Do You Need a Website in 2026?
People ask me this more than anything else, usually a little apologetically, as if the answer is obvious. It depends. I build websites for a living, so you would expect me to say yes, and for a lot of businesses the honest answer is "not yet".
So I went and looked. I have a list of just over 17,000 Sussex businesses pulled from Google Maps, and I can see where each of their Google listings sends people. I also run the sites for a handful of local businesses and can see exactly where their visitors come from.
Here is what that shows, and how to tell which side of the line you are on.
How Many Local Businesses Go Without One
Of those 17,000 Sussex businesses, 17% have no website on their Google listing at all. Another 2.4% point their listing at a Facebook or Instagram page instead.
The average hides a big spread between trades:
- Barbers: 43% have no website listed, and another 13% send people to a social page instead. More than half have no site.
- Hair salons: 31% none, 9% social.
- Dog groomers: 32% none, 7% social.
- Painters: 33% none.
- Garages: 29% none.
- Solicitors: 6%. Estate agents: 2%.
And between towns. Shoreham and Lancing are the highest at 24%, Worthing 22%, Brighton and Hove the lowest at 12%.
The trades that run on regulars and word of mouth are the ones getting by without a site. That is the useful clue.
When Social Media and a Google Listing Are Enough
If most of your customers already know you, a website has less to do. A barber with a full chair, a groomer booked up by word of mouth, a new business still finding out whether anyone wants what it sells: for all of these, a well-kept Google Business Profile and an active Instagram can carry the load.
The Google listing matters more than people expect. It is what shows up on the map when somebody nearby searches for what you do, with your hours, your reviews and a button to call. I have written about getting the most out of it, and if you do nothing else, do that.
What Instagram Does for Box & Burn
The common story at the moment is that Instagram only shows your posts to people if you pay. For one of the businesses I look after, the numbers say otherwise.
Box & Burn Gym is a local gym, active on Instagram, with a one-page website I built. Over the past three months, Instagram sent as many visitors to the site as Google did. Each brought in a little over a quarter of all visits, and in some months Instagram was ahead.
So Instagram works for them. But look at how it works. Those visits came through the single link in the gym's profile. Somebody saw a post, went to the profile, and tapped through because they wanted something the post could not give them: the prices, the class times, how to join.
Where Instagram Sends People
That is the part the "do I need a website" question usually misses. Instagram is good at making people interested. A website is where they find out what happens next.
Without a website, that link in your profile goes to a page of links, a booking app, or nowhere. With one, it goes to a page that says what you do, what it costs, where you are and how to start, in your words, laid out the way you want.
You also own it. An Instagram account can be hacked, suspended or reshaped by a change to the app overnight, and the audience goes with it. A website and the address it sits on stay yours.
What Search, Maps and AI Can Read
There is a second reason, and it is growing.
When somebody asks Google, or an assistant like ChatGPT, who does something near them, the answer is built from what those systems can read. That means your Google listing and your website. Much of Instagram sits behind a login, which makes it hard for them to read.
A website that states plainly what you do, where, and roughly what it costs gives them something to repeat. The sites I build send all of their text in the page itself, so anything that reads the page sees all of it straight away. I went into what actually helps in my post on AI search.
Signs You Have Outgrown Social Media Alone
- People message you asking for prices, hours or how to book, again and again
- You want customers from outside the people who already follow you
- Someone searching for your trade in your town finds your competitors first
- Your Instagram link goes to a page of links rather than to something that answers questions
- You have started to worry about what happens if you lose the account
Two or more of those and a website is probably worth its cost.
If You Only Do One Thing
Fix your Google listing first. It is free, it is where local customers look, and it decides whether you are on the map at all.
Then, when the signs above start to appear, give your Instagram link and your Google listing somewhere worth landing.
