A study of more than a thousand Hunter businesses found that one in seven listed on Google Maps has no usable website. Furthermore, many existing websites make it hard for a customer to do the one thing they came for: call.
Digital design studio Newcastle Web Co examined 1,030 businesses on Google Maps across Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Maitland, covering 23 kinds of business from plumbers and dentists to accountants and cafes, and measured the 742 websites among them using the same criteria.
Overall, 14 per cent of the listings had no usable website, either having no site at all or a Google listing that points directly to a Facebook or Instagram page. The figure was 11 per cent in Newcastle, 13 per cent in Lake Macquarie and 17 per cent in Maitland. Hair salons (33 per cent) and cafes (28 per cent) were most likely to lack a website, while almost every health and professional practice had one.
Among the websites that exist, fewer than half (46 per cent) placed a tap-to-call button on the first screen a customer sees on a mobile phone. An additional 241 sites had the button but placed it further down the page. Trades performed best at 60 per cent, while cafes, restaurants, salons and gyms reached 18 per cent. Only 39 per cent of sites showed their opening hours.
The study also found that the typical site names just two suburbs, and nearly four in ten name one suburb or none, even though customers tend to search for a service in their own suburb. Four in ten sites run no analytics at all, leaving the business with no way of knowing whether the website brings in work. The median site scored 57 out of 100 on Google’s own mobile performance test.
Representatives from Newcastle Web Co noted that small adjustments can significantly improve customer conversions.
“Most of these businesses are good at what they do and too busy running the business to look at the website,” the studio said.
“What surprised us was how small most of the fixes are: the phone number on the first screen, the opening hours, the suburbs the business actually serves. None of that requires a new website, and it is often the difference between a search and a phone call.”
The State of Small Business Websites in the Hunter report was published in September 2026, with the studio planning to repeat the benchmark study each year.
IMAGE | One in seven Hunter businesses on Google Maps has no usable website, study finds
