I get asked this a lot by business owners here in Charlotte. The phone is ringing, the work is steady, and every customer came from somebody who already knew them. So why would you pay for a website?
A referral is where the search starts
Think about the last time a friend recommended a business to you. You probably didn't call right away. You looked them up first.
Your customers do the exact same thing. And what they find is what decides if that referral turns into a call. If they find nothing, or a Facebook page nobody has touched in two years, you didn't lose the referral completely. But you made it harder, and some of those people are going to go with whoever looked more legit.
What your website actually needs to do
Honestly, not that much. It needs to say what you do and where you do it. It needs to show some of your real work. And it needs to make it super easy to call you or book you.
That's it. It's basically the front door for people who already heard about you. This is most of what I build for local businesses. I build the website from scratch, and I set it up so the domain is in your name.
When you really don't need one
If you're fully booked for the foreseeable future and you don't want more work, a website isn't urgent. For everybody else, you're leaving some of your word of mouth on the table.