Do I really need a website for my small business?

Yes, if you want customers you haven’t met yet. If every customer you’ll ever have already knows you, you can get by without one. Plenty of good businesses do for a while.

Here’s the honest version. A website doesn’t make the phone ring by itself. What it does is answer the questions a stranger asks before they call: is this real, does it do the thing I need, where is it, and how do I reach it. Those questions get asked at odd hours on a phone by someone who’s comparing you with two other names. If there’s nothing to find, most of them move on to the name that has something.

A situation. A plumber has been busy for ten years on referrals alone. A homeowner gets his name from a neighbor and types it into Google that night. They find a listing with four reviews and no site. The next name down has a page with the services, the service area, photos, and a button to call. The homeowner doesn’t see it as a decision. They tap the one that answered them.

Think about it as a ratio. You work every day. The website is open every hour of every one of them, including the ones you’re asleep for. A simple site costs a fraction of what one job is worth to you, and sites start at $500. If it brings in one extra job, it has paid for itself. After that it’s the same site working while you’re under a sink.

What you don’t need is a big one. For most small businesses, five pages is plenty: what you do, where you do it, what it costs or how to get a quote, a few photos, and a way to call. Anything past that can wait until the small one is earning.

If you want to see what that would look like for your business, the short form on carpenterwebworks.com takes a few minutes.