And did we mention mobile-friendly? Let’s start at the beginning. According to Expresso.digital, less than 64% of small business have a website, many of those buying into the idea that they are too small to need a website yet. Of those that don’t, people tend to have three main excus — I mean reasons:

1. It costs too much.

Let’s start here. It’s logical to have a budget and that budget will be smaller as a new business. Regardless, there are ways to save some cash while still getting the web presence that is vital to every company. There’s no reason you can’t have a professional site built within your limits. Even if you need to hold back on some customizations the first time around, it’s still worth the time and effort to have something, anything, that gives potential customers information about your brand.

2. It’s irrelevant to my industry.

This result was a bit of surprise, and it took me a moment to consider an industry someone might be disinclined to believe was relevant to having a web presence. At the end of the day, a website isn’t always about selling a product to customers that can’t or don’t want to walk in your physical front doors.

If you are in a business where 100% of your clients come from word-of-mouth in your particular part of the world, this can still be of use for you. Customers should be able to look up information about your business. What is its origin story? Why is their product or service different from these others? What time do they open? Realistically, not many people put in the effort to make a phone call to check your hours.

It can also be about reconsidering a product your discussed with them but they were unsure about. How much did it cost again? All of these are questions that are easily answered with a few clicks of a mouse or taps of a finger. I, myself, have spent money at companies that I can easily compare online over taking a trip to the store.

We live in a busy world, and in the Age of Amazon, there aren’t many people who walk into a store to buy something without having researched and price-compared at a minimum of two other places. Competition is fierce. Without a website, you won’t have a seat at the proverbial table.

3. Social media is good enough.

This is an easy trap to fall into. Remember the good ol’ days before advertising on Facebook was a thing? Most of your customers don’t. People are so inundated with advertising everywhere they look, they need some way to sort through it all.

Like it or not, the knowledge that anyone — literally anyone — can throw up a page on Facebook or start a Twitter account is a subtilty we consciously overlook. When is the last time you clicked on an ad on social media that wasn’t linked to a professional-looking website and thought, “Yeah. I’d like to give these people my credit card number.” That’s what I thought.

Whether they know it or not, customers are going to your site as much to see if they should trust you or not as to see that hand-carved table that caught their eye. Showing them you have the resources and the vigilance to present them with something that has been well thought out and provides them with a safe place to put in their personal information (Yep, I’m talking about you, SSL certificate.) creates an impact that you can’t get with just social media.

Now that we’ve covered the excuses, there is one more important bullet point. Having a website isn’t good enough. I know. I’m sorry. Smart Insights cited 80% of internet users as being smartphone users. The rest are your grandparents. Seriously though, if someone cares enough to pick up a $1,000 iPhone, you’d better believe they’re going to use it. They’re going to use it to find their way around town, check the weather, sound smart at dinner parties, and yes, look at your website.

In a 2018 Google study, they found that 53% of mobile website visits are stopped in their tracks if they take more than three seconds to load. Ouch. That’s not much time to make a first impression. In yet another study, Statista (2018) found that 52.2% of online traffic around the world came through mobiles. That is a number that grew around 2% from the year before. More than ever, people are on the go and want information immediately.

We all love entrepreneurs and small businesses. They represent the innovative and the daring. They inspire us all to build something when we see the need. They are doers. Don’t miss out on strengthening what you’ve built or building bigger by missing out online.