Do I Need a Website? Some Businesses Honestly Do Not

Do I need a website is a fair question to ask before spending anything, and the honest answer is that some businesses do not. If you are fully booked from word of mouth and you never have to explain what you do or what it costs, a phone number and a business profile can carry you.

I sell websites, so treat that answer with the suspicion it deserves and then check it against the two lists below. Most people land clearly on one side.

When you genuinely do not need one yet

There are real situations where a site would sit there costing money and doing nothing.

• You are at capacity. If you cannot take another job this month, more enquiries are not the problem you have.
• Everything comes from one relationship. Subcontracting for a single builder, or working through one agency, means their reputation is doing the work a site would do.
• You are testing whether the business works. If the offer is still changing every month, put the money into finding out what people will pay for first.
• Your customers only ever want one thing from you. A number to call. If nobody ever asks what you charge, where you cover or what you have done before, a profile covers it.

Photo: Pexels

When you do need one

The pattern in every one of these is the same. Something has to be explained, proved or compared before somebody will contact you, and there is nowhere for that to happen.

• You answer the same questions on every call. Prices, areas covered, hours, whether you do that particular job. Every one of those is a page that answers itself while you are working.
• People compare you against two or three others. When somebody is choosing, the business with nowhere to look loses by default.
• You want jobs you are not being offered. A profile shows what you are. A website shows what you want to be hired for.
• You are spending on ads or flyers. Every one of those sends people somewhere. Sending them to a page you do not control wastes most of the spend.
• You need to look established. New businesses without a website read as temporary, fairly or not.

What a Google Business Profile does and does not do

A business profile is genuinely useful and it is free, so set one up whether or not you build anything else. It puts your hours, your phone number, your location and your reviews in front of people searching for what you do nearby.

What it cannot do is explain you. There is no room to describe how you work, price a job, show ten finished projects properly, or answer the objection that stops someone calling. It also belongs to Google, appears in whatever format Google decides on, and sits directly beside your competitors.

What a social page cannot do for you

A social page is a good place to be found and a bad place to be your only home. Three reasons, and none of them are about design.

Your reach is decided by somebody else, your page can be suspended without a conversation, and posts from two years ago are effectively gone. A website works the other way around. It is slow to build attention and it keeps everything you put into it.

What the smallest useful website looks like

If you land on the second list, the answer is usually smaller than you think. One page can do the job as long as it holds the right things.

1. What you do and who for

   One sentence at the top. Not a welcome message. The thing you actually do and the people you do it for.

2. Proof

   Photographs of real work, and reviews if you have them. This is the part that changes minds, and it is the part most sites skip.

3. Prices, or the shape of them

   A range, a starting point, or how you quote. Silence on price loses more work than a high number does.

4. One obvious way to contact you

   A phone number that dials when tapped, and a short form. Not four options competing with each other.

That is a three page build at most, and often a one page one. If that is where you land, that is what I will quote you for, which is set out on the what every build includes page along with what each tier includes.

What a website does that nothing else does

Three things, and they are the whole argument. Everything else you can get somewhere free.

• It answers questions while you are working. Prices, areas, hours, whether you do that job. Every one of those answered on a page is a call you do not have to take with your hands full.
• It is the only place you control completely. Nobody can change your layout, throttle who sees you, or suspend you without a conversation.
• It is where paid attention should land. Ads, flyers, a van, a sponsored post. All of it sends people somewhere, and sending them to a page somebody else owns wastes most of the money.

What waiting actually costs

The honest answer is usually not much, for a while. A business at capacity loses nothing by waiting, and that is worth saying plainly when most people writing this would tell you the sky is falling.

What it does cost is compounding. A site published this year is a year older, a year better indexed and a year further into being trusted than the same site published next year. If you know you will need one eventually, the cheapest version is the one you start earlier, at three pages, and grow.

What to do first if you are not ready to build

1. Claim your business profile

   Free, takes an afternoon, and puts your hours, phone number and reviews in front of people searching nearby.

2. Get the domain now

   Ten to twenty dollars a year, registered in your name. Names get taken, and buying yours back later is a different price entirely.

3. Write down the five questions you answer most

   Those become the pages when you do build, and having them written costs nothing today.

4. Take photographs while you work

   The single thing that makes the eventual site good, and the only one that cannot be done retroactively.

How to tell whether the site you already have is working

If you already have one, the question is not whether it exists. It is whether it earns its keep, and you can check that in about ten minutes without any tools.

• Open it on your phone. Not your laptop. If you have to pinch to read anything, most of your visitors already left.
• Time the load. Count out loud. Past about three seconds, people leave, and that is the cheapest thing on this list to fix.
• Try to call yourself. Tap the phone number. If it does not dial, it is decoration.
• Send yourself a test enquiry. From a phone that is not yours, and check it arrives. Broken forms are silent and common.
• Read the first sentence. If it says welcome to our website, it is wasting the only line most people read.

If it fails three of those, the site is not the asset you think it is. That does not automatically mean rebuilding, but it does mean the money you spend sending people to it is being spent twice.