Your next customer is already searching for you. The question is what they find.

I spent years at Square building the tools that restaurants and local shops run on — point of sale, online ordering, kitchen systems. In that time I talked to hundreds of owners, and almost all of them described customer acquisition the same way: word of mouth, foot traffic, and posting on Instagram. All three matter. But they leave out the channel where most new customers actually begin.

They begin with a search.

According to data compiled by Backlinko, 46% of all Google searches have local intent — someone looking for a business, product, or service near them. And these aren't idle browsers. Google's own research, cited in the same roundup, found that 76% of people who search for something nearby visit a business within 24 hours, and 28% of those local searches end in a purchase within a day. That is about as close to a customer standing outside your door as the internet gets.

What people check before they walk in

Here's the part that surprises owners who feel covered because "we're on Instagram." A Visual Objects survey found that 76% of consumers look at a company's online presence before visiting in person. And what they're looking for is boring, practical stuff: hours, menus, prices, photos, location, reviews. If they can't find it — or worse, if they find something stale — many simply move on. BrightLocal's research found that 62% of consumers would avoid a business entirely if they discovered incorrect information about it online.

Reviews carry particular weight. BrightLocal found that 99% of consumers read online reviews when researching local businesses, and more than half will visit a business's website after reading positive ones. Notice the sequence there: the review builds interest, and the website is where interest becomes a visit, a booking, or an order. When there's no website at the end of that chain, the momentum has nowhere to go.

Social media is the introduction. Search is the decision.

None of this means Instagram is wasted effort — it's often how people discover a business exists. But discovery and decision are different moments. When someone is deciding whether to actually come in, they search, and what they find either closes them or loses them. That's why the combination matters so much: research SCORE has cited shows that small businesses with both a website and social media generate roughly twice the revenue of businesses relying on social media alone. The two channels aren't substitutes. One creates awareness; the other converts it.

There's also a newer reason to care, and it's growing fast. People increasingly ask AI assistants for recommendations — BrightLocal found that 45% of consumers now use tools like ChatGPT for local business suggestions. When researchers examined where those tools pull local answers from, business websites were the single largest source, ahead of directories and mentions. A business with no website isn't just invisible to Google. It's increasingly invisible to the AI systems your customers are starting to trust.

The practical takeaway

If you run a restaurant, barbershop, or salon and you're thinking about growth, the highest-leverage move usually isn't more posting. It's making sure the moment of decision — the search — resolves in your favor. That means a website with current hours, your menu or services with prices, photos of your actual work, your reviews, and a way to book or order. Keep your Google Business Profile complete and pointed at it; Google's own data shows customers are 70% more likely to visit businesses with a complete profile.

None of this is complicated. It's just infrastructure most local businesses haven't gotten around to — which, if you're the one who does, is an advantage.