Most small business websites need fewer pages than their owners expect. What they need is the right ones, each with a clear reason to exist. A tidy five-page site that answers a customer’s questions will beat a sprawling twenty-page one where nobody can find the phone number.
Here are the small business website pages worth having, what goes on each, and how to decide whether you need anything beyond them.
The core pages nearly every business needs
Home
Your homepage has a few seconds to answer three questions: what do you do, where do you do it, and what should I do next? Say it in the first screen, in ordinary words. “Emergency plumber covering Stockport and South Manchester” does more work than “Welcome to our website”.
Below that, give short introductions to your main services, one or two pieces of proof such as reviews or recent work, and an obvious way to get in touch, which is the first step in turning visitors into enquiries. Think of the homepage as a signpost. Its job is to send people to the right place quickly.
Services (or products)
This is where you explain what you offer in enough detail for someone to decide. For each service, cover who it is for, what is included, roughly what it costs or how pricing works, and how long it takes. If you offer several quite different services, give each its own page. Customers search for specific things, and a page about one service answers them better than a long list of everything.
About
People like to know who they are dealing with, particularly when they are inviting you into their home or trusting you with their money. Say who runs the business, how long you have been trading, where you are based and what you care about getting right. A real photo of you or your team is worth more than any stock image. Keep it honest and short.
Contact
Make it effortless. Give a phone number people can tap, an email address, a short form, your opening hours and the area you cover. If customers visit you, add your address and a map. If most of your customers prefer to message, say so and link straight to WhatsApp. Then repeat the main contact option at the top of every page, because nobody should have to hunt for it.
Proof: reviews, work or case studies
Whether this is its own page or a section on others depends on your trade. A builder, decorator or designer needs a gallery of finished work. A consultant or accountant is better served by a few detailed client stories. Whichever suits you, show real customers and real results, with names where you have permission.
Pages worth adding for some businesses
Add these only if they answer a real question your customers ask.
- Pricing. If you can publish prices or “from” prices, do. It filters out enquiries that were never going to fit and builds trust with the rest.
- Frequently asked questions. Useful when you answer the same things by phone every week. Write the questions the way customers ask them.
- Areas covered. One clear page listing where you work is helpful. Dozens of near-identical pages with only the town name changed are not, and search engines treat them as spam.
- Booking or quote request. Worth a dedicated page if bookings are how you take work.
- Blog or advice. Only if someone will keep it going. Three posts from 2021 make a business look closed.
The pages UK law expects
These are not optional, and they are the ones most often forgotten.
- Privacy policy. If your site has a contact form, analytics or a newsletter sign-up, you are collecting personal data and must explain what you do with it. The Information Commissioner’s Office has plain-English guidance for small organisations.
- Cookie information. If your site sets cookies that are not strictly necessary, visitors need to be told and asked.
- Company details. A limited company must show its registered name, company number, registered office address and where it is registered on its website. GOV.UK sets out what a limited company has to display. The footer is the usual place.
- Terms and conditions. Needed if you sell or take bookings online, and sensible for most service businesses.
Templates can give you a starting point, but the content has to match what your website and business really do.
One page, five pages or more?
A single scrolling page can work for a sole trader with one service and one area: a mobile hairdresser, a window cleaner, a tutor. It is quick to build and easy to read on a phone.
Its weakness is search. Each page of a website can be found for a different thing, so a one-page site gives you one chance to appear. Once you offer several services, or want to be found for each of them, separate pages earn their keep.
From there, a simple test tells you when to grow: add a page when a customer question deserves a full answer, and not before. Signs that it is time include a service that keeps getting buried in a list, a question you answer by email every week, or a type of customer whose needs differ from everyone else’s.
Avoid adding pages simply to look bigger. Every page needs keeping accurate, and a wrong price or an old phone number does more damage than a missing page ever will.
Plan the pages before the design
List your pages on paper first, with one sentence on what each is for and what you want the visitor to do next. That list is the most useful thing you can hand to whoever builds the site, and it keeps quotes comparable when you are choosing a web designer.
As a guide, our own Standard website package covers up to five pages, which suits the core set described above, and the Business package covers up to seven. If you would like help working out the right structure, that conversation is part of our website design service.