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Baron Solutions
Baron Solutions

Internet Presence in 2026

·14 mins·
Author
Author
Scott Baron
Owner & Head Tech guru
Table of Contents

Your customers ability to find you as quickly as possiable

So you want to start a business?
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Or maybe you already have?
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What is internet presence? In short, it’s how quickly your potential customers can find your business online. This comes in a variety of flavors in 2026, because there are so many different platforms; and which platforms you should be applying your effort to vary greatly from business to business.

Most of the time the answer to “What does your internet presence look like?” is “Uhhh well I have Facebook” (or TikTok)… if they even know what I’m talking about at all. Which if you have a Facebook page, great — you have started to get your presence out there. But you are at the base of the mountain.

In 2026, to get proper visibility for your business you need to be on 3-4 of the social platforms, be in the search indexes (so you show up in Google), be listed on Google Maps, have at least a basic website with who you are & what you do & how to contact you. Then that website needs to be SEO (search engine optimized) so that you show up in proper searches. Also I can’t be the only one that thinks “okay this guy is working out of his parents’ garage” every time I get a business card with a ‘@gmail.com’ email.

Not trying to rip on people with small operations — small teams are making more money than ever before. My point is with how easy and cheap modern-day solutions are, you can add a higher level of credibility to your business card with that ‘@greatbusiness.com’ ending.

Does it require technical skills? Yes, not a lot. But if you find Microsoft Word daunting, you will probably call it ‘magic’. (And in some ways it is)

web search

What does an internet presence do for a business?
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It’s hard to quantify a hard metric for “strong presence vs no presence” because no-presence businesses either 1 — Exist for specific reasons and are not looking for organic growth. These are potentially things like farming operations, business-to-business operations that got started working for a specific set of customers, or shell companies that have sketchy origins (where organic growth normally results in someone going to jail). It’s hard to think of reasons for a no-presence business to exist, which leads into option two… no-presence businesses don’t survive.

So let’s compare “strong presence vs some presence.”

I want to establish ‘some presence’ as being on a social platform (maybe 2) and having a basic website up. Maybe the website was built by yourself with one of the drag-n-drop builders over a keyboard-banging week… maybe you actually went and found a “pro” to build one for you.

Let’s address websites
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So let’s take the best-case situation here. You hired the “pro” who is probably a graphic designer with a New Media degree, they did a great job and you have zero complaints. Here’s the bitter pill however — websites are so much more than looking good and being user-functional. A user (or customer) needs to be able to find your site to begin with, this is where SEO enters the scene. SEO is a set of “fine-tuning” settings that determine how your site gets ranked in search engine results (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.).

Let’s assume you hired a super talented person and they actually did set up SEO properly. Do you have an established long-term maintenance contract with them? Or has your site sat unchanged since they finished the job? Even in a best-case scenario where they set up SEO 100% correctly (which is almost never the case — very trial-and-error stuff), it’s out-of-date after a year at best.

The SEO algorithms of 2015 function completely differently than 2026. Many of them use an element of “content freshness”, which means unless you are making frequent changes to your site, you will fall in the rankings… even if you are doing everything else right. According to First Page Sage’s 2025 algorithm analysis, content freshness jumped to become the 6th biggest factor in Google’s ranking algorithm at 6% weight — pages that update at least once per year gain an average of 4.6 positions in search results versus pages that haven’t been updated (First Page Sage).

Think about how you use Google. When you are looking for something, how far do you make it in the results before settling on something? Did you even make it to the 2nd page? According to Semrush, the first page of search results captures more than 99% of all clicks (DemandSage). If you are not a first-page result you basically don’t exist to your potential customers that look for services with a Google search. This is why many businesses opt into the “pay to win” option of Google Ads… that’s a whole different ball game that’s not as good of an option as it once was, but I’ll cover that in a future article.

How can I determine my SEO rankings?
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Well this is a simple thing to test, but results can vary greatly. Many search engines will allow you to see some basic analytic information about your site’s SEO performance. However, I tend to be an “I wanna see it in action” type. So the best way in my opinion is to ask a friend if you can use their internet and an incognito browser on their device.

