Just for a counterpoint, about a year ago I did a landing page and accompanying marketing campaign for a friend of mine who runs a small landscaping business in Pittsburgh. With Squarespace and a couple days spent on a branding strategy, his site was head and shoulders above any competitor.<p>After a small investment on his part in advertising, we were generating many more leads than he could handle at a very good ROI--seemingly because the nice site was doing a good job differentiating him. So at least in his case, having a decent website did bring a real competitive advantage.