What a small business website needs to bring in customers

Small business owners tend to come to a website project with the same worry: the site has to look as good as a big competitor’s, on a fraction of the budget. Looks matter, but they’re rarely what decides whether a small business website works.

What decides it is whether a stranger can tell in a few seconds what you do, where you do it and how to get in touch. This guide covers what your site needs for that, what it can skip, and a checklist you can take into a meeting with any web designer.

Start with what the site has to do

Before anyone talks about colors or layouts, write down the one thing you want most visitors to do. For a contractor it might be requesting an estimate. For a clinic, booking an appointment. For a firm that sells to other businesses, sending an enquiry. Every page should lead toward that action.

Then write down who those visitors are and what they search for. A bakery’s customers search by neighborhood and occasion. An accounting firm’s search by service and industry. Our guide to understanding your audience walks through how to do this.

The pages most small businesses need

• Home. Say what you do and where, in plain words, at the top of the page. Then point visitors to your services, your proof and how to reach you.
• A page for each main service. One page per service gives Google a clear page to show for each search. A single “Services” page listing everything rarely ranks for any of them.
• About. Who you are, how long you’ve been in business and the people behind it. Small businesses win on trust, and this page is where it starts.
• Reviews or work. Testimonials, before-and-after photos, case studies or a portfolio, depending on what you sell.
• Contact. A short form, your email, your hours and, if customers visit you, your address and a map.

If you serve several towns or neighborhoods, a page for each area can help, as long as each one says something specific about the work you do there. Pages that only swap the town name help nobody.

A blog is optional. It earns its place when you can answer the questions your customers really ask, a few times a year. An empty or abandoned blog does more harm than none.

Make it easy to get in touch

Put a clear button for your main action in the header of every page, so it’s there however a visitor arrives. Keep the contact form short: name, email and a message are usually enough, with a question or two only if you need them to reply well.

On phones, make your email address and, if you take calls, your phone number tappable. Our guide to writing an effective call to action has more on the wording.

Protect the form from spam with checks that don’t make real people solve puzzles. Spam that reaches your inbox wastes your time, and spam that gets counted in your analytics hides how many real enquiries the site brings in.

Design for phones first

Google now looks at the mobile version of every site when it decides how to rank it. It finished moving to mobile-first indexing in October 2023. Many of your visitors will find you on a phone too, often while they’re deciding whom to call.

So check every page on a phone before you approve it. Text should be readable without zooming, buttons big enough to tap, and the main action visible without a long scroll.

Keep it fast

Google measures how real visitors experience your pages with three Core Web Vitals. A page passes when its main content loads within 2.5 seconds, it responds to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and its layout barely shifts while it loads.

The usual causes of a slow small business site are oversized photos, heavy themes, and plugins or scripts that nobody uses any more. A designer should be able to tell you how they’ll keep pages fast, and how they’ll measure it.

Show proof

People choosing a small business want to know others have trusted you and been glad they did. Show them:

• Reviews in your customers’ own words, with names where they’ve agreed. Link to your Google reviews so visitors can see they’re real.
• Your own photos of your team, your premises and your work. Stock photos are easy to spot and say nothing about you.
• Examples of your work, with a sentence on the problem each one solved.
• How long you’ve been in business, and any licenses, memberships or awards that matter to your customers.

Get found by people nearby

For many small businesses, the most valuable search result is the map. Google says local results depend on relevance, distance and prominence: how well your Business Profile matches the search, how far you are from the person searching, and how well known you are. Reviews count toward prominence. Google’s own page says that more reviews and positive ratings can help.

Your website supports all three:

• Use the same business name, address and hours on your site as on your Google Business Profile, and link the profile to your home page.
• Name the places you serve in your page text, where it’s true and useful to the reader.
• Add LocalBusiness structured data, which tells Google your address, hours and other details in a form it reads directly. Our guide to structured data explains how it works.
• Ask happy customers for reviews regularly. A steady flow beats a burst every few years.

Our ten steps to market a local business online go further.

Make it accessible

An accessible site works for customers who use a screen reader, navigate by keyboard or need larger text. The standard to build to is WCAG 2.2, usually at level AA. The Department of Justice’s web guidance explains how the ADA applies to the websites of businesses open to the public.

Most of it is good design anyway: enough contrast between text and background, real text in place of text inside images, alt text on photos, clear headings and forms with labels. Our guide to making your website accessible has a full checklist.

Make sure you can update it yourself

Your hours change, you add a service, you want to post a new project. If every change needs a developer, the site goes out of date. Ask to see the editing screens before you commit. WordPress is the most common choice for this because its editor is familiar and widely supported. Our guide to content management systems explains the options.

Make sure your business owns its domain name and has the logins to its hosting and website. If you part ways with your web designer, you should be able to take the site with you.

Plan for after launch

A website needs looking after: software updates, backups, security checks and the occasional fix. Leave a site alone for a year and it gets slower and easier to break into. Our website maintenance checklist lists what to do each week, month and year, whether you do it yourself or hand it to someone.

What you can skip

• Rotating sliders on the home page. Most visitors see only the first slide. One clear message does more.
• Video that plays with sound by itself. It annoys visitors and slows the page.
• Pages nobody needs, written because a template had a space for them.
• Features you won’t keep up, like a news section or an events calendar with nothing new in it.
• Industry jargon. Describe what you do the way your customers would.

A small business website checklist

• The top of the home page says what you do and where.
• Each main service has its own page.
• Every page has a button for your main action.
• The contact form is short and protected from spam.
• Every page reads and works well on a phone.
• Pages pass Google’s Core Web Vitals.
• Reviews and photos are real and recent.
• Your name, address and hours match your Google Business Profile.
• LocalBusiness structured data is on the home or contact page.
• The site meets WCAG 2.2 AA.
• Your team can edit pages without a developer.
• You own your domain and have every login.
• Someone is responsible for updates, backups and security.

Questions we hear

How many pages does a small business website need?

Usually five to fifteen: home, about, contact, a page for each main service and a page of reviews or work. Add a page only when there is something specific to say on it.

Should I use a website builder or hire a web designer?

A do-it-yourself builder suits a very small budget if you’re happy doing the work and living within its limits. A web designer earns their fee when the site needs to rank in a competitive local market, connect to other tools, or be easy for a busy team to keep up to date. Our guide to choosing a web design company lists the questions to ask.

How much does a small business website cost?

It depends on how many pages it has, what it needs to do and who writes the content. The fastest way to an accurate figure is to describe your project and ask for a quote.

Do I need a new website or can I fix the one I have?

If the site is built on software that’s still supported and your team can edit it, a redesign of the pages may be enough. If it’s slow, hard to edit or built on old code, rebuilding is often better value. Our guide to redesigning or redeveloping helps you decide.

Need a website for your small business?

Millennial Web Development has designed and built websites from Chicago since 2014. We work with small businesses as well as larger companies, in Chicago and across the US. See our Chicago web design work, read about our approach to web design, or configure your website and get a quote.