Does your website need to stand out from the crowd ?

Or indeed following on from my recent blog on the merit of having e-mail contact details on your sites - do you even need contact details at all ?

Having looked at literally hundreds of websites over the past couple of weeks two things in particular puzzle me. Firstly, the number of business websites which don't have any contact information at all - no address, telephone number or god forbid, an e-mail address. I suppose one could argue that the site could be found using a google local search or Yell.com - but surely only a really determined searcher will bother. In most instances the traffic will surely go directly to a competitor. I'd say around 2% or 3% of sites I've looked at fall into this 'no contact' category and this totally staggers me (especially given the time and effort I've expended to get my business site as high on web searches as possible).

The other thing that occurs is Driving Instructors websites - surely a really crammed market with lots of businesses competing in any given area - where to stand out and offer something a little different would seem to be vital. But most seem to adopt a very standardised and frankly dull web surfing experience. Also, although this kind of business is one of the ones I'm prospecting with quite commonly, not a single one out of dozens asked has accepted my offer of free advertising. Now, there's obviously neither an obligation nor an expectation people will use my service but take up rate amongst this style of business (at 0%) is the lowest I've come across. Perhaps being a self employed driving instructor is so lucrative that I'm in the wrong business ?