Woah that sounds like a big privacy issue. Well this is why you use incognito, and also allow them to look over your shoulder. It’s only fair and you shouldn’t care — you have nothing to hide.

Go to Google and search for your business. Put yourself in the shoes of a possible customer — are they going to type in your business name directly? No. They are going to Google whatever service they need. So if the furnace is broken, they are going to search “HVAC service in my area”… well to be frank it’s probably going to be even more generic like “furnace repair company”, “heating repairman”, or even “my heating isn’t heating help”… I wish that last one was a joke.

Now when you are trying this, you should start with the most generic search and step toward more specific ones. Why? Because you’re being tracked. Google will keep a soft record of search categories made from the network location you are on, so that it can “better serve you”… or at least that’s the claim.

So you’ve typed in “I need a heating person” — can you find your business? Where? Who is above you? Who is below you? This is basically your SEO in action.

Use misspellings too — it can and will affect rankings. Really good SEO settings will include the “commonly misspelled” versions of keywords.

Search again using something more specific like “furnace service person.” How specific do you have to get before you are on the 1st page?

My social media pages are showing up before my website???

Probably due to the content freshness I mentioned before, but also social media pages have a level of SEO being applied to them automatically by the platform.

Well if the Facebook page shows up in searches…
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No, that does not mean your Facebook page is a replacement for a real website. Only having a Facebook page is on par with using a ‘gmail’ email ending. A website adds more credibility to your brand. How? Because obtaining a web domain means that no one else can use that name — a Facebook page doesn’t really have that same limitation. While obtaining a domain isn’t particularly difficult, it does require more effort than a Facebook page.

Plus, you can link your website to your Facebook page (and/or other social platforms) and vice versa. This actually can create a situation that improves your SEO and your presence on social platforms.

Traffic from social media to your website increases your rankings in search engines. Traffic from your website to your social platforms increases the likelihood that the algorithm will put your brand in front of people. This creates a positive feedback loop that can boost all aspects of your internet presence.

Using Meta Ads can push this feedback loop even further, but that is a little out of scope for this post.

I tried posting on social media…
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But nothing seems to be getting traction? I know the feeling… trust me. But there are aspects going on under the hood that will help your internet presence. If you have all the web exposure things set up and linked, then regular posts increase that content freshness thing that I mentioned prior — which is arguably the most impactful metric of your internet presence. So post even if it might be painful… post even if you don’t think it’s helping… it is helping, just in ways you can’t see. The most important thing with social platforms is consistency. It’s okay to post things outside your “brand”, it’s okay to try a bunch of things. My advice: find something you enjoy (or hate the least)… viewers can tell when you are doing something you don’t enjoy, which will likely lead them to click off prematurely.

While you might not think about it this way, YouTube is a social platform.

There are many services available today that allow you to schedule social media posting. You can have an entire month of content scheduled in one afternoon — a very “set it & forget it” type solution. This can help dull the no traction feeling, because you don’t have to look at it every day.

According to Gitnux, about 92% of small businesses plan to maintain or increase their social media efforts in 2026, and 66% are already using short-form video content weekly (Gitnux). You don’t need to reinvent the wheel — you just need to show up.

Content Freshness
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I’ve mentioned this a few times now, so let’s actually break it down.

Content freshness is a concept baked into how Google (and other search engines) rank your site. Google’s “Query Deserves Freshness” (QDF) algorithm looks for signals that a topic is trending or evolving, and then boosts recently updated pages in those results (Google Search Central). But it doesn’t just apply to breaking news. It applies to your business too.

Think about it from Google’s perspective: if your website hasn’t changed in 3 years, why would Google believe it’s still an active, relevant business? Maybe you closed. Maybe you moved. Maybe your phone number changed. Google doesn’t know — and rather than guess, it just deprioritizes you.

Content freshness doesn’t mean you need to rewrite your entire website every month. It can be as simple as updating a blog post, changing a seasonal offer on your homepage, adding a new photo gallery, or publishing a quick update about a recent project you completed. The point is to show search engines (and your customers) that somebody is home.

This is also where the social media feedback loop I mentioned earlier becomes incredibly powerful. If your social media accounts are linked to your site, every post you make signals activity. That activity contributes to the freshness equation even if nobody clicks through. It’s all interconnected.

