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Local trade website statistics for 2026: what does the data say?
· 10 min read
On this page
- What did we find when we checked trade websites ourselves?
- How do customers find local businesses?
- What do customers expect from reviews?
- How many customers search on a phone?
- How many small businesses have a website?
- Why is it hard for trade pros to keep up online?
- What does a small business website cost?
- Why don’t these numbers agree?
- For press: how do I cite these numbers?
- How did we pick and check these statistics?
- Questions
- Sources
In our own check of 6,052 Atlanta-area home-service businesses, 22.3% had no working website, and the median working site scored 73 out of 100 (frozen Oct 18, 2026). Nationally, BrightLocal’s 2026 surveys found 97% of consumers read reviews and 61% started their latest local search on Google. Every stat on this page has its year and source.
This page collects the numbers people quote about local trade businesses and their websites, with a year and a source on every one. The first table is our own data. Everything else comes from the publisher’s own page, which we opened and checked on Oct 22, 2026, so figures here are as of October 2026. Compiled by the makeasite team. We build websites for trade businesses, so we have a stake in this topic. That’s why every number links to where it came from.
What did we find when we checked trade websites ourselves?
More than 1 in 5 Atlanta-area home-service businesses we checked had no working website: 1,348 of 6,052, or 22.3%. These are Atlanta-area numbers, not national ones, frozen as of Oct 18, 2026, 5:10 PM ET.
| Stat | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 22.3% of Atlanta-area home-service businesses we checked had no working website (1,348 of 6,052). The 95% range for that share is 21.2% to 23.3% | makeasite.co /data | 2026 (checked Oct 17, frozen Oct 18) |
| The median working site scored 73 out of 100 on our 12-point website checklist (n = 4,704 working sites) | makeasite.co /data | 2026 |
| About 3 in 10 working sites (1,429 of 4,704, or 30.4%) scored 80 or higher. 411 (8.7%) scored below 50 | makeasite.co /data, score histogram | 2026 |
| Across all local business categories we checked in the metro, 28.0% had no working website (2,860 of 10,219) | makeasite.co, same freeze and method (all categories, so not in the home-service CSV) | 2026 |
“No working website” means no site at all, only a Facebook page or directory listings, or a site that was dead (including expired domains), parked or under construction. Chains are left out, and so are businesses with no website listed on any source we use (1,693 home-service listings), which we don’t count either way. That makes 22.3% a floor rather than a ceiling. The full rules, the 12 checks and the free CSV (CC BY 4.0) are on /data and the methodology page.
How do customers find local businesses?
Mostly on Google, and fast. In BrightLocal’s 2026 consumer survey, 61% started their most recent local business search on Google, and most picked a business within half an hour.
| Stat | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 84% of US consumers searched online for a local business in the last three months | BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior | 2026 |
| 61% started their most recent local business search on Google: 52% on Google Search and 9% on Google Maps | BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior | 2026 |
| 71% used Google Search at some point during that search, and 75% used more than one channel | BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior | 2026 |
| 75% took less than 30 minutes to choose a business, and 28% decided in under five minutes | BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior | 2026 |
| 72% looked at three or fewer businesses before deciding | BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior | 2026 |
| 23% used an AI tool during their most recent local business search | BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior | 2026 |
BrightLocal sells local marketing software, so these are vendor-published surveys. The panel was 1,227 US consumers who had searched for a local business in the last three months, across all kinds of businesses, not only trades.
Three or fewer businesses on a shortlist, picked in under half an hour, means a pro who doesn’t show up clearly in that first look rarely gets a second one. The basics of showing up are in our Google Business Profile checklist.
What do customers expect from reviews?
Nearly everyone reads them, and they want them recent. BrightLocal’s 2026 review survey found 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, and 74% only care about reviews from the last three months.
| Stat | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, and 41% “always” do when browsing for one | BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey | 2026 |
| 74% only care about reviews written in the last three months | BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey | 2026 |
| 47% won’t use a business with fewer than 20 reviews | BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey | 2026 |
| 68% will only use a business with four stars or more, and 31% want 4.5 or more | BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey | 2026 |
| After reading positive reviews, 54% go on to check the business’s website | BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey | 2026 |
| 89% expect business owners to respond to reviews, and 81% expect a reply within a week | BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey | 2026 |
| 45% used ChatGPT or another AI tool for local business recommendations, up from 6% the year before | BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey | 2026 |
Vendor-published survey of 1,002 US adults (BrightLocal, published Feb 11, 2026).
The one that matters most for websites: more than half of people who like your reviews go and look at your site next. If you need more reviews to show, start with how to get more Google reviews and our free review request texts.
