More than 25% of small business owners don’t have a website, according to a report from Washington, D.C.-based research firm Clutch. The research also says that 10% of small business owners have no plans to create one.
[Related: Entrepreneurship Success: What Is Your ‘Passion-to-Action’ Plan?]
The study comes as data from the Pew Research Center shows that nearly 80% of American adults own a desktop or laptop computer, and 64% own a smartphone, with the number of the latter seemingly on the rise and each device offering accessibility to the Internet.
It may be the most surprising set of facts learned from the survey of small business owners, which had 354 respondents from around the country of companies that varied in size and revenue.
In the digital age, businesses can thrive or be destroyed thanks to comments, likes, and link sharing on social media, but no website can mean an inability to control a brand’s reputation or preach its message. But many small business owners will attest to having little time to dedicate to website maintenance or development, or to activities such as social media, SEO or online advertising.
That said, it seems that more small business owners are planning to get into the digital space, with figures in the study showing more planning to build websites, make them mobile friendly and develop mobile apps.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the numbers found in the report, the full version of which can be read here.
WEBSITES
- 74% have websites
- 9% plan to build websites
- 10% do not plan to build websites
- 23% planned to increase website spending in 2015
- 60%-plus of small businesses’ website spending will remain flat in 2015, with 23% planning to increase spending, less than 10% planning to decrease spending and less than 10% unsure of future website spending
APPS & MOBILE
- 15% have mobile apps
- 18% planned to build one in the future
- 40% were unlikely to build one
- 56% of websites were mobile friendly
- 31% of websites were not mobile friendly, with 17% planning to make them so and 10% having no such plans
SEO, DIGITAL MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA
- 45% used search engine optimization (SEO)
- 25% were unlikely to use SEO in the future
- 25% used online advertising
- 42% were unlikely to use online advertising in the future
- 53% use social media
- 24% were unlikely to work use social media in the future