What a website won't do.
It won't add to your multiple. If your financials are solid, a dated site won't sink the deal. If they're weak, a beautiful site won't save it. Don't rebuild your website expecting a higher price.
Here's what buyers do notice, what it signals, and what's worth fixing before you go to market.
What buyers notice.
Whether it matches the story
Your marketing materials say you're a commercial contractor, and your website is all residential. You list services you stopped offering, or a service area you no longer cover. Every mismatch becomes a question in due diligence.
How much of the business is you
Your cell number on every page. "Call Mike" as the only way in. Your face and name on every section. Buyers already worry about how much a business depends on its owner, and a website built around you confirms it. A site that shows the team, the managers and how work gets done tells the opposite story.
Where new customers come from
Buyers want to know whether revenue depends on your personal relationships or comes in on its own. If your website brings in quote requests, the form submissions and call records show a channel that stays when you leave. If you can't show any, buyers assume it all runs through you.
Signs of neglect
A copyright year from 2015. A contact form that goes nowhere. Former employees on the team page. Photos of trucks you sold. None of it is serious alone, but buyers read it as a hint about what else hasn't been kept up.
Reviews and reputation
Your reviews are public, and buyers read them. How you've answered the bad ones matters as much as the star rating.
Whether you can hire
In trades and service businesses, labor is often the biggest limit on growth. A real careers page with pay and an easy application shows a buyer you can recruit.
When to fix it, and when to leave it.
- Accurate and working?
- Leave it. Spend your time on your financials and your team.
- Badly out of date?
- Fix it 6 to 12 months before you go to market, so it's live long enough to show real inquiries.
- Already in a deal?
- Don't rebuild now. Fix what's wrong (a wrong phone number, a dead form, outdated services) and leave the rest.
- The minimum standard
- Accurate, consistent with your marketing materials, and every form and phone number works.
Who controls your website and domain?
The question buyers' advisors tend to ask late. If any of these sit in a former employee's or an old agency's account, the handover at closing gets slow and awkward. Before you go to market, make sure you can say who controls each one, and that it can be handed over.
| Asset | Check | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | Registered to the business, in an account you control, set to auto-renew | Registered to an ex-employee, a relative who built the first site, or an old agency |
| Website hosting and builder | You have the owner login, not just an editor login | The agency that built it owns the account |
| Business email | Accounts are on the company's domain, and you're the admin | Key customers email a personal Gmail address |
| Google Business Profile | You're listed as owner, not just manager | Owned by a marketing vendor you stopped paying |
| Social media pages | At least two people at the company are admins | Only one person can log in, and they've left |
| Phone numbers | Numbers are in the company's name and can be transferred | The main line is someone's personal cell |
| Reviews and listings | You can log in to Yelp, Angi and your industry directories | Nobody knows the login |
| Photos and written content | You have the rights to use them | Stock photos, or an agency's work you don't own |
Questions owners ask.
Not directly. Buyers value a small business on its earnings and how risky those earnings look. A website can support that story, by showing inquiries that come in on their own and a business that doesn't depend on the owner, or it can raise questions. It doesn't change the math by itself.
Only if it's inaccurate, broken or badly out of date. If it is, fix it 6 to 12 months before you go to market. If it's accurate and works, leave it and focus on your financials.
Most look you up before the first conversation. In due diligence, the questions are usually about whether the site matches the marketing materials, where leads come from, and whether the domain and accounts can be transferred.
Usually. In most deals the domain, website and related accounts are business assets that transfer with the sale, but only if they're actually in the business's name and you can hand over the logins. Your attorney and advisor will confirm what your purchase agreement covers.
Find out now who owns the domain and the accounts, and move them into an account the business controls. It's a simple fix months before a sale, and a stressful one the week before closing.