It’s 7pm on a Tuesday. A pipe’s burst under someone’s kitchen sink. Water everywhere. They grab their phone and type “emergency plumber near me” into Google.
Three results come up. They call the first one. Job done within the hour.
Meanwhile, you’re a brilliant plumber. Fifteen years in the trade. Ten minutes away from that house. But you’re not on Google, so you never even existed as an option.
That’s not a hypothetical. It’s happening right now, every single day, for local businesses without a website.
How people actually find local businesses
The vast majority of people use Google when they need something local. A plumber, a restaurant, a hairdresser, a builder. Not Facebook. Not Instagram. Not the Yellow Pages. Google.
And most of them never scroll past the first page of results. If you’re not there, you might as well not exist.
The cost of being invisible
The tricky bit about being invisible on Google is that you never see what you’re missing. Nobody sends you a notification saying “twelve people searched for your service today and couldn’t find you.”
But think about what’s actually happening out there.
A new family moves to the area
They need a dentist, a hairdresser, a reliable electrician, a decent takeaway. They don’t know anyone yet so they can’t ask around for recommendations. What do they do? They Google it.
If you show up, you’ve got a new customer, possibly for years. If you don’t, they find your competitor and stick with them. You’ve lost that customer before you even knew they existed.
Someone has an urgent problem
Their boiler breaks in January. They need a heating engineer today, not next week. They’re not going to mess about asking on Facebook or checking local leaflets. They’re Googling “boiler repair near me” and calling whoever shows up first.
Urgent searches are some of the most valuable leads you’ll ever get. The customer needs help now and they’re ready to pay. But they can only call businesses they can actually find.
Someone gets a recommendation but checks you out first
This one’s subtle but it happens all the time. A friend recommends your business. “You should try Sarah’s salon, she’s brilliant.” The other person says thanks, goes home, and Googles your business name to have a look.
If they find a professional website with photos of your work, your services, and an easy way to book, they become a customer. If they find nothing, or just a half-empty Facebook page, they lose confidence. Maybe they try someone else instead. Even word-of-mouth referrals need an online presence to back them up.
Your competitors are already there
If you’re not showing up on Google, someone else is. And they’re picking up the customers that should be coming to you.
Businesses with websites are appearing in search results right now for things like “plumber in [your town]”, “best restaurant near [your area]”, and “electrician near me.”
Every one of those searches is a real person with real money looking for exactly what you offer. They’re going to pick someone. It’s just a question of whether that someone is you.
”But I get enough work through word of mouth”
We hear this a lot. And fair play, it means you’re doing good work and people are talking about you.
But word of mouth on its own is unreliable. It fluctuates. Some months you’re rushed off your feet, others are quiet, and you can’t really control it.
A website that ranks on Google gives you a steady flow of new customers regardless of whether anyone happens to recommend you that week. It’s like having a salesperson who works around the clock and never takes a day off.
Word of mouth plus Google visibility means a business that’s consistently busy. One without the other is leaving money on the table.
What it looks like when you are visible
When your business shows up on Google, someone searches for what you do in your area, your website appears in the results, they click through, have a look at your services and your work, and then they get in touch. Phone, email, contact form. You’ve got a new customer who was actively looking for exactly what you offer.
It’s not magic. It’s just being in the right place when people are looking. And the right place is Google.
How to fix it
The good news is this is very fixable. Getting visible on Google comes down to a few things.
First, you need a website. That’s the foundation. Without one, Google has nothing to show people. Then you want a Google Business Profile set up, which gets you on Google Maps and in local results. It’s free and essential.
After that, it’s about making sure your site is properly built for search (the right page titles, descriptions, and content so Google understands what you do and where), getting some reviews from happy customers, and keeping things reasonably up to date.
You don’t need to become an SEO expert. You just need a site that’s set up properly from the start.
The real cost of putting it off
Every day without a proper online presence is another day where customers are finding your competitors instead. That’s not being dramatic. It’s just how search works.
The plumber who’s invisible on Google isn’t losing one customer. They’re losing every person who searches “plumber near me” in their area. Over a year, that’s a lot of missed calls, missed jobs, and missed revenue.
The question isn’t really “can I afford a website?” It’s “can I afford to keep being invisible?”
Ready to get found on Google? We build websites for local businesses with SEO baked in from day one. Drop us a message and we’ll have a chat.