Explainer
Does a Bahamian shop need an online store or a WhatsApp catalogue?
For shops that take orders in WhatsApp messages
Bahamas Digital Readiness Index
A website is the one place you fully control.
Your industry says where to start, and the website is where you end up, because you set the offer, prices and terms there.
National Reading
Share of 2,600 businesses with this door open
38.2%
993 businesses
The 2026 index
Owned: Website
A website stays yours when a platform changes its rules.
31 July 2024
the day Google ended chat and call history on every Business Profile.
It is where a customer who is ready to decide books, orders or pays on terms you set.
A platform can change its rules for every business on it at once. Your website stays at an address in the business’s name, and you decide what it shows.
It carries the whole offer in your words, from the menu and prices to the credentials or portfolio that build trust. Enquiries there come to you, and the contact details customers leave are yours to keep. A form can ask where each customer found you, so you see which door sends them, and a webpage of common questions answers what you hear most.
It waits for customers who come looking, often from another door. In a 2026 BrightLocal survey, 54% of US consumers said they visit a business’s website after reading positive reviews. Your Google Business Profile’s website field puts a customer one tap from the full offer. Google builds the profile partly from your website, and says a business is more likely to show in local results when more websites link to it.
Where the outside facts on this webpage come from
Google Business Profile Help, “Changes to Google Business Profile chat and call history”: as of 31 July 2024, the chat and call history features are no longer available in a Business Profile. All Business Profiles. Read 28 September 2026.
BrightLocal, “Local Consumer Review Survey 2026: Star Ratings Keep Rising, Old Reviews Don’t Cut It”, published 11 February 2026, a panel of 1,002 US adult consumers, via SurveyMonkey: 54% of consumers visit a business’s website after reading positive reviews. Read 28 September 2026.
Google Business Profile Help, “How Google sources & uses info in Business Profiles & local search results”: profile information is compiled partly from publicly available information, such as a business’s official website. Read 28 September 2026.
Google Business Profile Help, “Tips to improve your local ranking on Google”: prominence is based partly on how many websites link to the business, and prominent places are more likely to show in search results. Read 28 September 2026.
Jamaica Observer, “JBDC survey reveals digital divide”, 4 September 2024, reporting a Jamaica Business Development Corporation survey: 65.07% of Jamaican micro, small and medium-sized businesses had no website. The article gives no sample size. Read 28 September 2026.
Website addresses on record
Most website addresses on record load for a customer.
Check that yours still loads on a phone outside the business, where a customer opens it.
Website addresses on record for 1,357 of the 2,600 businesses, by what happened when the index opened each one. Loads with a secure connection, 65.7%, 892. Loads without a secure connection, 7.4%, 101. Does not load, 26.8%, 364.
Most addresses that did not load failed at the address itself: they timed out, returned an error or led somewhere that is not the business. That points to the domain registration or the hosting, not the website’s content.
Fix the address first, since a customer who cannot open it sees nothing else. The secure connection comes after, once the website loads.
Open your own website address on a phone that is not on the business’s network, and see whether it loads.
47.8%
of the 2,600 businesses in the 2026 index had no website address on record.
In a Jamaica Business Development Corporation survey of micro, small and medium-sized businesses in Jamaica, reported in 2024, 65.1% had no website at all, a different measure from an address on record.
See whether a customer finds your website, and how your other three doors read.
Check your score
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Status of every website address on record · the 2026 index How to get your address loading
What counts as loading
An address counts as loading when it opened a working website for the business. A parked or coming-soon webpage, or a website that belongs to someone else, counts as not loading. The three shares are rounded, so they may not add to a hundred.
How to open it, and what comes next
How to put up a website, then build it out
Not found means no address that loads turned up in public sources, which is not proof there is none.
Open it: Open means the address loads a working website.
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Secure an address in your name Short, on a phone or a computer A domain in the business’s name.
Register a domain name in the business’s own name. If you have one that does not load, read its public registration record, which names the company holding it and the date it expires.
Yearly costs, and whose name it is in
The domain, and the hosting that keeps a webpage online, each carry a yearly cost set by whoever provides them, so ask what a full year costs before committing. Keep the registration in the business’s name even when someone else builds the website.
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Put up one basic webpage An afternoon to a few evenings Outside help can pay off What you do, where, and how to book.
One webpage that says what the business does, where it is, when it is open, what it costs or where prices start, and how to book, order or call.
How long each route takes
On a booking or portfolio platform this is an afternoon to an evening, with a website builder a few evenings, and with a web professional weeks. A profile on a booking or portfolio platform counts as an open website door if its address loads.
If your address no longer loads How do I tell if it still loads?
Open the address on a phone rather than on the computer it was built on, and check three things: the webpage loads, the browser shows no Not secure warning, and every link inside it still goes where it should. If any fails, try again on a phone that is not on the business’s network, because a website can load inside the business and fail outside it.
If it does not load, check that the registration and the hosting are still paid, then put a webpage back up. Checking is short, and restoring can take an afternoon or more.
What does a website cost?
It depends on the route you take. The domain and the hosting each carry a yearly cost set by whoever provides them, and building the website costs your own time on a booking platform or website builder, or a professional’s fee. Ask any provider what a full year costs before committing, because the routes are priced differently.
Open. Past this line, the door counts as open.
Build it out: What a website needs once it loads
Steps three and four set up what your score reads: a secure connection, and a website that works on a phone.
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Turn on the secure connection Short where the host manages it Do I need a security certificate?
Yes: without one, the browser marks the site Not secure before a visitor reads a word. Look for the certificate setting in the hosting account. Many hosting providers get and renew the certificate for you, automatically or with one setting.
If it has to be installed by hand
Where it has to be installed by hand, it is a job for the host or a web professional.
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Make it read well on a phone Short to check, the fix varies Outside help can pay off Pinch to read it? Get it fixed.
Open the site on your own phone. If you have to pinch to read it, the layout runs off the screen or the number cannot be tapped, have the layout fixed.
Checking the phone view, and tap-to-call
Phone view not read on your score? This check is the answer. A phone number set as a tap-to-call link lets a customer call in one tap.
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Put WhatsApp on every webpage Link and number, top and bottom.
Put the WhatsApp link and phone number in the header and footer, on every webpage.
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Link your booking or order webpage Where your Google links land.
Make the webpage where a customer books or orders the one your Google listing’s booking and order links point to, if your category offers them.
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Take payment by link or button Outside help can pay off How do I take card payments?
Use a payment link or button from a Bahamian bank or local payment provider, because Stripe and Square do not take on businesses based in The Bahamas. These links work on a website, by email or in a WhatsApp chat, with no online store needed.
Where this was checked
Checked on Stripe’s and Square’s own webpages on 28 September 2026.
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See what is working Does my website win customers?
Google Search Console, a free Google service, shows it: which searches bring up the website and how often people click through. Read it beside the Performance report on your Google listing, which counts website clicks beside calls and direction requests, and ask each new customer where they found you.
Keep it open
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Read it as a customer Short, worth repeating every few months Does Google read my website?
Yes, and it may publish an edit to your Google listing from what it reads, because Google builds a Business Profile partly from the business’s own website. So every few months, check the links, hours, prices and numbers the way a customer would, keep them the same as on your Google Business Profile, and renew the domain before its registration expires.
Some of these steps go faster with a professional’s help. Get a free professional reading of your Four Digital Doors, and the steps we can help with
On your Google Business Profile, a customer who searches decides whether to call or visit.
Is your website door open?
Type the business name and see how a customer finds this door and your other three.
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A website address can fail for customers with nobody at the business seeing it. This webpage shows how to check yours still loads, and what a working website needs.