasing customers who can’t find you. You own a website. You only borrow a Facebook page. That difference is the whole question.

Can a Facebook page replace a website?

For some businesses, right now, yes. If everyone who needs you already follows you, a Facebook page covers the basics: hours, photos, a way to message you, the occasional update.

The gap shows up with the customer who doesn’t follow you yet. The one who moved to the Soo last month and types “best X near me” into Google. The one who asks ChatGPT who does what you do in Algoma. That person never sees your Facebook page. Facebook is built to serve an audience you already have. It’s weak at winning the one you don’t.

So the real split isn’t “Facebook versus website.” It’s discovery versus ownership, and a Facebook-only setup is thin on both.

What a Facebook page actually does well

Credit where it’s due. A Facebook page is free, it takes ten minutes to set up, and the audience is already sitting there. It’s good for posting photos of finished work, pushing a last-minute opening, answering a quick message, collecting reviews your regulars actually leave. For staying warm with people who already know you, it’s hard to beat.

None of that is the problem. The problem is what it can’t do, and what happens when it’s the only thing you’ve got.

Where a Facebook-only setup quietly costs you

Four things, and none of them announce themselves.

You don’t own it. One policy change, one account flagged by mistake, one algorithm tweak, and the page you treat as your website is gone or buried, along with the followers you spent years gathering. You can’t export your way out of that. Renting looks cheaper right up until the landlord changes the locks.
Search can’t read it well. People who don’t know your name find businesses by searching. Google barely surfaces a Facebook page for a local query, and the AI engines, Perplexity and ChatGPT and Google’s own AI answers, lean on real websites with readable structure. A page inside Facebook’s walls is hard for any of them to cite.
You’re inside someone else’s frame. Same layout as every other page, same buttons, your content wrapped in ads for whoever outbid you. You can’t shape how it feels or what it says about you.
It caps what you can do. Booking, a real shop, a quote form that lands in your inbox, a page that loads in a second on a job-site phone. The moment you want any of that, the page is a dead end.

When is a Facebook page genuinely enough?

Sometimes it is, and I’ll say so plainly, because the answer that sells me more work isn’t always the right one.

If you’re booked solid on word of mouth, you serve a local crowd that already knows you, you don’t depend on strangers finding you cold, and you don’t sell or take bookings online, a Facebook page might be all you need this year. A one-chair barber. A welder whose phone never stops. If that’s you, spend the money somewhere it’ll move the needle.

The trouble is most owners assume they’re in that group when they’re a season or two past it.

How do you know you’ve outgrown it?

A few signals, and you’ll recognise them:

You’re paying to boost posts just to reach people who already follow you.
Customers tell you “I tried to look you up and couldn’t find anything.”
You want work from people who don’t know your name yet.
You’re ready to take bookings, deposits, or orders online.
You want to show up when somebody asks an AI assistant who does what you do in the Soo.

Any two of those and the page has stopped being enough. It’s now the ceiling.

What I tell people in the Soo

You don’t need a thirty-page site. You need a small, fast site that you own, built so Google and the AI engines can actually read it, with your Facebook page linked right off it.

Both, doing different jobs. The website is the ground you own, the thing strangers find you with and the thing that still works if Facebook has a bad week. The Facebook page is where you keep the regulars warm. One wins you the customer who’s never heard of you. The other keeps the ones who have. Trying to do both jobs with a rented page is why so many local businesses feel invisible online while posting three times a week.

The businesses that’ll be easiest to find five years from now are the ones putting down a little ground they own now, while it’s cheap and nobody’s forcing them to. Facebook will still be around. So will the page you rented. The open question is whether anyone searching for what you do lands on something that’s actually yours.

Bunker41 is a one-person studio in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario building custom websites and web apps for small businesses. If you’ve been running on a Facebook page and you’re starting to feel the ceiling, say hello.