Plenty of sole traders spend a year quietly wondering whether they need a website, and never get a straight answer from anyone who is not trying to sell them one. This post is written by a company that builds websites, so treat it with the scepticism it deserves and hold us to the bits where we tell you not to bother. There are real businesses getting on perfectly well without one. There are also businesses losing two or three jobs a month because there is nothing for a customer to look at when they go checking.
The useful question is not whether websites are good in general. It is whether your business, with your customers, in your town, is losing work by not having one. That is a question you can actually answer in about ten minutes.
The Honest Test For Whether You Need A Website
Think of the last five people who paid you. For each one, write down two things: how they first heard your name, and what they did between hearing it and getting in touch.
That second bit is where the money is. Almost nobody rings a stranger straight away any more. They hear a name at the school gates or see a van, then they go and check. They type the business name into Google. They look for a phone number, some photos, a price range, an address, anything that says this is a real person who does this for a living.
If what they find is nothing at all, or a Facebook page last updated eighteen months ago, some of them stop there and check the next name on their list. That gap between hearing your name and picking up the phone is the only place where the question of whether you need a website is actually decided.
So run the test. Of your last five customers, how many went looking? If the answer is four or five, you already know. If the answer is none, because every one of them was handed to you by the same builder you have worked with for a decade, that is a genuinely different situation.
What A Website Does That A Facebook Page Cannot
Social media is not a bad thing to have. It is just a rented room. The rules change, the reach drops, and the platform decides who sees your posts. Plenty of trades have had a good page quietly throttled overnight and had no way to appeal it.
A website is the one place online that belongs to you. Nobody can change the layout, insert adverts, or decide your posts are less interesting than someone else’s holiday photos. Three things in particular are hard to do without one:
- Being found by people who do not know your name. Searches like “emergency plumber Bolton” or “sports massage near me” mostly return websites and Google listings. A personal Facebook profile rarely shows up.
- Answering the boring questions before they are asked. Do you cover my postcode? Are you insured? What does a typical job cost? Do you work weekends? Every one of those answered on a page is a phone call you never have to take.
- Looking like a business rather than a favour. A proper email address at your own domain, a clear list of services and a few real photos change the way people talk to you about money.
This is the part people miss when they argue you do not need a website any more because everything happens on social. Social gets you noticed. The website is where people decide whether to trust you with their kitchen, their back, or their child’s maths grade.
When You Do Not Need A Website
Here is the honest list. If several of these describe you, spend your money on something else this year.
- You are booked out for the next six months and turning work away every week.
- All of your work comes from two or three trade contacts who subcontract to you, and you have no intention of taking on domestic customers.
- You are testing an idea while still employed, and you genuinely do not know yet whether you will keep doing it.
- You sell entirely through a marketplace or a platform that owns the customer relationship, and you are happy with that arrangement.
- You are within a year or two of winding the business down.
- You have no photographs, no fixed service list and no time, and you would rather put nothing online than something half finished.
If three or four of those are true, you probably do not need a website this year, and anyone telling you otherwise is looking at their own numbers rather than yours. A free Google Business Profile and a decent phone manner will do the job.
Signs You Need A Website Sooner Rather Than Later
The other side of the list is just as clear. You need a website when the following start happening:
- People ask you to “send over a link” and you have to explain that there is not one.
- You keep typing the same long answer into messages about pricing, coverage or how you work.
- You are competing for jobs against firms that look bigger than they are, and losing on appearance rather than price.
- You want to move away from the cheapest end of the market, where people compare you on nothing but a number.
- You are paying for leads from a directory or a lead generation site and would rather those enquiries came straight to you.
- Someone has told you they nearly booked you but could not find anything about you online.
That last one is the painful one, because for every person who tells you, there will be several who did not.
But All My Work Comes From Word Of Mouth
Word of mouth is still the best source of work there is. It just does not end with the recommendation any more. Somebody says “use Dave, he did our bathroom”, and then the person goes home and checks Dave. The recommendation opens the door. The checking decides whether they walk through it.
That verification step is the reason word of mouth businesses still need a website. Not for marketing in the shouty sense, but as proof. Five photos of finished work, a short paragraph about who you are, the areas you cover and a phone number is often enough. It does not need to be clever. It needs to exist and to load quickly on a phone.
