What Is Not Having a Website Costing Your Business?

Lost customers never tell you

Nobody walks into your shop to say "I nearly hired you, but I couldn't find anything about you online, so I went with the other bloke." The lost job never happens, so businesses can go years telling themselves word of mouth is enough while customers leak to whoever shows up when people search.

Tonight, someone in your suburb is searching

Every day, someone with money to spend scans a results page you're not on:

Where the money actually leaks

Five places customers go missing when there's no website:

• Google searches you're not in: someone searches "your trade + your suburb" tonight, and the results page is a list of your competitors.
• The trust check: even people who already have your name look you up before calling. No website reads as "are they still in business?"
• Word of mouth that dies online: a friend recommends you, the person googles you, finds nothing, and books the business they could see.
• Ads with nowhere to land: you can boost Facebook posts, but without a website the click has nowhere to go that captures the enquiry.
• Products nobody can browse: your best work is buried in a social feed instead of laid out where a buyer can see prices and get in touch.

Put a number on it: three steps

1. 1

   Count the searches

   Type your service and suburb into Google (say "electrician Parramatta"). Every business on that page is being found by people ready to spend. If you're not there, estimate conservatively: even 5 missed enquiries a month is 60 a year.

2. 2

   Multiply by your average job

   Take your average sale ($150 haircut package, $800 service call, $4,000 landscaping job) and multiply by the enquiries you're missing. 60 enquiries × a 1-in-4 close rate × $800 is $12,000 a year.

3. 3

   Compare it to the cost of fixing it

   A professionally built site typically runs $3,000–$10,000 once, plus modest monthly hosting. Against most businesses' missed-enquiry number, it pays for itself inside the first year. Do the maths with your own numbers.

What that looks like for one small business

Take a trade business missing just five enquiries a month:

The same customer, with and without a website

When you don't need one

If you're a sole trader booked out months ahead on word of mouth, not taking new customers and not planning to grow, a website won't change your year, and you shouldn't let anyone sell you one. For everyone else, it's worth working out how big the leak has grown.

Where to next

• What goes into a website that gets found →

  Our web design service: custom build, mobile-first, built for speed.

• Urban Toolboxes: 99 products online, taking quote requests →

  A fabricator whose catalogue now works around the clock.

Work out what it would cost to fix