As a local service business owner in 2024, having a professional website is no longer just an option – it’s an absolute necessity for survival. In today’s world, the vast majority of consumers go online to find and vet local companies before making hiring decisions. Without an effective online presence, you’re essentially invisible to this pool of potential customers actively searching for your services.
Let’s look at some eye-opening statistics that underscore just how critical websites have become:
- 93% of consumers searched online for local services in 2023 (BrightLocal)
- 88% of searches for local services happened on a mobile device (Engage121)
- 63% of consumers primarily use company websites to find and engage with businesses (BlueCorona)
Those numbers make it crystal clear – if your local service business doesn’t have a modern, mobile-friendly website with customer reviews, you’re getting left in the dust by competitors who do have an optimized web presence.
- It Establishes Credibility and Trustworthiness
- Customers Expect to Find You Online
- It Helps You Rank Higher in Local Search Results
- It Acts as an Online Marketing Hub
- It Gives You Marketing Reach Without Huge Ad Spend
- It Lends Legitimacy With Suppliers and Referral Partners
- It Puts You Miles Ahead of Local Competitors
- Your Website: The Great Differentiator for Local Service Businesses
It Establishes Credibility and Trustworthiness
In 2024, most consumers associate businesses without websites as being outdated, untrustworthy, or potentially even fly-by-night operations. Fair or not, your website has become the new digital storefront and first impression for your brand.
A professional-looking, informative website instantly establishes credibility and signals you’re a legitimate business that cares about its image and appealing to modern customers. It builds trust from the initial interaction.
On the other hand, if your business doesn’t have a website where customers can easily access information about your services, credentials, experience, and customer reviews, you automatically seem much less credible and trustworthy than competitors who have invested in a strong web presence.
Customer Reviews Are Non-Negotiable
Speaking of reviews, having visible customer testimonials and ratings on your site is absolutely critical these days. Over 70% of people say positive reviews make them more trusting of a local business. And 92% of consumers now read online reviews when researching services in their area.
Your website gives you a platform to proudly display your best reviews and allows potential customers to easily check out your company’s reputation before deciding to hire you. Businesses without review/testimonial sections basically give people no way to validate their quality of work.
Customers Expect to Find You Online
As highlighted in those initial statistics, over 93% of consumers use search engines to find local service providers like contractors, landscapers, plumbers, salons, auto repair shops, and more.
Let that sink in – if your business doesn’t have a website, you’re completely invisible to the vast majority of your potential customer base.
Not only do modern consumers expect every legitimate business to have a website, but many flat-out refuse to hire service providers that don’t have a professional online presence. To them, it signals a business is behind the times and raises questions about the level of service they can expect.
Your website acts as your 24/7 online business hub that anyone can access instantly from their computers, tablets, and smartphones. Not being findable online means you’re undoubtedly losing out on a staggering amount of new business opportunities and customers to competitors who do have optimized websites.
It Helps You Rank Higher in Local Search Results
When someone searches for a service you offer in your local area, you want your business to be one of the first listings they see in results from Google, Bing, and other major search engines.
This prime positioning gives you a massive advantage in being noticed, considered, and hired.
Think about it – most people don’t look much further than the first few listings on the first page of results. If your website doesn’t appear near the top, you’re practically invisible.
Having an optimized website with relevant content about your services, business information like your address and service areas, and local citations/listings helps signal to search engines that your site is highly relevant for those local search queries.
This improves your visibility and ranking position.
Search engines also prioritize sites that have fast load speeds, are mobile-friendly, follow best security practices, and provide a quality user experience overall. Properly built websites deliver on all of those criteria to help boost local search performance.
Dominating the first page of local search results can mean the difference between thriving with a steady stream of new customer inquiries, or struggling to get anyone’s attention in your area.
It Acts as an Online Marketing Hub
An effective website doesn’t just help customers find you – it also allows you to continually publish content that markets your services to interested local prospects in an affordable, measurable way.
Adding pages for each of your key service offerings with informative, keyword-optimized content (like we’re doing on this very page!) helps you get found through search engines for queries related to those services in your local area.
