Do I need a website for my small business?

Plenty of owners run a business without a website, and some do well on referrals alone. The question is what customers find when they look you up, and whether it gives them enough to call. If cost is what has held you back, Is a free website really free? explains what free offers charge later.

What do the numbers say?

83% of US small businesses had a website in 2025, up from 64% in 2018, according to a Clutch survey of small business owners released on August 21, 2025. The other findings that bear on the decision:

• 17% of small businesses have no website, and over a third of those owners say a website isn’t relevant to their business (Clutch, August 2025).
• 54% of consumers visit a business’s website after reading positive reviews about it, up from 32% when BrightLocal last asked in 2019 (Local Consumer Review Survey, February 2026, 1,002 US adults).
• 45% of consumers use ChatGPT or another generative AI tool to find local businesses, up from 6% a year earlier (BrightLocal, February 2026).

Those AI tools can only describe your business from what they can read about it, which is one more reason to have a page that says it plainly.

What about word of mouth?

Word of mouth still brings in customers, and many local businesses depend on it. A referral gets someone to your name. What they find when they search for that name decides whether they call. BrightLocal’s 2026 finding that 54% of consumers visit a business’s website after reading positive reviews describes that second step: people who already have a good reason to choose you still go and look.

A website doesn’t replace referrals. It gives the person who heard about you somewhere to confirm what they were told: that you do the job they need, in their area, at a price they can live with.

Do I need a website if I have a Facebook page?

A Facebook page isn’t enough on its own if you want people beyond your followers to see your services and prices in one place. The page works well for the people who already follow you: you can post updates, answer messages and share photos of recent work. As a business’s only home online, it has limits:

• You don’t control how Facebook displays your page or which followers see each post.
• Your services, prices and hours end up in posts that scroll out of sight.
• You can’t give each service its own page with its own description, the way a site can.

Keep the Facebook page, link to it from your website, and put the details that don’t change on the site. The page is for news; the site is the reference.

Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile?

You still need a website with a Google Business Profile. Set up the profile first, because it puts you on Google Maps and in local search results, then add a website for the detail the profile can’t hold. Google says local results are based on relevance, distance and prominence, and that businesses with complete, accurate information are more likely to show up (Google Business Profile Help, checked October 14, 2026).

A profile holds your hours, phone number, photos and reviews. A website explains each service in your own words, shows your prices and service area, and takes requests through a form while you’re on a job. The two work together: link the site from the profile and keep the name, address, phone number and hours identical on both.

Google also stopped hosting the simple websites it used to build from Business Profiles. They went offline in March 2024, and visitors were redirected to the profile until June 10, 2024, according to Search Engine Journal (February 29, 2024). If your profile still points to one of those old Google-made sites, what to do after the Google Business Profile website shutdown walks through the fix.

What does a website do that a profile or page can’t?

A website is the one place online where you decide what customers see first and how much detail they get. It does four jobs that a profile or social page does poorly:

1. It explains each service on its own page, with prices or price ranges if you publish them.
2. It takes contact and quote requests through a form that emails you.
3. It shows the area you serve, your licenses if you hold them, and photos of your work in the order you choose.
4. It gives search engines and AI assistants a full, current description of your business to read. That matters more now that 45% of consumers use generative AI tools for local recommendations (BrightLocal, 2026).

What to put on a small business website lists the pages that do those jobs, and how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT covers the AI side.

When can a business skip the website?

Some businesses can wait. A website matters less if you are booked solid through referrals, sell only through a marketplace or delivery app, or are testing an idea for a few weeks before committing to it. Even then, register your business name as a domain now so it is available when you want it, and keep your Google Business Profile complete.

If none of those describes you, going without a site puts you in a shrinking group: 17% of small businesses had no website in 2025, down from 36% in 2018 (Clutch).

What does a small business website cost?

What you pay depends on who builds the site: you on a builder such as Wix or Squarespace, a freelancer, an agency, or a done-for-you service. What a small business website costs in 2026 compares sourced prices for every route.

FreeWebGuy builds the site for $0. Your first version arrives within 48 hours of your brief, and you pay $15 a month for hosting only after you approve it and go live. A new domain costs about $10 to $25 a year, paid to the registrar, in your name, and there is no contract. See what the $15 a month includes or browse website examples by industry.