Almost always yes — but not for the reason most web designers give you. It's not about looking professional. It's that Google and AI assistants can't recommend a business they can't read, and your website is the thing they read.
When someone asks Google or ChatGPT “who's the best [what you do] near me,” those systems build their answer from what they can read: websites, business profiles, reviews, directories. A business with no website gives them almost nothing to work with — so the recommendation goes to a competitor who does. That's the actual cost of not having one: invisible, daily, and compounding.
A social media page isn't a substitute. You don't own it, its content is barely readable to search engines, and the platform can change the rules or suspend the account any day. The website is the one piece of your online presence you actually own.
Honest exceptions exist. If every customer comes by referral and you're at capacity, a website won't change your revenue. If the business is a short-term experiment, a complete Google Business Profile might carry it. The question is whether new customers ever search for what you do — if they do, and they can't find you, the answer is yes, you need one.
Less than you're usually sold. One page that says clearly what you do, where, and for whom. Your real contact information matching your Google Business Profile exactly. Answers to the questions customers actually ask. Fast loading on a phone. Schema markup underneath so machines can read it. That's it — five pages beats twenty-five confused ones.
Sites here start with what your customers actually search for — verified with real data, not guessed — and get built static and fast with the machine-readable structure in from day one. If what you actually need first is to know whether AI recommends you at all, that's what Answer Optimization Audit checks. Either way you get told what you need, including when the answer is “less than you thought.”
You can, but you're renting, not owning. Search engines and AI models can barely read social pages, the platform controls your reach, and an account suspension takes your whole presence with it. A simple owned website plus a social page beats a social page alone.
It's the single most important free listing, and for some businesses it carries a lot. But profiles with linked websites give Google and AI models far more to read and trust — the profile and the site reinforce each other. Start with the profile if you must choose; plan for both.
Usually far fewer than you're sold. One clear page per real thing you do, plus contact and about — commonly five to ten pages. What matters is that each page answers a question a real customer actually searches, not hitting a page count.
Clean structure, plain language that says what the business does and where, and schema markup — the machine-readable labels underneath the page. Fast static pages help too. This is exactly what most template builders skip, and it's the difference between existing online and being recommendable.