Bern or Zurich: which city has better websites?

Bern comes out on top. Of the 39 Bern sites in our study, 15.4 percent are up to date. In Zurich it is 9.7 percent. In Basel only 5.6 percent. The ranking promises more than it delivers though. The average in each of these cities sits between 2.7 and 2.9 out of 5. So the gap is neither a big city problem nor a rural one. It runs through the whole German speaking part of Switzerland.

How we measured

At amai! we continuously review Swiss SME websites against a fixed grid. Each site gets a rating from 1 to 5, where 5 means the greatest need for work and 1 an up to date presence. The rating is indicative and based on visible website elements. For the city comparison we only used places where we had rated enough sites. All the detail and the overall results are in the SME website study.

The city comparison

Share of up to date websites per city. In brackets the number of sites rated:

• Bern: 15.4 percent (39 sites). The highest share in the comparison.
• Winterthur: 11.7 percent (60 sites).
• Zurich: 9.7 percent (185 sites). By far the largest sample.
• Basel: 5.6 percent (90 sites). The lowest share in the comparison.

Across all 2292 rated sites, 8.6 percent are up to date. Three of the four cities sit above that. Basel sits below.

Why Bern's lead is thinner than it looks

39 sites is a narrow base. Five sites more or less in the top tier move the share by several points. Zurich is far more reliable at 185 sites rated. So anyone comparing cities honestly looks at the average. That average sits everywhere between 2.7 and 2.9 out of 5. At that level barely two tenths of a point separate the four cities.

Not a big city problem and not a rural one

The order contradicts the cliché. Basel is the larger city. It still lands behind Bern. Winterthur beats Zurich. If digital maturity were a question of city size, Zurich would lead. Zurich sits mid table.

Location does not decide it. What decides it is when a site was last rebuilt and whether anyone looked after it since. A hairdresser website in Bern ages exactly as fast as one in Zurich. Your real competitors are rarely in the other city anyway. They are two streets away.

What you can do

1. Benchmark yourself locally. Open the sites of your three nearest competitors on a phone. Who answers fastest what they offer and for whom?
2. Put location and service in the page title. So hairdresser Bern instead of welcome to our website. It is the cheapest local SEO win there is.
3. Make contact reachable. Tappable phone number, address as text, opening hours current. Someone searching in the moment decides in seconds.
4. Think about AI answers. More and more people ask an assistant instead of a search engine. Whether you show up there depends on clear text and clean structure. How that works is explained under GEO for Swiss SMEs.

The good news: the shortfall is similar everywhere. That means it closes at a similar speed everywhere. In each of these four cities a properly built site puts you in the top ten percent.

Frequently asked questions

Does Bern or Zurich have the better SME websites? By share of up to date sites Bern leads with 15.4 percent against 9.7 percent in Zurich. The Bern base is small though at 39 sites. On average the two cities are almost level.

Which city scores weakest? Basel. Only 5.6 percent of the 90 sites rated there are up to date. That is the lowest value in the comparison. It sits below the Swiss average of 8.6 percent.

Are websites in smaller cities worse? No. Winterthur at 11.7 percent is ahead of Zurich at 9.7 percent. City size does not explain the differences. What matters is when a site was last rebuilt.

How large are the differences between cities really? Small. The average in all four cities sits between 2.7 and 2.9 on a scale of 5. The gap runs through the whole German speaking part of Switzerland.