You can build out information pages that describe your:
- Background and experience
- Special service offerings
- Customer reviews and project galleries
- Service areas and locations covered
- Associations, certifications, and credentials
- Differentiators from competitors
- And much more helpful information
Regularly posting fresh blog articles or guides that educate and provide value around topics your target local audience is interested in boosts your website’s relevance and visibility even more.
All of this published content acts as a powerful marketing engine, consistently working to drive new leads and customer inquiries for your local business from interested buyers in your area searching on Google, Bing, and other sites.
It’s an affordable way to outshine competitors who don’t take advantage of content marketing.
Plus, your website gives you a platform to easily capture leads via online forms where people can request quotes, book appointments or simply inquire about your services. You can then follow up promptly and work to convert those leads into new customers.
It Gives You Marketing Reach Without Huge Ad Spend
For many local service businesses, traditional outbound marketing like print, radio, or TV ads can be difficult to measure and extremely expensive, especially to try and cover a widespread geographic territory.
Having a professional website is one of the most cost-effective ways to attract attention and acquire new customers affordably across your entire local service area. You can essentially shortcut expensive blanket ad buys with targeted online visibility.
Every piece of content and optimization to enhance your website’s discoverability in search gives your local business more and more potential visibility to interested prospects near you.
And unlike one-and-done ad campaigns, your website is a long-term digital asset constantly working for your business 24/7 with an infinite number of potential impressions and opportunities to get found by new customers over time.
The return on your initial website investment grows exponentially the more relevant local traffic it drives to your business. This is why so many service area businesses are prioritizing websites over traditional disruptive mass marketing tactics that often get ignored or quickly forgotten.
It Lends Legitimacy With Suppliers and Referral Partners
Beyond attracting new customer streams, your website also sends signals of credibility and professional legitimacy to important suppliers, manufacturers, and referral partners in your local industry.
Many product suppliers, extended warranty companies, installation credentialing groups, and professional associations research service providers online as part of their vetting processes before approving them for partnership programs.
For example, let’s say you’re a remodeling contractor and you want to get product discounts or become a certified installer with major brands like window manufacturers, flooring providers, or plumbing fixture companies.
Those brands will probably look at your website to evaluate the experience and credibility of your company.
The same goes for getting listed on major home service platforms and apps like Angi, Thumbtack, or Home Advisor. As well as potentially getting referrals from local real estate professionals, interior designers, insurance companies, and other complementary businesses in your area.
It Puts You Miles Ahead of Local Competitors
Even after reading all the evidence and advantages we’ve covered so far, you might be surprised at just how many local service businesses in 2024 still don’t have websites, or have extremely poor and outdated websites that don’t follow modern best practices.
This glaring oversight represents a huge opportunity for companies like yours willing to invest in a professional online presence. You can blow past the competition and stand out as the modern, credible leader in your local market.
While your competitors rely on things like Yellow Pages ads, unreliable word-of-mouth referrals, and old-school cold marketing tactics, you’ll have an authoritative digital presence and asset that today’s customers prefer.
An optimized, user-friendly website combined with savvy content marketing gives your local service company a strong competitive advantage for connecting with more of the best local customers in a sustainable, cost-efficient way. It’s a massive head start most businesses are still failing to take.
Your Website: The Great Differentiator for Local Service Businesses
As we head further into 2024 and beyond, the writing is on the wall – local service companies that don’t prioritize having a modern, optimized website are getting left behind.
Consumer behavior has fundamentally shifted, with the vast majority of people now discovering, vetting, and ultimately deciding which businesses to hire through online research and engagement.
Your website is the great equalizer that allows you to get found, build credibility, and compete in this new age.
Think about it – your website is always working around the clock as your 24/7 storefront, marketing engine, lead generator, and validator of your company’s reputation and expertise.
It positions you strongly in a prime battleground local businesses can’t afford to avoid.
The bottom line is your website could be the pivotal difference-maker that allows you to survive and thrive in 2024 and beyond by consistently reaching, engaging, and converting the modern, mobile customers in your local community.
