Study · published
How Wisconsin small-business websites hold up in search, AI answers and accessibility
We checked 512 Wisconsin small-business websites. Most can be read by search engines and AI tools, but 87% don’t answer a single customer question on their home page, 44% give AI no machine-readable business details, and 77% have at least one serious accessibility problem. The median site scored 80/100 on our search and AI check.
The sample has two parts: 246 businesses of all kinds from the La Crosse, Eau Claire, Wausau, Waukesha and Sheboygan areas, and 266 Madison-area builders and trade contractors. They came out almost the same (88% and 86% with no customer questions answered), so this isn’t one industry’s problem.
87%
don't answer any customer questions on their home page, the short answers AI assistants and Google quote
77%
have at least one serious accessibility problem in an automated check
44%
give search engines and AI no machine-readable description of the business itself (name, address, phone)
Search engines and AI assistants
- 87%don't answer any customer questions on their home page, the short answers AI assistants and Google quote
- 44%give search engines and AI no machine-readable description of the business itself (name, address, phone)
- 28%have very little text on the home page for search engines or AI to go on
- 23%have no description written for Google to show under their name
- 22%have no main heading saying what the business does
- 17%don't show a phone number or address that search and AI tools can read on the home page
- 11%have no sitemap listing their pages for search engines
- 4%aren't fully on a secure (https) connection
- 2%show almost no text until scripts run, so most AI crawlers see a nearly empty page
- 0%block AI search tools (ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Claude) in robots.txt
Reaching and serving customers
- 77%have at least one serious accessibility problem in an automated check
- 42%show no email address on the pages we checked
- 29%have no contact or quote form we could find
- 12%show no phone number on the pages we checked
- 8%use an accessibility overlay widget (these don't fix the underlying problems)
- 3%aren't set up for phones
The most common serious accessibility problems
Share of the 246 sites where we recorded each problem.
- 46%Links with no readable text (often icon-only links), so screen readers just say “link”
- 21%Buttons with no readable text
- 16%Images with no text description
- 9%Embedded maps or videos with no title
- 6%Menu or toggle controls with no name
- 6%Icons and graphics with no text description
By region
| Sites | Median score | No Q&A on home page | No business details for AI | Serious accessibility problem | No email shown | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Madison (builders & trades) | 266 | 80 | 86% | 45% | 81% | 41% |
| Wausau | 54 | 80 | 83% | 50% | 67% | 44% |
| Waukesha | 53 | 84 | 92% | 34% | 75% | 43% |
| Eau Claire | 49 | 78 | 90% | 49% | 80% | 53% |
| La Crosse | 46 | 82 | 85% | 50% | 67% | 24% |
| Sheboygan | 44 | 79 | 91% | 30% | 82% | 48% |
Groups with fewer than 20 sites are too small to compare on their own.
By industry
| Sites | Median score | No Q&A on home page | No business details for AI | Serious accessibility problem | No email shown | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home services & construction | 296 | 80 | 86% | 45% | 81% | 42% |
| Professional services | 41 | 83 | 90% | 41% | 59% | 37% |
| Other business | 39 | 82 | 85% | 41% | 74% | 36% |
| Health, dental & wellness | 33 | 78 | 85% | 48% | 76% | 39% |
| Lodging, events & recreation | 26 | 81 | 81% | 35% | 69% | 46% |
| Restaurants & food | 25 | 77 | 96% | 44% | 80% | 48% |
| Retail & shopping | 21 | 80 | 100% | 33% | 86% | 29% |
| Auto & transportation(small group) | 19 | 84 | 84% | 63% | 84% | 68% |
| Beauty, fitness & personal care(small group) | 12 | 78 | 83% | 33% | 67% | 42% |
Groups with fewer than 20 sites are too small to compare on their own.
How we did it
- The statewide part came from chamber of commerce member directories in the Wausau, Waukesha, Eau Claire, La Crosse, Sheboygan areas, sampled evenly across industries within each area. The Madison part is every member website we could check in a Madison-area building-trades association directory.
- Each site’s home page was checked automatically in October 2026, at a slow pace, obeying each site’s robots.txt.
- Contact details were looked for on the home page and up to three contact or about pages. The study counts only whether each one was there; no address or name appears in the results.
- Automated accessibility checks catch only some problems; a clean result doesn’t mean a site is fully accessible.
- No individual business is named, here or anywhere else.
Citing this study: “Phulax LLC, Wisconsin Small-Business Website Study, 2026, phulaxllc.com/research/wisconsin-website-study.” Press questions: phulaxllc@gmail.com.
Questions
What did the study check?
Each business's home page was run through Phulax's free website checks: search and AI-answer readiness (titles, descriptions, structured data, sitemap, robots.txt, question-and-answer content), an automated accessibility check based on WCAG rules, and whether the site publishes a phone number, email address and contact form.
Which businesses were included?
512 small and local businesses with their own website, taken from public member directories (chambers of commerce and a building-trades association) in these areas: Madison, Wausau, Waukesha, Eau Claire, La Crosse, Sheboygan. Banks, government, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, manufacturers and chains with many locations were left out.
Are Wisconsin businesses invisible to ChatGPT?
Mostly no: 0% block AI search tools, and only 2% hide their text behind scripts. The bigger gap is content: 87% don't answer a single customer question on their home page, and 44% give AI no machine-readable business details, so AI assistants have little to quote or recommend.
Does an accessibility problem mean a site breaks the law?
No. An automated check finds common barriers, such as links and images a screen reader can't describe. It can't judge legal compliance, and it misses problems only a person can find. It does show where many customers using screen readers or keyboards will get stuck.
How can I check my own website?
Run the same checks free at phulaxllc.com/free-checks. Results take seconds, need no sign-up, and explain what to fix.
How does your website compare?
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