By Jason Frelich · Published
42 Small Business Website and Marketing Statistics for 2026
42 figures on small business websites, local search, reviews, speed, mobile, ad costs, AI search and Indiana. Every one links to its source and shows its year.
Every pitch for a website, an SEO plan or an ad budget comes with statistics, and most of them are copied from an article that copied them from another article, with the year quietly dropped. This page is the set we use ourselves when we talk to owners, kept with the rules we would want a source to keep: the figure as the publisher printed it, a link to the page it came from, and the year beside it.
There are 42 of them, in five groups. Use them in a proposal, a board deck or a post, with credit to the original source. If you want to know how your own site compares, the free website grader scores it in about a minute.
The key numbers
Six figures that carry most of the argument. Each links to its place in the list below, where the source is.
- 70%of consumers are more likely to do business with a company that has a website. Stat 6
- 67%of consumers start with Google when they look for a local business. Stat 10
- 48%of mobile websites pass all three of Google's Core Web Vitals. Stat 19
- 58%of small businesses say they use generative AI, up from 23% two years earlier. Stat 28
- 8%of Google visits with an AI summary led to a click on a regular result, against 15% without one. Stat 31
- 591,671small businesses in Indiana, 99.4% of all businesses in the state. Stat 35
1 Websites and credibility
A website is the first thing most customers check and the thing most owners put off. These figures cover who has one, who does not, and how visitors judge the ones they find.
- 36.2 million
There are 36.2 million small businesses in the United States, 99.9% of all businesses, and they employ 62.3 million people, 45.9% of the private workforce.
1. SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025 Small Business Profile: United States (2025)
- 82%
82% of small businesses have their own website, but only 66% of businesses with no employees do, and 75% of those with 1 to 9 employees.
2. NFIB Research Center, Small Business and Technology 2025 (2025)
Share of small businesses with a website, by size
- 3 in 10
3 in 10 small business owners say they do not have a website, including one third of food and beverage businesses.
- 48%
Among owners without a website, 48% say a lack of time and resources is a major reason, 41% say they use social media instead, and 36% say they do not know how to build one.
- 56%
56% of small business owners maintain and update their website themselves, and nearly 4 in 10 built it with the builder their web host provided.
- 70%
70% of US consumers say they are more likely to do business with a company that has a website, rising to 76% among people aged 25 to 44.
- 60%
60% of consumers say an outdated looking website hurts their view of a business's quality or trustworthiness, and 39% have declined to buy from a business because it had no website at all.
- 67%
67% of consumers say clear contact information is the element of a business website that most builds their trust, ahead of a secure connection (51%) and real photos of the team or location (47%).
- 46.1%
When 2,684 people explained why they found a website credible, 46.1% of their comments were about the design look of the site, more than any other factor. The study is from 2002 and is the source of most "first impressions" claims still quoted today.
2 Local search and Google Business Profile
For a business that serves a town or a metro, the map results and the reviews under them decide who gets the call. Here is how people search locally and what they read before they choose.
- 67%
67% of consumers say they start with Google when searching for a local business.
- 58%
58% of consumers check a business's website to confirm information they saw on social media, a Google Business Profile or an AI tool.
- 45%
After an AI tool recommends a business, 45% of consumers go to Google to search for more information and another 34% go straight to the business's website.
- 73%
Google holds 73% of all online reviews, and four sites (Google, Yelp, Facebook and Tripadvisor) account for 88% of them.
13. ReviewTrackers, Online Reviews Statistics and Trends: A 2022 Report (2022)
- 94%
94% of consumers say a bad review has convinced them to avoid a business.
14. ReviewTrackers, Online Reviews Statistics and Trends: A 2022 Report (2022)
- 53%
53% of customers expect a business to respond to a negative review within a week, yet 63% say at least one company they reviewed never responded at all.
15. ReviewTrackers, Online Reviews Statistics and Trends: A 2022 Report (2022)
- 85.45%
Google handles 85.45% of searches in the United States as of October 2026, with Bing at 9.78%. For a local business, being found means being found on Google.
16. Statcounter GlobalStats, Search Engine Market Share United States, October 2026 (2026)
- 83%
83% of visits to landing pages happen on a mobile device, which for a local business means the customer is often already nearby when they look.
3 Speed, mobile and conversion
Most visits now come from a phone, often on a cell connection in a parking lot. Slow pages lose those visitors, and the ones that stay convert at rates most owners have never measured.
- 59.9%
Mobile devices account for 59.9% of worldwide web traffic as of October 2026. In the United States the split is closer, with desktop at 52.4% and mobile at 45.4%.
18. Statcounter GlobalStats, Desktop vs Mobile vs Tablet Market Share Worldwide, October 2026 (2026)
- 48%
Only 48% of mobile websites and 56% of desktop websites passed all three Core Web Vitals in 2025, Google's measure of real visitors' loading, responsiveness and visual stability.