How many customers search on a phone?
Most of them. Pew Research Center’s 2026 survey found 91% of US adults own a smartphone, and in BrightLocal’s survey 73% of consumers started their latest local business search on a phone.
| Stat | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 91% of US adults own a smartphone, and 98% own a cellphone of some kind | Pew Research Center, mobile fact sheet | 2026 (surveyed Jan 30 to Jun 18) |
| 16% of US adults are “smartphone-only” internet users, with no home broadband | Pew Research Center, mobile fact sheet | 2026 |
| 73% of consumers started their most recent local business search on a phone, 19% on a computer and 8% on a tablet | BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior | 2026 |
So the first screen most customers see of your site is a phone screen, and the most useful thing on it is a phone number they can tap. That’s one of the 12 checks in our method, and it’s on the list of what a trade website should have.
How many small businesses have a website?
About 4 in 10 small business owners say they keep an active website, by their own account. In BrightLocal’s 2026 owner survey it was 41% overall and 37% for trades and home repair businesses.
| Stat | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 41% of small business owners said they have an active presence on a business website. For trades or home repair businesses it was 37%, and for home or garden services 31% | BrightLocal, Small Business Marketing Report | 2026 |
| 85% said they have a Google Business Profile, but only 35% said they keep an active presence there | BrightLocal, Small Business Marketing Report | 2026 |
| 22% named their website as one of their top two sources of new customers, the same share that named Google. Word of mouth came first at 35% | BrightLocal, Small Business Marketing Report | 2026 |
| 98% of owners said it’s important to actively manage how their business appears online | BrightLocal, Small Business Marketing Report | 2026 |
Vendor-published survey of 1,002 US owners of locally operating businesses with 1 to 50 employees (BrightLocal, published Oct 21, 2026). “Active presence” means the owner says they post, reply or update it at least occasionally, so a business can have a site and not count it.
Why is it hard for trade pros to keep up online?
Because most of them are small, and many work alone. The SBA counts 36.2 million small businesses in the US, and BLS figures show that up to about a third of the people in some trades are self-employed.
| Stat | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| There are 36,207,130 small businesses in the US, 99.9% of all businesses, employing 62.3 million people (45.9% of private sector workers) | SBA Office of Advocacy, FAQ 2026 | 2026 edition |
| Self-employed workers held 31% of construction and maintenance painter jobs, 20% of roofer jobs and 8% of plumber, pipefitter and steamfitter jobs | BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: painters, roofers, plumbers | 2025 |
| 57% of employer firms said reaching customers and growing sales was an operational challenge in the prior 12 months, the most common one | Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey | 2025 survey (2026 report) |
| 29% named “utilizing technology” as a challenge, which the report says includes e-commerce, cyber security, social media and website issues | Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey | 2025 survey (2026 report) |
The credit survey covers employer firms with 1 to 499 employees in all industries (N = 6,425 for this question), so one-person shops aren’t in it.
The BLS also notes that plumbers are “often on call for emergencies, so evening and weekend work is common.” Someone who spends evenings under a sink isn’t updating a website. That’s the honest reason so many trade sites are missing or out of date, not a lack of care.
What does a small business website cost?
From about $19 a month if you build it yourself to thousands of dollars with an agency. Clutch’s 2026 guide puts most agency web design projects reviewed on its site under $10,000.
| Stat | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Web design agencies typically charge $2,000 to $100,000, depending on scope. Most projects reviewed on Clutch cost less than $10,000 | Clutch, Web Design Company Pricing Guide | 2026 (updated Sep 21) |
| US web design companies charge about $100 to $149 an hour | Clutch, Web Design Company Pricing Guide | 2026 |
| Squarespace Basic is $19 a month billed yearly, or $25 month to month | Squarespace pricing | As of Oct 2026 |
Prices change often. The full breakdown, with freelancers, the monthly line items and three-year totals, is in how much a small business website costs.
Why don’t these numbers agree?
Because they answer different questions. Our 22.3% counts Atlanta-area home-service businesses whose website we found and checked and that turned out not to work. BrightLocal’s 37% asks trade business owners nationwide whether they keep an active site.
- Measured vs. self-reported. We check whether a site loads and is the business’s own. A survey records what owners say, and “active” means they update it.
- Who’s in it. We start from businesses listed in open map data (plus some our team researched by hand) and leave out ones with no website listed anywhere. Surveys use a panel of owners who agreed to answer.
- Where and when. Ours is one metro, checked on one day. Most surveys are national.
If you’re writing about this, quote the one that matches your question, with its place and year, and don’t add or average them.
