Does My Business Really Need a Website? (Asking For a Friend Who Is Losing Money)
Mon entreprise a-t-elle vraiment besoin d'un site web? (Question posée pour un ami qui perd de l'argent)
Let's play a game. Picture a customer standing outside your shop at 9:47pm, phone in hand, googling your business name to check your hours. What do they find?
If the answer is "nothing, because we rely on word of mouth," congratulations — you've just lost a customer to the competitor one search result down who, shockingly, has a website. Word of mouth is a beautiful thing. It is also not open at 9:47pm.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: your business already has a website, whether you built one or not. It's called your Google listing, your Facebook page, or — worst case — a blank search results page that makes you look like you closed down in 2019. The only question is whether you control what's on it.
A real website is the one employee who never calls in sick, never has an off day, and works exactly the hours you need: all of them. It answers "are you open," "how much does this cost," and "are you legit" before a human ever has to. That's not a luxury. That's the bare minimum of doing business in a world where 9 out of 10 people research a company online before ever walking through the door.
So no, you don't need a website the way you need oxygen. You just need one the way you need customers.