- 45%
Only 45% of WordPress sites pass Core Web Vitals on mobile, among the lowest of any content management system, against 74% for Wix and 85% for Duda.
Mobile sites passing all three Core Web Vitals, 2025
- 8.4%
A 0.1 second improvement in mobile site speed raised retail conversions 8.4% and travel conversions 10.1% across 37 brands and 30 million sessions.
- 3x
A lead generation site that loads in 1 second converts at 3 times the rate of one that loads in 5 seconds. For e-commerce sites the gap is 2.5 times.
22. Portent, Site Speed is (Still) Impacting Your Conversion Rate (2022)
- 6.6%
The median landing page conversion rate across all industries is 6.6%, with industry medians running from 3.8% to 12.3%.
- 8.18%
The average Google Ads conversion rate across industries is 8.18%: 8.05% for home improvement, 10.67% for dentists and 5.55% for attorneys.
- 95.9%
95.9% of the top one million website home pages had detectable accessibility failures in February 2026, an average of 56.1 errors per page, with low contrast text the most common.
4 Marketing spend, ads and AI search
What small businesses spend, what a click costs, and how AI answers in search and chat are changing where customers find a business in the first place.
- $5.42
The average cost per click for search advertising across all industries is $5.42, up from $5.26 the year before.
- $66.69
The average cost per lead from search advertising is $66.69 across industries, from $31.50 for pet businesses to well over $100 for legal services.
- 58%
58% of small businesses say they use generative AI, up from 40% in 2024 and 23% in 2023, in a survey of 3,870 US small businesses.
- 19.8%
19.8% of US businesses reported using AI in their operations as of May 2026, against 37% of firms with 250 or more employees. Use grew among firms with 20 or more employees and did not change significantly among smaller ones.
- 34%
34% of US adults have used ChatGPT, about double the share in 2023, including 58% of adults under 30.
30. Pew Research Center, 34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, about double the share in 2023 (2025)
- 8%
When a Google results page showed an AI summary, people clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits, against 15% when there was no summary, and clicked a link inside the summary on 1% of visits. 18% of searches produced a summary.
Google visits that ended with a click, March 2025
- 46%
The top ranked organic result appeared in only 46% of desktop and 34% of mobile AI Overviews across 200,000 keywords studied in September 2024, and only 5% of results pages with an AI Overview also showed ads.
- 58.5%
58.5% of US Google searches ended without a click to any website in 2024.
33. SparkToro and Datos, 2024 Zero-Click Search Study (2024)
- 35%
Only 35% of consumers would consider doing business with a company recommended by an AI tool if that company has no website.
5 Indiana and the Indianapolis metro
Lackey Designs works from Fishers, so here is the home market: how many small businesses Indiana has, how many people they employ, and how fast new ones are starting.
- 591,671
Indiana has 591,671 small businesses, 99.4% of all businesses in the state.
35. SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025 Small Business Profile: Indiana (2025)
- 1.2 million
Indiana small businesses employ 1.2 million people, 43.2% of the state's employees.
36. SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025 Small Business Profile: Indiana (2025)
- 23,008
Indiana small businesses added a net 23,008 jobs between March 2023 and March 2024, more than the state's net gain of 16,876 jobs overall, because larger businesses shed jobs.
37. SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025 Small Business Profile: Indiana (2025)
- 16,993
16,993 Indiana establishments opened and 16,463 closed between March 2023 and March 2024, a net gain of 530. Small businesses accounted for 15,661 of the openings.
38. SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025 Small Business Profile: Indiana (2025)
- 90,010
Indiana recorded 90,010 new business applications in 2025, up from 54,030 in 2019, a 67% increase in six years.
New business applications filed in Indiana, by year
- 212,455
The Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood metro has 212,455 small businesses, 99.0% of its businesses, employing 406,659 people, 42.7% of the metro's employees.
40. SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025 Small Business Profiles for Major Metropolitan Areas: Midwest (2025)
- 36,493
The number of small employers in the Indianapolis metro rose from 32,994 to 36,493 between 2012 and 2022, and their employment from 355,199 to 406,659.
41. SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025 Small Business Profiles for Major Metropolitan Areas: Midwest (2025)
- 10.6%
10.6% of private workers in the Indianapolis metro were self-employed in 2023, up from 9.9% in 2018, and the median income of the incorporated self-employed was $83,614.
42. SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025 Small Business Profiles for Major Metropolitan Areas: Midwest (2025)
What it means for your business
Read together, the numbers say three things. First, the customer has already looked you up before the first call, on a phone, and has an opinion about your business from what loaded. Second, the map and the reviews under it decide which local businesses get considered at all, and both are built from the same facts a good site states plainly. Third, the newest layer, AI answers in Google and in chat tools, reads the same pages and rewards the same clarity.
