Score six questions. If you land on “not yet,” that’s a real answer — only a small minority of India’s roughly 63.4 million MSMEs have any online presence, and plenty of them are profitable. We’d rather you spent an afternoon on something free than a month’s margin on something premature.
The six questions
Score 2 for yes, 0 for no.
1. Has anyone asked you for a website link in the last three months?
A client, a customer, a supplier, anyone. ___
2. Has a form ever required a website address that you couldn’t provide?
Vendor registration, a tender, a marketplace, a payment gateway application. ___
3. Do you send written quotes or proposals to companies?
As opposed to only dealing with walk-in customers or individuals. ___
4. Are you spending money on ads, listings or printed marketing?
If yes, you’re paying for attention with nowhere to send it. ___
5. Do you answer the same five questions on the phone every day?
Prices, timings, location, what you do and don’t do. ___
6. Do customers ever find you from outside your immediate area?
Or would you want them to. ___
Your total: ___ / 12
Your verdict
0–2 · Not yet — and that’s fine
Your business runs on footfall and referral, and a website would sit there doing very little. Buying one now would be buying a thing businesses are “supposed to” have.
Do this instead, this week, for about ₹1,000 total:
- Verify your Google Business Profile — photographs, hours, full services list. Free, an afternoon, and for local trade it appears above page results with a call button. This usually produces more enquiries than a website’s first six months.
- Ask ten customers for reviews. Free, and it moves local results more than almost anything.
- Set up your WhatsApp Business profile properly — catalogue, hours, address.
- Register your domain anyway — ₹700–1,200 a year, in your own account. Build nothing. It just means the name is yours when you need it.
Then keep a note of every time someone asks you for a link. That count is your trigger. The full guide for this stage.
4–6 · Soon — buy small
Something is starting to cost you, but it isn’t urgent. Do the four free things above first, then buy a five-page site and no more: home, services with prices, about, contact, and one page your buyers ask for.
₹15,000–25,000 in NCR where you supply your own content. Keep a third of your total budget for getting found.
8–12 · Yes, and it’s already costing you
Multiple triggers are live. Every month without a site is a month of enquiries you never learn about — the cost is invisible by design, which is why it goes unnoticed.
Buy the five-page version now, register the domain in your own account first, and plan the reach budget alongside the build. The complete buying process.
Two answers that override the score
If question 2 is yes — you need one regardless of your total. A form that won’t submit without a website address is a hard blocker, and no Business Profile or Instagram page substitutes for it.
If question 1 is yes more than twice this quarter — the same. Each of those is a moment where a stranger decided whether you were a real business, and you never learned the outcome.
What the quiz deliberately doesn’t ask
Three questions people expect, and why they’re absent:
“Do your competitors have one?” Not a reason. Check whether theirs is current and actually ranks before treating it as pressure — a great many local business sites get almost no visitors.
“Do you want more customers?” Everyone does, and a website doesn’t produce them by itself. It converts people who are sent to it. That expectation is the single most common expensive mistake in this market.
“Do you have the budget?” Because if the answer to the six questions is no, the right spend is ₹1,000 on a domain and an afternoon on your Business Profile — which almost everyone has.
If you’re weighing alternatives
- Instagram already working? Keep it. It reaches people who weren’t looking for you, which a website can’t. The comparison.
- Only local walk-in trade? Business Profile first, genuinely. Which comes first.
- Someone suggested an app? Website first, almost always. Why.
What to do this week
- Score the six questions honestly.
- Verify your Google Business Profile whatever your score.
- Ask ten customers for reviews.
- Register your domain in your own account — ₹1,000, ten minutes.
- Start a note counting how often someone asks you for a link.
If you want it done the certain way
Tell us your score and your trade, and we’ll tell you honestly whether to buy now, buy small, or spend an afternoon on free things instead. Quite often the answer is the third one, and we’d rather say so than sell you something premature. WhatsApp us; we reply in about five minutes between 9am and 7pm.
Related reading
- No website yet? The honest guide
- The exact moment your business needs a website
- 7 reasons owners say they don’t need a website
- Google Business listing vs a website: which first?
- Website vs Instagram page
FAQ
Does my small business really need a website?
Only if something specific is costing you — someone asking for a link, a form requiring a website address, quotes going to companies, or ad spend with nowhere to send people. Only a small minority of India’s roughly 63.4 million MSMEs have any online presence.
What should I do if I don’t need a website yet?
Verify your Google Business Profile with photographs and services, ask ten customers for reviews, set up WhatsApp Business properly, and register your domain in your own account for about ₹1,000 — then build nothing until a trigger appears.
When does not having a website start costing money?
The moment a form requires one, or when a corporate buyer asks for a link. Both costs are invisible — a form simply won’t submit, and a buyer who moves on doesn’t tell you why.
Will a website get me more customers?
Not by itself. It converts people who are sent to it from your Business Profile, reviews, ads or existing audience. Getting them there is a separate purchase with its own budget.
