Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: you’re probably losing jobs right now and don’t even know it. Let me explain.
We talk to contractors, tradespeople, and service business owners in Pittsburgh every week who say some version of this: “I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I get all my work through word of mouth. Why would I spend money on a website?”
It’s a reasonable question. Your schedule is full. The phone rings. Referrals keep coming. So why mess with something that works?
Because it’s working less well than you think.
What actually happens when someone gets your name
Picture this. Your best customer tells their neighbor at a cookout in Mt. Lebanon: “You should call Mike’s Plumbing, they did our whole bathroom remodel.”
That neighbor nods, maybe puts your name in their phone. Gets home. Sits on the couch at 9 PM. And what do they do?
They Google you.
Not tomorrow. Not when your office is open. Right now, on their phone, while they’re still thinking about it.
What do they find?
If the answer is nothing, or a bare Facebook page with three posts from 2022, or a Yelp listing with an outdated phone number, you’ve already lost ground. That person is now comparing you to the competitor who does have a clean website with project photos, clear pricing info, and reviews right there on the homepage.
Your referral got you in the door. But you need a website to close the deal.
The credibility problem nobody talks about
This is going to sound harsh, but it’s true: in 2026, not having a website makes people wonder if you’re a real business.
Right or wrong, that’s the perception. A homeowner in Cranberry Township who’s about to let someone into their house to redo their kitchen wants to see something professional with your name on it. Business cards don’t cut it anymore. A Facebook page barely cuts it. But a clean, professional website with your name, your services, photos of your work, and a way to contact you? That crosses the credibility threshold instantly.
And it doesn’t need to be complicated. We’re not talking about a 50-page corporate site. Five pages is plenty for most service businesses:
- Homepage with what you do and where you work
- About page (who you are, how long you’ve been doing this)
- Services page
- Gallery or portfolio of your work
- Contact page with a form
That’s it. Clean design, works on phones, loads fast. Done.
Your referral network clocks out at 5 PM. Your website doesn’t.
Here’s a scenario that plays out constantly and you never see it happening.
Someone at a dinner party mentions they need their deck rebuilt. Your name comes up. Great. But by the time that person gets home and thinks about reaching out, it’s 10:30 PM. They’re not going to call you. They might text themselves a reminder, but let’s be honest, they’ll probably forget by Tuesday.
Now imagine a different version. They Google your name, find your website, see photos of three deck builds you did last summer, read a couple of reviews, and fill out a 30-second contact form. All at 10:30 PM on a Saturday night. Monday morning, you’ve got a warm lead sitting in your inbox before your first cup of coffee.
Without a website, that lead just… evaporates. You never know it existed.
You want to control what Google says about you
Even if you’re not trying to rank for “plumber in Pittsburgh” or “best electrician near me,” people are still searching for your exact business name. And when they do, you want to control what shows up.
Without a website, Google fills that space with whatever it can scrape together. Maybe your Google Business Profile (if you’ve claimed it). Maybe some random directory listing with wrong info. Maybe a competitor’s ad.
With a website, your site shows up first when someone searches your name. It says exactly what you want it to say. Your services. Your photos. Your reviews. Your phone number. Not someone else’s version of your business.
Before-and-after photos sell better than any pitch
If you do any kind of visual work (contracting, landscaping, remodeling, painting, concrete, fencing, anything), a portfolio page is the single most powerful sales tool you can put online.
Before-and-after photos. Project descriptions. Maybe a short paragraph about the challenge and how you solved it. When a potential customer can scroll through your work and see the quality before they ever pick up the phone, the sales conversation changes completely. They’re not calling to ask if you’re any good. They’re calling because they already know you are.
Facebook can sort of do this, but it’s a mess. Your photos are buried in a timeline mixed with random posts. You can’t control the layout. There are ads for competitors in the sidebar. And half the time the image quality gets compressed into mush.
On your own website, you decide what goes where, how it looks, and what story it tells.
The invisible cost of “we don’t need a website”
Let’s talk about what you’re actually losing. Not in theory. In real jobs with real dollars attached.
Every referral who Googles you and finds nothing? Some percentage of those people move on. You’ll never know it happened because the phone call never came. The form was never filled out. The job went to someone else.
Every after-hours inquiry that had nowhere to go? Gone.
Every homeowner who compared you to a competitor with a better web presence and went with them instead? You’ll never see that on a spreadsheet. These are invisible losses, and they add up.
One more thing: make sure you own it
This is important enough to call out separately. When you get a website built, make sure you own the domain name, the hosting account, and all the content. Not your nephew. Not the agency. Not the “marketing guy” who offered to set it up for free.
We’ve seen too many business owners in the Pittsburgh area get burned by this. They pay someone to build a site, then realize two years later that they don’t have the login credentials, they don’t own the domain, and if they want to switch providers they have to start from scratch.
Your website is a business asset. Treat it like one.
The bottom line
Referrals are great. Never stop building those relationships. But a website doesn’t compete with your referral network. It makes your referral network more effective. It catches the leads that your reputation generates and gives those people the confidence and convenience to take the next step.
You don’t need anything complex. You need something clean, fast, professional, and genuinely yours.
That’s it. That’s the whole argument.