Most small businesses are not in trouble because they did nothing. They're in trouble because they did the responsible thing five years ago: they built a WordPress site, added a few plugins, and kept paying for hosting, maintenance, and the occasional fix.
The problem is the ground moved. Search no longer means ten blue links. A growing share of buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI overview "who's the best ___ near me?", and they act on the handful of names that come back. If your site isn't structured to be read and trusted by those systems, you simply aren't in the conversation.
That's the hidden cost. You keep paying the same bills, but you get a smaller and smaller share of attention. Spending more on the old approach doesn't fix it, it just funds a vehicle that's pointed the wrong way.