“The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify.”
That’ a quote from Darrell Huff’s book, How to Lie with Statistics. I 100% agree with it. Statistics can be — and often are — oversimplified and deceiving, especially when businesses present it to gain something.
The reason I am mentioning it is that I have nothing to gain here. This article aggregates some interesting small business website statistics I found when going through researches, surveys, reports, and other listicles. And I just wanted to share them with you, along with my takeaways and tips that can make your small business website better.
Note: Though these numbers are oversimplified because of the sources’ limited datasets, they do give a general overview of the market. Just keep that in mind and read on.
Small Business Website Statistics: General
- 28% of small businesses in the US don’t have a website. [Source]
- 44% of the businesses with no site plan to create one in 2021. [Source]
- 21% say their main problem was that the website has low traffic. [Source]
- 43% of small businesses plan to improve their website page speed, and 30% plan to embed videos. [Source]
- 24% say the main purpose of their website is to showcase their products and services. 17% allow customers to make a purchase. And 14% built it for SEO. [Source]
- 35% of small businesses feel they are too small for a website. [Source]
- On average, users spend about 45 seconds on a website. [Source]
- Mobile devices (excluding tablets) accounted for 54.8 percent of total website traffic in 2021 first quarter. [Source]
- 44% of B2B buyers abandon a website because there’s no visible contact information available. [Source]
- Over 22% of the fastest-growing B2B small businesses currently use a live chat app on their websites. [Source]
- Websites that use video have an average CVR of 4.8%, while those without video have a 2.9% average CVR. [Source]
Key Takeaways & Tips
If you are among the 28% of small business owners that don’t have a website, build a responsive website! Here are a few excellent examples to get inspired from.
Small Business Website Statistics: Speed
- 43% of site owners plan to invest in improvements to better website speed and performance. [Source]
- 47% of people expect an average site to load in under 2 seconds. [Source]
- A one-second delay in site loading speed might mean a 7% dip in conversions. [Source]
- One study found that a two-second delay in load times increases the shopping cart abandonment rate to 87%. [Source]
- Online businesses lost nearly $2.6 billion in revenue because of slow loading speed. [Source]
- 39% of visitors will close the website if images take too long to load. [Source]
- 53% of people leave a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load on their mobile devices. [Source]
Key Takeaways & Tips
Website speed can make it or break it for you. No human likes a slow website. And with Google’s Core Web Vitals update, now, even a machine doesn’t!
Install a minimal theme, use a CDN, minify background files, optimize images, and switch to a better hosting plan for a faster website.
Small Business Website Statistics: Website Costs
- On average, small businesses will spend $2000 to $10,000 to build a site. [Source]
- In 2021, competent web designers typically charge $4,000-$10,000 to build a website. However, the billings can go upwards of $20,000 depending on the number of pages and customization required. [Source]
- A basic small business website costs approx. $3200. [Source]
Key Takeaways $ Tips
Getting a website created professionally can cost a lot, especially if you are a small business in these challenging times.
The best option for you, in case you don’t have a lot of budget but have some time in hand, is to use a drag-and-drop website builder. With it, you’ll be able to create a stunning website at a fraction of the cost.
Small Business Website Statistics: UI/UX
- 34% plan to optimize their websites for mobile in 2021. [Source]
- 57% of users won’t recommend a business with a poor mobile website design. [Source]
- 85% of people want a company’s mobile website to look good or better than its desktop website. [Source]
- 38% of people tend to leave a website with unattractive content or layout. [Source]
- 75% of consumers judge a company’s credibility based on the website design. [Source]
- 70% of small business websites — of the 200 evaluated — didn’t have clear calls-to-action on their home pages. [Source]
- 17% of small business websites do not comply with Google’s Mobile-Friendly requirements. [Source]
- 88% of website users are less likely to revisit a website if they have has a bad experience. [Source]
- Only 55% of companies conduct UX testing on their sites. [Source]
- You are 279x more likely to climb Mt. Everest than click on a banner ad on purpose. [Source]
- Bad mobile optimization annoys 48% of users. [Source]
- People decide whether they’ll stay on the website or not within the first 50 milliseconds of their first impression. [Source]
- 37% of prospects leave a B2B website because of poor navigation or web design. [Source]
Key Takeaways & Tips
You must have a stunning & mobile-friendly website. At the same time, it should be fast, and the visitors must be able to find what they seek to find on your website.
