Does My Small Business Actually Need a Website in 2026?
I've lost count of the number of small business owners I've spoken to who have built something genuinely brilliant and then hidden it behind a website they're embarrassed to share. Or no website at all.
It comes up in almost every initial conversation I have; the business is doing well on referrals, they've got Instagram, they've got a Google Business Profile and the website, if it exists, is either five years out of date or a DIY job they never quite fully finished.
So when people ask me whether they actually need a website in 2026, my answer is straightforward: yes. And I'm going to explain exactly why.
I'm also going to be specific about cost, platform and what good actually looks like. Because the vague version of this conversation isn't useful to anyone.
What a website actually does for a small business
The easiest way to think about your website is not as a marketing tool; think of it as the place where decisions get made.
Someone hears about your business from a friend. They get your name from a venue, a client, or a colleague. What do they do next? They Google you. And what they find in that moment, or don't find, shapes whether they ever get in touch.
A website does several things that nothing else can replicate:
It builds credibility before you've spoken to anyone. A well-designed site tells a potential client that you are serious, professional, and worth their time. An outdated one, or the absence of one, tells them the opposite.
It makes you findable. Social platforms push your content to some of your followers some of the time. Google sends people directly to your website when they search for what you do. That is a fundamentally different kind of visibility.
It gives you control. Your website is yours. You decide what it says, how it looks, and what happens when someone lands on it. Social platforms can change their algorithm, restrict your reach, or disappear entirely. That has happened before and it will happen again.
It works while you are not. A website answers questions, builds trust, and prompts enquiries at 11pm on a Tuesday when you are nowhere near your phone.
Around 78% of UK small businesses have a website, and of those, 84% say it plays a significant role in their success. The question isn't whether you need one. The real question is whether you can afford not to have one.
"But I already have Instagram and a Google Business Profile"
This is the most common response I get, and it's a fair one. Social media is genuinely useful. Google Business is genuinely useful. But neither of them is a substitute for a website, and here's why.
Social media is rented land. You are building your business's digital reputation on a platform you do not own, cannot control, and could lose access to at any time. Facebook organic reach for business pages has fallen dramatically over the past decade. Instagram changes what it shows and to whom on a near-constant basis. A business that relies entirely on social for its digital presence is one algorithm update away from invisibility.
Google Business Profile is excellent for local search and reviews, but it is limited. It cannot tell your full story, it cannot showcase your work properly and it cannot build the kind of trust that converts a warm lead into an enquiry.
The way I'd put it: social media is where people find you. Your website is where they decide.
A note on AI search in 2026
This is something that has shifted significantly in the last year. AI tools: Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity increasingly answer search queries directly. The information they pull comes from websites. If your business does not have one, you will not appear in AI-generated answers. That is a new and very real form of invisibility that did not exist two years ago.
What about the cost?
The cost objection is the one I take most seriously, because it is legitimate. Not every small business has budget to throw at an expensive website build.
So let's be specific.
At Ninety8 Media, I build websites on Squarespace. I chose this platform deliberately, and I'll explain why in a moment. Squarespace itself costs from between £12 to £79 per month (billed annually, including VAT). That covers your hosting, your domain in the first year, your SSL certificate, and all platform updates. There are no plugins to buy, no separate hosting bill, no security patches to manage.
A professionally designed Squarespace site, built by someone who knows what they are doing with strategy, structure and SEO, typically costs between £700 and £2,500 for a small business, depending on size and complexity of the new site. That is a one-off investment. The ongoing cost is the platform subscription we discussed above.
Now weigh that against the invisible cost of not having one. The referral that went cold because there was nothing to send them to. The venue inquiry that went to a competitor who had a professional site. The potential client who Googled you, found nothing convincing, and moved on. These costs do not show up in a spreadsheet but they are real.
A website is not an ongoing marketing cost, it’s infrastructure. The equivalent of having a sign above your door so-to-speak.
A real example: Brinkley's Event Catering
I want to make this concrete, because I think case studies are more useful than statistics.
Brinkley's Event Catering had been operating for years before we worked together. They catered hundreds of events across the UK. They had a strong reputation and a loyal base of clients who referred them regularly.
They also had no website.
When new enquiries came in through referrals, from venues, event planners and corporate clients, there was no central place to send them. No way for a potential client to explore the menus, see the quality of the food, understand the scale of events Brinkley's could handle or feel confident enough to get in touch. The business was relying entirely on word of mouth to do a job that a website could have been doing quietly and consistently in the background.
We built their first website on Squarespace: clean layouts, strong food photography, clear service and unit descriptions, a straightforward enquiry pathway, and SEO foundations built in from day one.
Ashton and Grace Brinkley's response when they saw it:
"We just had a look at the website and it looks really good! We are so pleased with it! Really happy with how our brand is taking shape."
That is what a website should do. You can read the full case study here. It gives a clear picture of what changed and why.
