Updated October 8, 2026 · Lukáš Březina
Do I need a website for my small business?
Short answer: most small businesses do, but not all. If you're fully booked by word of mouth, or you only sell through a marketplace, you can skip it. Everyone else is better off with a simple site next to their Google Business Profile and social pages — because a website is the one place online you own, and it's what people and AI assistants check before they call.
Who honestly doesn't need a website?
We sell websites, so take this list seriously — it's the part most pages like this leave out. You can skip a website, at least for now, if one of these is you:
- You're booked solid through referrals and don't want more work. The electrician with a three-month waiting list doesn't need to be found by strangers. A website solves a problem you don't have.
- You sell only through a marketplace. If all your sales happen on Etsy, Amazon or a single wholesale buyer, your shop page there is your storefront. Put the energy into that listing.
- You subcontract for one or two clients. A drywaller who works only for the same two general contractors gets jobs from a phone call, not from search.
- It's a hobby, and you want it to stay one. Selling candles at two craft fairs a year is fine with an Instagram account.
- You're testing an idea for a few weeks. Start with a free Google Business Profile and a social page. Get a website once you know the business is staying.
If none of those fits — you want new customers, and some of them find you by searching — keep reading.
Do I need a website if I have a Facebook page or Instagram?
Usually, yes — and keep the Facebook page and Instagram too. Social media is great for showing what you did this week. It's a weak place to keep the basics: what you do, what it costs, when you're open, how to reach you.
You don't own the account. The platform decides who sees your posts, and it can change that whenever it likes. Accounts get hacked or locked, and getting a real person on the phone to fix it is hard. Years of posts can disappear with the account.
The important stuff gets buried. Your prices and service area sit under last month's photos. A new customer has to scroll to find them, and many won't.
Not everyone is on it. Plenty of your future customers don't have Instagram, and a lot of Facebook asks people to log in before they can look around. A website opens for anyone, on any phone, with no account.
Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile?
If you only do one thing online, make it a Google Business Profile. It's free, it puts you on Google Maps, and it's where your reviews live. If you don't have one, set it up before you think about a website.
But it has limits. Google decides how your profile looks and what's on it. The description is short — Google caps it at 750 characters and allows no links — so there's no room to explain your services properly or answer the questions customers always ask. And features come and go on Google's schedule: in 2024 Google shut down the free websites it used to build from Business Profiles, and it also removed the profile's chat feature.
The two work best together. Your profile gets you found on the map; its "Website" button sends people to the place where you explain the rest. A profile with a real website behind it also simply looks more complete.
Do customers actually look at small business websites?
Yes — mostly the people who already heard your name. A friend recommends you, or they see your truck, or they find you on Google Maps. Then they search for you to check you're real before they call.
BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US consumers found that after reading positive reviews, the most common next step is visiting the business's website — 54% do it, up from 32% when they last asked in 2019. If there's nothing to visit, that check ends with a guess.
Most of your competitors have already done this. In a 2025 Clutch survey of 406 US small business owners, 83% said they have a website, up from 64% in 2018.
Does a website help me show up in ChatGPT and AI answers?
It helps, and this is the newest reason to have one. More people now ask an AI assistant "who's a good plumber near me?" instead of typing it into Google. Pew Research found in February 2026 that 44% of US adults have used ChatGPT (up from 18% in 2023), and 42% use AI chatbots to search for information. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, 45% of consumers used ChatGPT or other AI tools for local recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier — making AI the third most used source, behind Google and Facebook.
These assistants answer from what they can read on the open web. A public website that says plainly what you do, where, and for how much is easy for them to read and quote. Posts behind a social media login are much harder. BrightLocal's own advice to businesses in that report: keep your website up to date, because AI tools rely on it.
We see this first-hand. On Snáz, our Czech sister service, a noticeable share of new customers in 2026 arrived after ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI answers pointed them to us — and what those assistants quoted were pages on our website, not our social profiles.
Facebook, Google Business Profile or a website?
Bottom line: these aren't competitors. Keep all three if you can. The website is the one that holds the facts and that you'll still own in five years.
Need a simple site to go with your profile?
Describe your business and get a first version in about 10 minutes. Free to look at, $59 a year if you keep it.
What does a small business website actually need?
Less than you think. One good page covers most small businesses:
- What you do and where. "Family-run plumbing in Columbus and the suburbs" beats a slogan.
- Prices, or at least a range. It's what people most want to know and least often find.
- Hours, phone and a map. Easy to tap on a phone.
- A few real photos. Your work, your place, your team.
- A way to get in touch. A contact form that lands in your inbox, or a button to your booking tool.
- Links to your Google reviews and social pages. So all three point at each other.
What a website won't do
A website on its own won't make the phone ring. It doesn't replace your Google Business Profile, your reviews or the word of mouth that got you here — it makes all of them work better by giving people somewhere to land. And a simple site like ours is one strong page, not an online store. If you want to sell products online, use Shopify. If you'd enjoy building the site yourself, Wix or Squarespace are good tools for that.
How we checked
Figures were checked on October 8, 2026. Survey numbers come from BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (1,002 US adults, published February 2026), Pew Research Center's "Americans and AI" report (5,119 US adults, surveyed February 17–23, 2026) and Clutch's 2025 small business website survey (406 US owners, an online panel that probably leans toward more digital businesses). The Google Business Profile facts come from Google's help pages and 2024 coverage of the business.site and chat shutdowns. We left out figures we couldn't trace to a named source, including the often-quoted numbers on Facebook's organic reach, because the published benchmarks disagree with each other. If something here is out of date, email [email protected] and we'll fix it.
Common questions
Is a Facebook page enough for a small business?
To start, yes. Once you want customers who find you by searching, it falls short: you don't control who sees it, the basics get buried, and AI assistants and many customers can't read it easily. Keep the page and add a simple site.
Can I use my Google Business Profile instead of a website?
It's the best free place to start, and you should keep it. But the description is short, links aren't allowed in it, and Google can change or remove features. A website gives the profile's "Website" button somewhere to send people.
How much does a simple small business website cost?
Anywhere from about $60 a year to several thousand dollars up front, depending on who builds it. Ours is $59 a year with a .com domain, hosting and 30 edits included. The full breakdown is on our page about what a website really costs.
I don't have time to build or update a website. Now what?
Then don't build it yourself. With us you describe the business in plain English — a link to your Instagram or Google Maps listing helps — and a first version is ready in about 10 minutes. Later changes are a sentence in the portal chat, or from ChatGPT or Claude. More on how that works: what a done-for-you website is.
If you're not on the "doesn't need one" list, the cheapest way to find out whether a website is worth it is to look at yours. Tell us about your business, see the draft, and decide then. The preview costs nothing.
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