Have multiple CTAs across your home page, have links to important pages in your header and/or footer, and build a great user experience overall. Here are a few examples of beautiful UX portfolios.
Small Business Website Statistics: Ecommerce
- In 2021, mobile e-commerce revenue accounted for 53.9% of total U.S. e-commerce revenue. [Source]
- 61% of people in the US made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog. [Source]
- 59% of Millennials visit Amazon first to purchase anything online. [Source]
- Around 50% of people say they’d purchase something from a website’s chatbot using conversational marketing. [Source]
- 68% of small businesses don’t have a proper conversion rate optimization strategy for their stores. [Source]
- On average, only 1.94 percent of e-commerce website visits convert into a purchase. [Source]
- 30% of people would return to a website they’ve purchased from before. [Source]
Key Takeaways & Tips
For e-commerce, the quality of your website matters as much as the quality of your products. If you’re able to provide great products through your great website, you win.
To win fast & more, start selling on Amazon (alongside your website) & optimize every inch of your website for conversions.
Small Business Website Statistics: SEO
- Only 49% of small businesses invest in SEO for better business visibility. [Source]
- Organic search gets B2B businesses 2x more revenue than any other channel. [Source]
- More than one-quarter of small businesses (27%) believe that web traffic from organic search is the most important indicator of SEO success. [Source]
- 93% of online experiences start from a search engine like Google. [Source]
- More than 50% of users discover a new business or product after a search. [Source]
- At least 1.6 billion of 3.5 billion searches Google registers every day have local intent. [Source]
- Nearly 76% of those who conduct a local search physically visit the store within 24 hours. [Source]
- 58% of customers look for local small businesses on their smartphones every day. [Source]
- 72% of small businesses consider content marketing excellent for search engine rankings. [Source]
- Approximately 70%-80% of consumers ignore paid ads and focus on organic content. [Source]
Key Takeaways & Tips
SEO can land valuable customers/clients on your website without you having to disturb them (via ads, emails, etc.).
There’s an initial cost (in the form of hiring an SEO expert, doing keyword research, creating content, building backlinks, etc.), but the long-term ROI is huge. Here’s a great beginner’s guide.
Small Business Website Statistics: Security
- 84% of users abandon a purchase if their data is sent over an insecure connection. [Source]
- 43% of cyber attacks target small businesses. [Source]
- 47% of small businesses do not know how to protect their business against cyber attacks. 42% find it hard to prevent data loss. [Source]
- 66% of small businesses fear jeopardizing customer data. [Source]
- 22% of small businesses encrypt their databases. [Source]
- On average, it costs $955,429 to restore normal business if it’s hit by a successful cyberattack. [Source]
- Cyber attacks are projected to cause $6 trillion in damages by this year. [Source]
- 91% of small businesses don’t have cyber liability insurance. [Source]
- 54% of small businesses think they’re too small for a cyberattack. [Source]
Key Takeaways & Tips
Cyber attacks can ruin everything you’ve built online. Plus, if the visitor finds your site insecure, they will leave.
Install an SSL certificate to show HTTPS and Padlock to win your visitors’ trust. Hire a cybersecurity expert & use the needed tools to keep your online business safe. Also, get cyber liability insurance ASAP.
Small Business Website Statistics: Marketing
- 92% of business owners believe that having a website is the most effective digital marketing. [Source]
- 1 in 10 small businesses doesn’t do any sort of marketing. [Source]
- 1 in 5 small businesses doesn’t use digital marketing channels. [Source]
- At 54% use, email is the top marketing tool used by small businesses. [Source]
- 47% of small business owners run marketing themselves. [Source]
- 41% of businesses spend less than $10,000 on marketing. [Source]
- 68% of companies now use mobile marketing as part of their marketing strategy. [Source]
- 70% of small businesses plan to spend more on digital marketing. [Source]
- 37% of businesses say that social media is the most successful digital channel to achieve business goals. [Source]
- Nearly 75% of small businesses do not use analytics, tracking, or coupon codes. Shockingly, 18% of small businesses do not track anything. [Source]
Key Takeaways & Tips
Digital marketing helps small businesses win big on a limited budget. Just, proper strategies & channels have to be chosen.
If you are among the 18% of small businesses that don’t track their marketing efforts or among the 20% that don’t do digital marketing, it’s time to run data-driven digital campaigns!