Who asks this, and why the answer is not always yes
The people typing “does my business need a website” are usually trading already, often busy, and being told by everyone that they must have one. The industry’s answer is always yes because the industry sells websites. The useful answer depends on one thing: do strangers search for what you sell before deciding who to buy it from?
If they do, you need to be findable and checkable when they search. If they do not, because every job arrives by word of mouth and you turn work away, a website is a cost with no job to do, and the free Google Business Profile is a better place to start.
Three tests
- Search your trade and your town on your phone. Are there results? Are competitors in them? If yes, customers are looking there, and you are not in the room.
- Ask your last five new customers how they found you and what they did before ringing. If any of them looked you up, they wanted to check something a page should have told them: price, work, area, reviews.
- Count your enquiries in a slow month. If a slow month is a problem, you need a channel you can turn up, and search is the one that keeps working. If a slow month never comes, you do not need it yet.
You need a website when
- Strangers search for your service. Every Manchester service search we read on 4 September 2026 had a full page of competitors and a map pack above them. The businesses in those results get the enquiry; the ones with only a Facebook page do not appear.
- Customers check before they contact. The two genuinely human searches this site’s own domain received in sixteen months were “cybrial manchester reviews” and “can i trust them”. People look you up. A profile with no site to click through to loses some of them.
- You sell online, or want to. A shop, bookings, quotes with a form: these need pages you control.
- You want to be found for the questions people ask before they buy. “How much does X cost” is searched every month in every trade, and only a website can answer it in a way search engines index.
- You want an asset that compounds. Pages that rank keep bringing enquiries for years; a social post is gone in a day.
You do not need one yet when
- All your work is referral and you turn work away. Set up the Google Business Profile so the referred customer can find your number and reviews, and revisit in a year.
- You sell one simple local service and the profile does the job: plumber, mobile hairdresser, dog walker with a full diary. Reviews and a phone number are the whole enquiry journey.
- You are testing an idea. A profile and a page on a marketplace or booking platform cost nothing; commit to a site when the idea has survived six months.
- You cannot keep it current. A site with last year’s prices and a Christmas banner in March does more harm than no site. If nobody will maintain it, wait, or pay someone to.
What it costs when you do need one
The market rarely says. On the live Manchester web design result, one studio in ten shows a price. Ours are published: a website from £500 to build, then hosting and care from £50 a month, which is where the site lives and what keeps it fast, secure and current. There is no minimum term and you own everything. The cost guide sets out the whole UK market with sources if you want to compare.
The comparison that matters is not against other quotes; it is against a month of enquiries you did not get. If one extra job a quarter covers the cost, and for most trades it does several times over, the question answers itself. If it does not, wait, and we will say so.
