A website that lets customers book, order or collect gives them a reason to choose you. Here's what the research says, and where to start.

I recently checked 279 independent tourist businesses on the Yorkshire Coast. 141 of them (51%) have no website at all. 138 (49%) do. That's one sector in one area, checked by hand, so it isn't a national picture. But it tells me something useful. If you're a small business here with a website and a properly set up Google profile, you're already ahead of more than half your neighbours. Here's what the research says about why that matters, and why I'd do it now. The gap is you