I am far from my days of "building websites", but I built one as a favor for a friend just this week (simple contact form, single page). I was talking to him over the phone about his previous website, how it was built, who built it, etc...
I think there is A LOT of money to be made with building websites for small businesses.
Yes, the challenge is not technical, and yes, we (from an engineering point of view) think it's a commodity and that Wix and the likes are solving all the problems, that's wrong!
Let's start from the bottom, if you have real sales, that talk to small business and take care of their online presence, you will get a lot of business.
Forget about the CMS, forget about the self-serve, you act as the technical person and take care of:
1. Yelp Page 2. Facebook Page 3. Instagram Page 4. Website 5. Content writing
You can get a ton of business with targeting the right business types and pricing it right.
You have to figure out the problem you are solving. forget SEO and forget everything that we as engineers think about, think about the value you are adding to a small business.
If you tell a busy business owner that he can text you the updates they want, or you call them once a week and get a few new photos that you will update in the right places and get them more business, you will thrive.
If you develop a high-touch business in a market where everybody thinks they will win with a low-touch 5$ a month market, you can win.
My friend paid 3K$ for his previous website.