What A Google Business Profile Does And Does Not Cover
Set one up before you do anything else. It is free, it puts you on the map for local searches, and it collects reviews. For a lot of local trades it brings in more enquiries in the first month than anything else.
What it does not do is tell your story, list your services in your own words, show a gallery, or explain your pricing. It also gives you very little control. The listing is Google’s, not yours, and it has been known to be suspended or edited without warning.
A Google listing is not a reason to skip having a site of your own. It is a reason you need a website to point it at, because the listing has a website field and a business with something behind that link nearly always looks stronger than one without.
What A Website Actually Has To Include
If you decide you need a website, keep the first version small. The biggest reason projects stall is that people try to write fifteen pages before publishing anything.
The Pages That Earn Their Keep
- A home page that says what you do, where you do it, and how to reach you, all visible without scrolling.
- A services page in plain words, ideally with a rough price guide or a starting from figure.
- An about page with a photograph of you and how long you have been doing this.
- A contact page with a phone number, an email address and your coverage area.
That is it. Four pages, done properly, beat twelve pages of filler. You can add a gallery, reviews and a frequently asked questions page later, once you see what people actually ask.
Things That Matter Less Than People Think
Animations, sliders, stock photos of people in headsets, a blog you will never update, and a logo you have redrawn four times. None of these bring in work. Loading fast on a five year old Android phone does. So does having your phone number as a tappable link.
If you want a sense of the standard to aim for, our small business website design pages show the sort of structure that works for one person businesses.
What It Costs, And Why That Changes The Decision
Cost is why so many people who need a website put it off. A one off build from a UK agency or freelancer typically lands between about £800 and £2,500 for a small brochure site, and that is before hosting, domain renewal and someone to change things later. Handing over four figures before you have made a penny from it is a genuine barrier.
The two realistic alternatives are building it yourself on a platform such as Wix, Squarespace or WordPress, or paying monthly for someone to build and run it for you. We charge from £24.99 plus VAT a month, which covers the build, hosting, updates and changes, with nothing large to find up front. Our affordable website design page sets out exactly what sits in each tier, including the fact that the Starter package does not include a contact form. If you would rather weigh the two approaches side by side, we have written that comparison honestly on our pay monthly website versus DIY page.
For wider business questions that sit outside websites, the Federation of Small Businesses publishes free guidance for UK sole traders and small firms that is worth a read before you spend anything.
When Pay Monthly Is The Wrong Answer
We would rather say this plainly than have you sign up and regret it. Pay monthly suits people who want the thing handled: no logins to remember, no plugin updates, no wrestling with a page builder at eleven at night. Over five or six years, a one off build you never touch can work out cheaper, so if you have the cash and you truly will not need changes, buy it outright.
Equally, if you enjoy tinkering and have a free weekend, you may not need a website built for you at all. A DIY builder can get you online for around £150 to £250 a year. The catch is that the time cost is real and the results vary. We have seen plenty of self built sites that do the job perfectly well, and plenty that were abandoned half finished.
One more honesty note: we do not custom build booking systems. If you need online booking, we will happily embed a tool like Calendly or your existing salon software, but a bespoke system is a different job at a different price.
A Sensible Plan For The Next Fortnight
- Claim your free Google Business Profile and add real photographs.
- Ask your last three customers what they looked at before booking. Their answers beat any blog post, including this one.
- Write down your four or five main services and a rough price for each.
- Take ten photographs on your phone in good daylight: your work, your van, your treatment room, you.
- Then, and only then, decide whether to build something yourself or ask someone to do it. Our contact page is there if you want a straight answer about your situation rather than a pitch.
So, Do You Need A Website?
If people go looking for you before they get in touch, yes, you need a website, and the version that works is smaller and plainer than you imagine. Four pages, honest photos, clear prices, a phone number that works on a phone. If your work arrives through a handful of trade contacts and you are turning jobs away, you do not, and you can revisit the question when that changes. The wrong move is neither of those. It is spending another year unsure, while the people who nearly booked you quietly ring somebody else.