Is Squarespace the right choice for a small business?
I have worked with Hubspot, WordPress and Drupal sites and I understand what they can do at scale. For large organisations with complex technical requirements, those platforms make sense. For a small business that needs a professional, credible, easy-to-maintain website at a reasonable price, I am a firm believer that Squarespace is what you need.
That view is based on experience, not on the fact that it is the platform I build on. WordPress requires ongoing plugin management, security updatesand a reasonable level of technical confidence to maintain properly. Drupal is powerful but genuinely complex. For a business owner who simply needs their site to work, look great, and be updatable without specialist help, neither of those is the right starting point.
Squarespace is all-in-one: hosting, domain, SSL, and content management in a single subscription. There are no plugins to update, no compatibility issues to troubleshoot, and the interface is straightforward enough that clients can make changes themselves after handover without needing to come back to me for every small update, thought I am very happy to provide ongoing management for the site.
The built-in SEO tools are solid. Mobile responsiveness is automatic. It scales as your business grows: adding pages, a blog, a booking system, or an online shop is all possible without rebuilding from scratch. The templates are genuinely well designed and, in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, can produce a site that looks entirely bespoke.
If you need a highly complex e-commerce operation or a heavily customised web application, Squarespace has limits and I would tell you that honestly. But for a small business that needs a professional, fast, credible website it can actually maintain, it covers everything you need at a price that makes sense.
More than a quarter of UK small businesses using a website builder choose Squarespace. It is not a niche choice.
If you'd like to understand exactly what a Ninety8 Media website build includes, you can find the details on our website design page.
What our process actually looks like
One thing I want to be clear about: I do not take a brief, pick a template, and get building. Every website project at Ninety8 Media starts with a proper discovery phase. That distinction matters more than most clients expect.
Before a single page is designed, I spend time understanding the business: who is buying, what they are looking for, where they hesitate, and what is stopping them from getting in touch. That research shapes everything that follows: the structure, the messaging, the page flow and the calls to action.
The discovery phase
The discovery phase is delivered as a formal document before any design begins. It covers the current state of the website and what it is costing the business in missed enquiries; a review of the competitive landscape and where the gaps are; user personas and the different decision-making journeys each type of buyer goes through; content strategy, including the core narrative thread from first impression through to enquiry; and the proposed sitemap, with every page justified by a clear purpose.
This is the part of website design that most agencies skip. It is also the part that determines whether a finished site actually converts visitors into enquiries. Or just sits there looking reasonably nice.
Page structure before a pixel is placed
Once the discovery is signed off, I map out every page in detail before design begins. Each page has a defined structure: which sections appear in which order, what content each section needs to do, and where the calls to action sit. The copy brief for every page is written alongside this structure, so the design and messaging develop together rather than the copy being retrofitted into a template afterwards.
This matters because a beautifully designed page with weak structure will not convert. Visitors need to be guided through a logical sequence: understand what is on offer, feel confident about the quality, have their key questions answered, and be given a clear and low-pressure route to get in touch. If any of those stages is missing or in the wrong order, you lose people before they ever reach the enquiry form.
SEO built in from the start, not bolted on at the end
Search visibility is not an afterthought. Keyword research informs the page structure from the outset: which pages exist, what they are called, how they are headlined and what questions the content answers. Every page is built with metadata, clean URL structure, and on-page SEO foundations in place before launch.
The result is a website that is not only well-designed and properly structured, but one that is already working to bring in the right traffic from the moment it goes live, rather than needing significant SEO work to catch up after the fact.
What the client receives
By the time a site launches, the client has worked through a full discovery document, a page-by-page structure plan with content briefs for every section, a Squarespace build that is mobile-optimised and SEO-ready, and a handover so they can update it themselves going forward without needing to come back to me for routine changes.
It is a more involved process than a standard template build. And deliberately so. A website that has been properly thought through from the start performs better, requires less rework, and gives the business a genuine commercial asset rather than just an online presence.
That is the standard I hold every project to. And it is why I only work with a small number of clients at any one time.
So, do you actually need one?
If you've read this far, you probably already know my answer.
The businesses I see struggle most with growth are rarely the ones with a bad product or service. They are the ones that make it unnecessarily hard for the right people to find them, trust them, and get in touch. A website is the most direct fix for all three.
The barrier is almost never the money. It is the time, the not-knowing-where-to-start, and the sense that it is one more thing on an already long list. Those are legitimate concerns and I understand them.
But a website you are proud of, that clearly explains what you do and makes it easy to enquire. That is something that works for you every day, without you having to think about it. For most small businesses, that is one of the highest-return investments they will make.
If you are running a business without a website, or with one you are not confident in, feel free to get in touch. I am happy to have an honest, no-pressure conversation about what would actually work for you.
Phoebe Nisbet
Founder, Ninety8 Media, Digital Marketing Agency, Oxford