How did we pick and check these statistics?
We only used numbers we could open on the publisher’s own page, and we checked each one on Oct 22, 2026.
- Original sources only. Government agencies, research centers and the companies that ran the survey. No numbers copied from “statistics” roundups, where a stat often has no traceable source.
- A year on every stat. The year is when the data was collected or published. Survey sizes and who was asked are noted under each table.
- Vendor surveys are labeled. BrightLocal sells local marketing software and Clutch runs an agency marketplace, so their numbers are marked as vendor-published.
- Dropped if we couldn’t verify it. If we couldn’t open the original, the stat isn’t here, even if it’s widely quoted.
- Our own data follows the published methodology: aggregates only, no business named, a figure only when it rests on at least 30 businesses.
- Re-checked every quarter. Next check by Jan 20, 2027. Corrections go to hello@makeasite.co.
Questions trade pros ask
What percentage of small businesses have a website?
It depends on how you ask. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of 1,002 US owners of businesses with 1 to 50 employees, 41% said they keep an active website, and 37% of trades and home repair businesses did. In our own check of 6,052 Atlanta-area home-service businesses, 77.7% had a working website and 22.3% didn’t. One is self-reported and national, the other is measured and Atlanta-area only.
Is the 22.3% a national number?
No. It covers home-service businesses in the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell metro area only (CBSA 12060), frozen as of Oct 18, 2026, 5:10 PM ET. Please say it’s an Atlanta-area figure when you use it. We publish other metros only after each one is checked and frozen on its own.
Can I use these statistics in my article?
Yes. Our own figures are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit makeasite.co and include the as-of date. For third-party numbers, cite the original publisher and link their page, not ours. We link every one so you can check it yourself.
Why do surveys of small business websites disagree so much?
They measure different things. Some ask owners whether they keep an active site, some check whether a working site exists, and they cover different places, business sizes and trades. Compare numbers only when the question, the place and the year match, and say which one you’re quoting.
How often is this page updated?
We re-check every third-party stat on its source page at least every quarter, next by Jan 20, 2027, and change the Updated date when anything changes. Our own figures change only when we publish a new frozen dataset, and older editions stay listed with their dates.
Sources
- makeasite.co: We checked Atlanta-area home-service websites (/data) Our own data. 6,052 home-service businesses judged, CBSA 12060, sites checked Oct 17, 2026, frozen Oct 18, 2026, 5:10 PM ET, rubric 1.0.0. CSV under CC BY 4.0.
- makeasite.co: How we checked (methodology) Sampling, the 12 checks, exclusions and limits.
- BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (Feb 11, 2026) Vendor-published survey; 1,002 US adults via SurveyMonkey. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- BrightLocal: You have less than 30 minutes to win a customer (Consumer Search Behavior 2026, part 1, Jun 24, 2026) Vendor-published survey; 1,227 US consumers who searched for a local business in the last three months. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- BrightLocal: Google is #1 for local search, but three-quarters use more than one channel (Consumer Search Behavior 2026, part 2, Jul 9, 2026) Same panel of 1,227 US consumers. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- BrightLocal: Customers still use Google, but small businesses don’t think it’s important (Small Business Marketing Report 2026, ch. 1, Oct 21, 2026) Vendor-published survey; 1,002 US owners of locally operating businesses with 1 to 50 employees. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- Pew Research Center: Americans’ Use of Mobile Devices in 2026 (fact sheet, Oct 19, 2026) 5,511 US adults, surveyed Jan 30 to Jun 18, 2026; margin of error ±1.8 points. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- SBA Office of Advocacy: Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business 2026 (Feb 3, 2026) Figures as listed on the summary page. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- Federal Reserve Banks: 2026 Report on Employer Firms (2025 Small Business Credit Survey; PDF) Convenience sample of employer firms with 1 to 499 employees, all industries, fielded Sep 3 to Nov 14, 2025; N=6,425 for operational challenges. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Outlook Handbook, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters Jobs held in 2025 by employer type. Page last modified Aug 27, 2026. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Outlook Handbook, Roofers Jobs held in 2025 by employer type. Page last modified Sep 14, 2026. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Outlook Handbook, Painters, Construction and Maintenance Jobs held in 2025 by employer type. Page last modified Aug 27, 2026. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- Clutch: Web Design Company Pricing Guide 2026 (updated Sep 21, 2026) From Clutch’s database of agencies and verified client reviews. Checked Oct 22, 2026.
- Squarespace: Pricing Basic $19/mo billed yearly, $25 month to month, as shown to us. Checked Oct 22, 2026.