Do you actually need a website?

‘Do you actually need a website these days?’ Someone asked me this recently, in the slightly defensive way people ask when they’ve already made their mind up… “I’ve got the Google profile, I’ve got a Facebook page, the phone rings. What’s a website going to do for me?”

It’s a good question, and I don’t think the honest answer is always yes. So here’s how I’d think about it…

First, the case for not bothering

If you’re a one-person trade, booked solid on word of mouth, with a waiting list and no plans to grow, a website is not going to change your life this year. I’d rather say that than sell you something! Get your Google Business Profile right, get a few reviews, spend the money elsewhere.

That’s a real category of business. It’s just a lot smaller than people think it is.

Your Google profile isn’t actually yours

This is the bit that would worry me about relying on it entirely. Your Google Business Profile sits on land you’re renting. Google decides what it looks like, what shows on it, and whether it stays up at all. Profiles get suspended for daft reasons: an address change, a category edit, somebody reporting you out of spite. It usually gets sorted. But “usually” and “quickly” aren’t the same word, and in the meantime you’re invisible.

There’s also a limit to what a profile can say. It’s a box with your hours, your number, some photos and your reviews. It can’t explain how you work, what you charge, or why you’re the right person for a job somebody’s nervous about spending two grand on. It’s a listing. It isn’t an answer.

Facebook does less than you’d hope

A Facebook page feels like a website because you can post on it. But it mostly reaches people who already follow you, at the moment the algorithm decides to show them something. Somebody in Nottingham searching at half nine at night for a plumber is not scrolling your page. Facebook pages don’t tend to show up well in search either.

So it’s useful for staying in touch with people who already know you. Less useful for being found by people who don’t.

The bit that’s changed recently

Here’s the part I wouldn’t have said three years ago. When somebody asks ChatGPT or Copilot, or reads Google’s AI summary, looking for a decent electrician near Bottesford, those tools go and read what’s written about businesses online. Your own website is the one place where the information about you is written by you.

If there’s nothing there, they fall back on directories, old listings, and whatever somebody else wrote about your area. Which means you get no say in it. A plain, clear page with your name, your patch, your services and your prices at least gives them something accurate to repeat. That’s no guarantee they’ll pick you, because plenty depends on your area and who else is about. But you can’t be picked out of nothing.

So how much website do you actually need

Much less than you’re picturing. I think a lot of people put it off because they imagine months of faff and a bill to match.

One page does most of the job:

• who you are and what you do, in the first line, no waffle
• the towns and villages you cover
• prices, or at least a starting point or a range
• a phone number and an email written as text, not buried inside an image
• a handful of real photos of your actual work
• two or three questions you get asked constantly, answered properly

That’s it! Then it wants to load quickly on a phone with patchy signal somewhere between Orston and Elton, and it wants to say the same name, address and phone number as every other listing you’ve got out there.

No blog you’ll never write. No sliding photo carousel. No chat bubble that pops up and asks how it can help. Just the facts somebody needs to decide whether to ring you.

Who I’d genuinely tell not to bother

If you’re winding down. If you’re at capacity and happy there. Or if you’re testing an idea and don’t yet know whether you’ll still be doing it in six months. Sort the free Google profile and see how you get on. Come back when it matters.

Everyone else, I think one honest page beats no page by a mile, and beats a big flashy site you never update by nearly as much.

Where I’d start this week

Open a private browsing window and look yourself up the way a stranger would. Your trade and your town. Not your business name, because that’s cheating and you’ll always find yourself.

Then look at what comes back and ask whether any of it actually explains what you do. If the answer is a Google listing, a Facebook page from 2021 and a directory entry with an old mobile number on it, well, that’s your answer about the website…

And if you’d like someone else to look, message me! I’ll search for you the way a customer would across Nottingham, Newark, Grantham and the villages, and send you a plain one-page report of what’s actually there, and how I can help!