Last week we went through 1,200 local businesses, one at a time, across West Michigan and the Chicago area. For each one we asked a simple question: if a customer looked this business up tonight, what would they find?
201 of them have no website at all. That is one in six. Another 44 have a website that is broken, and the owner almost certainly doesn’t know.
Here is the full count, what it means, and five checks you can do on your own phone in the next ten minutes.
Who we checked
865 of the 1,200 are contractors and trades: 545 builders and general contractors, 129 electricians, 89 plumbers, 85 heating and cooling companies and 16 roofers. The other 335 are small local businesses of other kinds, such as salons, restaurants, auto repair shops and dental offices.
This is not a scientific sample. These are businesses we came across in state licence records and on Google Maps, so the numbers describe the businesses we checked and nothing more. We are not naming any of them.
How we checked
We loaded each homepage once, the way a visitor would, and wrote down what came back. Does a site exist? Does it load? Is the connection secure? Does it fit a phone screen? What is it built on, and how old is it? For sites that looked slow, we timed three loads.
The count
| What we found | All 1,200 businesses | The 865 contractors |
|---|---|---|
| No website at all | 201 | 190 |
| Website is down, suspended or a placeholder | 44 | 37 |
| Loads without a secure connection | 36 | 35 |
| Security certificate has a problem | 4 | 3 |
| Built only for a desktop screen | 31 | 29 |
| On a rented website builder | 331 | 268 |
| On WordPress | 360 | 224 |
What each number means
No website. Among the contractors it is worse than one in six: 190 of 865, more than one in five. These are licensed, working businesses. The only thing a new customer can find is a phone number, and sometimes not even that.
Broken websites. Some say “under construction”. Some say “account suspended”. A few web addresses have lapsed and now forward to a stranger’s site. Nobody sets out to have a broken website. The bill went to an old email address, or the person who built it moved on.
Not secure. 36 sites still load the old way, so the browser puts “Not secure” next to the company’s name. Four more have a security certificate that has expired or doesn’t match, which means a full-page warning before anyone sees the site. One of those certificates expired in March 2023.
Desktop only. 31 sites were built before phones mattered. On a phone the whole page shrinks to fit, and nobody can read it without pinching and zooming. Most people looking for a plumber or an electrician are standing in front of the problem with a phone in their hand.
Rented builders. One in three of the businesses with a website is on a builder: 331 of 997. Among contractors it is four in ten. A builder is a fine way to get started. The catch is that the site lives on the builder’s platform. Stop paying and it is gone, and moving it somewhere else means starting over.
WordPress. This was the most common setup we saw, and most of those sites were fine. A small number were running a version from 2022 or 2023, and 13 were running on server software that no longer gets security fixes. Out-of-date software is the usual way small business sites get broken into.
The good news
Most of this is cheap to fix, and almost none of it needs a new website. A security certificate is free. A broken site is often one unpaid renewal. A title and a phone number that work on a phone are an afternoon’s work.
What these have in common is that nobody was looking. A website is not something you finish. It needs someone to open it a few times a year and check that it still works.
Five checks you can do tonight
- Search your own business name on your phone. Not your office computer. Tap the first result. Did it load, and can you read it?
- Tap your phone number. It should start a call. If you have to copy it out by hand, so does every customer.
- Look at the address bar. If it says “Not secure”, ask whoever hosts the site to turn on the free security certificate.
- Scroll to the bottom. If the year in the footer is five years old, the business looks less active than it is.
- Find out who owns the site. You, or the company you pay each month? If you don’t know, that is your answer.
If there is no website at all, start with a free Google Business Profile. It takes an evening, and it is the first thing people see when they search for you.
Common questions
Do I need a new website? Usually not. Of everything in the table, only the desktop-only sites and the ones on a platform you can’t leave really call for a rebuild.
What does “Not secure” actually mean? It means the connection between the visitor and your site is not protected. It doesn’t mean you were hacked. It does mean a new customer’s first impression is a warning label.
Is a website builder a bad choice? No. It is a trade. You get something quick and tidy, and in return you don’t own it. That matters more the longer you are in business.
Want us to look at yours?
Use the free website check, or send the address to hello@45squared.com. We will tell you what we see in plain English, at no charge.