Does Your Home Service Business Actually Need a Website

27% of small businesses in the United States don’t have a website. Among home service contractors, that number is likely higher. Plenty of plumbers, electricians, and HVAC techs are booked solid through referrals and word of mouth without ever building a web page.

So the question is fair: do you actually need one?

If you’re currently booked out three weeks on referrals alone, a website might seem like a solution looking for a problem. But 80% of consumers research contractors online before hiring, and that number climbs every year. The question isn’t whether you need a website today. The question is whether you can afford to be invisible to 80% of potential customers as your market shifts.

The referral argument

Referrals are the best leads in home services. A neighbor tells their friend you did a great job on their water heater, and that friend calls you. High trust, short sales cycle, no marketing cost.

Nobody is arguing against referrals. They work and they’ll keep working.

But something changed in how referrals actually play out. 97% of homeowners use Google to find local contractors, and 84% search online before making any hiring decision. A homeowner gets your name from their neighbor. Ten years ago, they’d call you directly. Now, they Google your name first.

They search “Mike’s Plumbing Dallas” and expect to find a website, reviews, photos, and some evidence that you’re a legitimate operation. If they find nothing, or worse, if they find a competitor’s website that looks more professional, you’ve lost a warm referral without ever knowing it existed. That 84% number means even your warmest referrals are vetting you online before they pick up the phone.

Businesses with websites generate 2.7x more trust signals than those without. Those trust signals include photos of completed work, review counts, license information, and service descriptions that answer the homeowner’s questions before they pick up the phone.

A website doesn’t replace referrals. It makes your referrals close at a higher rate.

What happens without a website

Without a website, your online presence depends entirely on platforms you don’t control.

Google Business Profile is the most common substitute. And it’s a good tool. A well-optimized GBP shows up in local searches, displays your reviews, and gives homeowners your phone number. Check our GBP optimization guide for how to make the most of it.

But Google controls that listing, not you. They can change the format, suppress your listing, or prioritize paid results over organic ones. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. Building your business on a platform controlled by a company whose interests don’t always align with yours is a risk.

Facebook business pages have the same problem. You’re building on rented land. Algorithm changes can cut your visibility overnight.

With your own website, you control the message, the design, the content, and the calls-to-action. Nobody can change your homepage without your permission. Nobody can bury your phone number or add competitor ads to your listing.

60% of local searches happen on mobile. When a homeowner searches “emergency plumber near me” at 11 PM with water on their kitchen floor, they’re scanning results fast. Contractors with a website that loads quickly, shows a clickable phone number, and says “24/7 Emergency Service” in the first line get the call. Contractors without a website get passed over for the one who has one.

Your website is a 24/7 salesperson

You can’t answer the phone at 2 AM. Your website can.

A website works while you sleep, while you’re on a job site, and while you’re at your kid’s soccer game. It answers questions, builds credibility, and captures leads around the clock.

A homeowner researching “how much does a water heater cost” at 10 PM on a Tuesday isn’t calling anyone. But if your blog post answers that question and your website has a “Request a Free Estimate” form at the bottom, you’ve captured a lead that you’ll see in your inbox tomorrow morning.

A plumber on Reddit described going from no website to a basic $3,000 WordPress site. Within 90 days, he was pulling 8-12 organic leads per month that he previously had zero visibility into. His cost per lead dropped from $180 on Thumbtack and Angi to under $30 for organic leads. That $3,000 investment paid for itself before the second invoice.

96% of website visitors leave without converting, which sounds bad until you realize that the 4% who do convert are some of your highest-quality leads. These are people who found you, read about your services, checked your reviews, and decided you’re worth contacting. That’s a much warmer lead than someone clicking a Thumbtack ad.

The Google Business Profile-only approach

Some contractors run their entire online presence through Google Business Profile. No website, no social media, just a GBP listing with reviews, photos, and a phone number.

This can work in low-competition markets. If you’re the only plumber within 30 miles and you have 50 five-star reviews, your GBP listing alone might generate enough calls.