The bottom line: a website is not a “set it and forget it” asset. It’s a living thing that needs attention — even if that attention is small and infrequent. Once a month is a solid starting point.

Search Indexes
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When someone Googles something, Google isn’t searching the entire internet in real-time. It’s searching its index — a massive catalog of websites it has already discovered, crawled, and categorized. If your website isn’t in that index, you literally don’t exist in Google search results.

So how does your site get indexed? Google uses automated programs called “crawlers” (or “spiders”) that follow links across the web, discover new pages, and add them to the index. This process can happen naturally over time, but there are things you can do to speed it up and make sure it actually happens.

The most straightforward way is to submit your sitemap directly to Google through Google Search Console — a free tool that lets you tell Google your site exists and monitor how it’s performing in search. Bing has a similar tool called Bing Webmaster Tools. Setting these up is one of the highest-impact, lowest-effort things you can do for your internet presence.

Beyond just being indexed, you want to make sure you’re indexed correctly. This means your pages have clear titles, descriptions (meta tags), and structured content that tells search engines what your business does and where you operate. If Google can’t figure out what your site is about, it won’t know which searches to show it for.

And here’s the kicker — about 68% of all online experiences start with a search engine (BrightEdge via DemandSage). Google alone processes roughly 5.9 million searches per minute (Hootsuite). If you’re not in the index, you’re missing out on the single largest source of potential customer discovery.

Getting listed on Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is equally critical, especially for local service businesses. This is what makes you show up on Google Maps and in the local pack — that little box of 3 businesses that appears at the top of local search results. According to Semrush, local pack results show up on about 22% of all Google searches (Nextiva). For a plumber, landscaper, or restaurant, being in that local pack is basically the digital equivalent of a primo storefront location.

Emails
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Let’s circle back to the ‘@gmail.com’ thing, because it’s more than just an aesthetic choice.

According to a survey by GoDaddy, roughly 75% of consumers say that a domain-based email address is a key factor in whether they trust a small business (LinkNow Media). That means three out of four people are making a snap judgment about your legitimacy based on what comes after the ‘@’ in your email.

Think about how we’ve all been trained. Phishing scams, spam, fake invoices — they almost always come from generic email addresses. When you send a quote or an invoice from ‘joe_the_plumber_1987@gmail.com’, you’re fighting an uphill battle against that conditioning. But ‘joe@joesplumbing.com’? That immediately signals you’re a real operation that invested in itself.

And the reality is this costs almost nothing. Most domain registrars bundle email hosting with your domain for somewhere between $2-$10/month. Some web hosting providers include it for free. You’re already paying for a domain (you do have a domain, right?) so adding a branded email is basically a rounding error in your budget.

Beyond trust, a branded email also improves deliverability. Emails from custom domains are less likely to land in spam folders compared to free providers, which means your quotes, invoices, and follow-ups are actually making it to your customers’ inboxes.

Here’s a quick action list for getting set up: get a domain (if you don’t have one), connect email hosting through your domain provider, set up addresses like info@, support@, or your name@ — and start using it everywhere. Business cards, social media profiles, your website, invoices. Consistency builds recognition, and recognition builds trust.

Conclusion
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Look, I get it. If you’re a plumber, a landscaper, a restaurant owner — you got into your line of work because you’re good at that work, not because you wanted to learn about SEO algorithms and content freshness scores. The internet stuff can feel overwhelming and honestly kind of pointless when you’re busy actually running a business.

But here’s the reality: over 5 billion people are on social media globally, and nearly 70% of all online experiences begin with a search engine. Your customers are looking for you online before they ever pick up the phone. The question isn’t whether you need an internet presence — it’s how much business you’re leaving on the table without one.

The good news? You don’t have to do it all at once. Start with the basics: get a website up (even a simple one), claim your Google Business Profile, set up a branded email, and pick one or two social platforms to post on consistently. That alone puts you ahead of a huge chunk of your competition.

Then over time, layer in the SEO improvements, link everything together, and let that positive feedback loop start working for you. The businesses that understand this aren’t necessarily the most technically savvy — they’re just the ones that showed up.

And if all of this still sounds like magic? Well… that’s what people like me are for.

Sources
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