{
  "title": "Local Business Website Study, November 2026",
  "publisher": "FreelanceMail (https://freelancemails.com)",
  "article": "https://freelancemails.com/blog/local-business-website-study-2026",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution to FreelanceMail and a link to the article",
  "checkedOn": "2026-11-03",
  "method": {
    "source": "Public member directories of 9 local chambers of commerce (ChamberMaster), 8 US states: San Diego Business Chamber (CA); Chandler Chamber of Commerce (AZ); Oxford Chamber of Commerce (OH); Lakewood Chamber of Commerce (OH); North Clackamas Chamber of Commerce (OR); Palm Beach North Chamber of Commerce (FL); Corsicana & Navarro County Chamber of Commerce (TX); Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce (NE); DeWitt Chamber & Development Company (IA)",
    "sampling": "Up to 80 members per chamber picked at random with a fixed seed; members without a website skipped",
    "excluded": "Government, school and nonprofit domains (.gov/.edu/.mil/.org), links to social media profiles, URLs pointing to a sub-page of a larger site, domains shared by more than one sampled member, and a list of national brands and franchises",
    "pages": "Homepage only, fetched once, robots.txt respected",
    "counts": {
      "membersWithWebsite": 600,
      "excluded": {
        "invalid": 2,
        "orgGovEdu": 106,
        "notAWebsite": 12,
        "hasPath": 50,
        "chainOrBrand": 17
      },
      "checked": 413,
      "statusCounts": {
        "ok": 312,
        "http-error": 39,
        "unreachable": 36,
        "little-readable-text": 17,
        "robots-disallowed": 7,
        "parked-or-placeholder": 1,
        "redirects-to-social": 1
      },
      "analyzed": 312
    },
    "notes": "Percentages are of the analyzed homepages unless stated. Image figures use homepages with at least one image (306). Copyright figures use homepages that show a copyright year (206)."
  },
  "metricsPercent": {
    "Loads over HTTPS": 95.2,
    "Has a mobile viewport tag": 96.5,
    "Has a meta description": 75,
    "Meta description missing or empty": 25,
    "Has a page title": 99.4,
    "Has exactly one H1": 52.2,
    "Has no H1": 20.2,
    "Has more than one H1": 27.6,
    "Has an og:image (link preview image)": 57.7,
    "Has any structured data (JSON-LD)": 65.4,
    "Has LocalBusiness-type structured data": 25.3,
    "Sites with at least one image missing alt": 25.2,
    "Share of all images with no alt attribute": 6.8,
    "Click-to-call (tel:) link": 51.3,
    "Clickable email (mailto:) link": 29.5,
    "Contact page or quote link": 81.7,
    "No tel:, mailto: or contact link": 9.3,
    "Form on the homepage": 48.4,
    "Email newsletter signup on the homepage": 10.6,
    "Online booking or scheduling link": 2.9,
    "Google Analytics or Tag Manager": 59,
    "Meta (Facebook) Pixel": 7.4,
    "Links to Facebook": 64.7,
    "Links to Instagram": 52.2,
    "Links to LinkedIn": 32.7,
    "Footer copyright found": 66,
    "Copyright year is 2024 or earlier (of sites showing one)": 17,
    "Copyright year is 2025 or earlier (of sites showing one)": 25.2
  },
  "platforms": {
    "Other / custom": {
      "sites": 125,
      "pct": 40.1
    },
    "WordPress": {
      "sites": 102,
      "pct": 32.7
    },
    "Wix": {
      "sites": 23,
      "pct": 7.4
    },
    "GoDaddy": {
      "sites": 23,
      "pct": 7.4
    },
    "Squarespace": {
      "sites": 22,
      "pct": 7.1
    },
    "Duda": {
      "sites": 6,
      "pct": 1.9
    },
    "Webflow": {
      "sites": 4,
      "pct": 1.3
    },
    "Shopify": {
      "sites": 4,
      "pct": 1.3
    },
    "Weebly / Square Online": {
      "sites": 3,
      "pct": 1
    }
  },
  "copyrightYears": {
    "2000": 1,
    "2012": 2,
    "2015": 2,
    "2016": 1,
    "2018": 4,
    "2019": 4,
    "2020": 3,
    "2021": 2,
    "2022": 6,
    "2023": 4,
    "2024": 6,
    "2025": 17,
    "2026": 154
  },
  "totals": {
    "images": 6564
  }
}