In competitive markets, GBP-only puts you at a disadvantage. Google’s algorithm favors businesses with websites because a website provides additional relevance signals that a GBP listing alone cannot generate. Your GBP listing links to your website, and that connection strengthens both. The website gives Google content to crawl, keywords to index, and structured data to parse, all of which feed into how your business ranks for local searches.

Contractors with websites consistently rank higher in the local pack than identical businesses without websites, all else being equal. Google sees a website as a signal that you’re an established business worth recommending, and the additional crawlable content gives the algorithm more confidence in matching you to relevant searches.

GBP also limits what you can communicate. You get a business description, a list of services, photos, and reviews. You can’t explain your process, showcase detailed project portfolios, publish helpful content, or create service-specific landing pages that address exactly what a homeowner is searching for.

A homeowner comparing three plumbers will spend 90 seconds on each. The plumber with a website offering detailed service descriptions, pricing guidance, and real project photos gives that homeowner more reasons to call. The plumber with only a GBP listing gives them a phone number and reviews, which might be enough, but probably isn’t when the competitor’s website answers every question.

What a contractor website actually needs to do

You don’t need a complicated website. You need a website that does four things well.

Show up in search. When someone searches your service plus your city, your website should appear. This requires basic SEO: proper title tags, service-specific pages, and content that matches what homeowners search for.

Build trust in 30 seconds. A visitor decides within seconds whether your site looks professional enough to justify a phone call. Real photos, visible reviews, license information, and a clean design establish credibility fast. 94% of first impressions are design-related, which means a site that looks like it was built in 2012 is actively working against you.

Make contact effortless. A clickable phone number in the header. A short contact form on every page. Clear business hours. Emergency service availability if you offer it. Every extra click between “I want to call this company” and actually reaching you is a chance for the homeowner to call someone else instead.

Answer common questions. What services do you offer? What areas do you serve? How much does the work cost? What’s the process? How long have you been in business? Homeowners have these questions. If your website answers them, you’ve eliminated objections before the first phone call. If your website doesn’t answer them, the homeowner moves on to a competitor whose website does.

The cost of not having one

A basic contractor website costs $2,500-7,000 and generates leads for years. Even at the low end of conversion rates, a website paying for itself within the first few months is realistic.

Consider this math: your average job is worth $3,000. Your website generates 5 new leads per month. You close 2 of them. That’s $6,000 in monthly revenue from a one-time investment of a few thousand dollars plus $50-100/month in hosting.

Now consider what you’re losing without one. If 80% of consumers research online before hiring, and you’re invisible online, you’re missing the majority of potential customers in your market. Not all of them would have hired you. But even capturing a fraction of that demand justifies the investment.

The contractors who say “I don’t need a website, I’m booked through referrals” are right today. But referral networks shrink when key referral sources move, retire, or stop needing your services. Markets change. New competitors arrive. PE-backed consolidators enter your territory with $50,000 monthly marketing budgets.

A website is insurance against a changing market. It gives you a channel you control, a presence that works around the clock, and a foundation for any future marketing you decide to do. Paid ads, email campaigns, social media, and content marketing all perform better when they drive traffic to a website you own.

When you don’t need a website

Full transparency: there are situations where a website isn’t the priority.

If you’re a solo operator in the first six months of business, focus on getting jobs and reviews. A Google Business Profile and a Facebook page can hold you over until you have the cash flow and the review count to justify a website.

If you’re planning to retire or sell within a year and your pipeline is full, a website won’t move the needle enough to matter.

For everyone else, the math overwhelmingly favors having one. Even a basic website on a platform like WordPress or Squarespace puts you ahead of the 27% of businesses operating blind online. The right features on that website turn visitors into leads. And leads into jobs.

Your competitors who have websites are capturing demand that you’re currently invisible to. Whether that matters depends on how much growth you want, but for most contractors, leaving 80% of potential customers unable to find you isn’t a sustainable strategy.

Build the website. Keep it simple. Make sure it loads fast, looks professional, and makes it easy to call you. The industry pages on our site break down what works for specific trades if you want guidance tailored to your business.

Website traffic that doesn’t convert is a separate problem with separate solutions. But you can’t fix conversion if you don’t have a website generating traffic in the first place.