The practical order is the one we follow with every client: a fast site with one page per service and real prices (website design, from $200 a month on the Small Business plan), a complete Google Business Profile with a steady flow of reviews (local SEO), and hosting that keeps the site fast after launch (hosting and maintenance). Paid ads go on top once the site converts, not before.
Cite or share these statistics
Lackey Designs, "42 Small Business Website and Marketing Statistics for 2026," lackeydesigns.com/small-business-statistics/, updated November 2026.
Quote any figure here with credit to the original source named beside it. If you found it on this page, a link back to it is appreciated and helps the next reader find the source too.
Sources
Every study used on this page, in the order it first appears. Where a report is updated yearly, the link goes to the edition the figure came from.
- SBA Office of Advocacy: 2025 Small Business Profile: United States (2025). Stat 1.
- NFIB Research Center: Small Business and Technology 2025 (2025). Stat 2.
- Small Business Majority: Digital transformation: Small businesses face obstacles, opportunities in growing their online presence (2023). Stats 3, 4, 5.
- DreamHost: 2026 Local Business Trust Index (2026). Stats 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 34.
- Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab (Fogg et al.): How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility? (2002). Stat 9.
- ReviewTrackers: Online Reviews Statistics and Trends: A 2022 Report (2022). Stats 13, 14, 15.
- Statcounter GlobalStats: Search Engine Market Share United States, October 2026 (2026). Stat 16.
- Unbounce: Conversion Benchmark Report 2024 (2024). Stats 17, 23.
- Statcounter GlobalStats: Desktop vs Mobile vs Tablet Market Share Worldwide, October 2026 (2026). Stat 18.
- HTTP Archive: Web Almanac 2025, Performance (2025). Stat 19.
- HTTP Archive: Web Almanac 2025, CMS (2025). Stat 20.
- Deloitte Digital: Milliseconds Make Millions (2020). Stat 21.
- Portent: Site Speed is (Still) Impacting Your Conversion Rate (2022). Stat 22.
- LocaliQ: Search Advertising Benchmarks 2026 (2026). Stats 24, 26, 27.
- WebAIM: The WebAIM Million 2026 (2026). Stat 25.
- US Chamber of Commerce: Empowering Small Business: The Impact of Technology on U.S. Small Business 2025 (2025). Stat 28.
- US Census Bureau: Business Trends and Outlook Survey: Large Firms With at Least 20 Employees Biggest AI Users (2026). Stat 29.
- Pew Research Center: 34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, about double the share in 2023 (2025). Stat 30.
- Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results (2025). Stat 31.
- Semrush: AI Overviews Study (2025). Stat 32.
- SparkToro and Datos: 2024 Zero-Click Search Study (2024). Stat 33.
- SBA Office of Advocacy: 2025 Small Business Profile: Indiana (2025). Stats 35, 36, 37, 38.
- US Census Bureau: Business Formation Statistics, weekly state business applications (not seasonally adjusted, summed by calendar year) (2026). Stat 39.
- SBA Office of Advocacy: 2025 Small Business Profiles for Major Metropolitan Areas: Midwest (2025). Stats 40, 41, 42.
Lead Web Designer and Developer at Lackey Designs. The company has been around since 2006, and Jason brings 20 years of design and development experience to every site he builds. More about Jason
Frequently asked questions
What owners ask once they have seen the numbers.
Have a different one? Call 317-572-7457 and ask Jason.
Roughly seven in ten, depending on the survey and how small the business is. The current figures, with their sources, are the first stats on this page. The share without a site is concentrated in the smallest businesses, the ones with no employees or one location, and the usual reasons given are cost and time.
Yes, and the reason has shifted. Customers still check a site before they call, but now Google's AI answers and tools like ChatGPT also read it to decide whether to mention the business at all. A business with no site, or one that cannot be read on a phone, is invisible to both. The pricing page shows what a professional site costs with us.
Each figure links to the page it was taken from, and the full list is in the Sources section. We prefer primary research (government data, the publisher's own study) over articles that quote other articles, and we show the year of the study next to every number so you can judge how current it is.
Once a year, and sooner when a source we use publishes a new edition. The updated date is in the byline at the top. A statistic that no longer has a live source is removed rather than left to age.
Please do. Quote the figure and credit the original source named next to it, and link to this page if you found it here. The suggested citation is in the box above the Sources list. If you need a figure for a market we do not cover, ask and we will point you to it.
It raises the bar on clarity rather than changing the basics. AI answers pull from pages that state plainly what the business does, where it works, what it costs and what customers say. Fast pages, one page per service, real reviews and a complete Google Business Profile serve both the AI answer and the human reading it. Our free website grader checks whether AI tools can read your site.
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