What should a small business website include?

There isn't a magic number of pages every small business website needs.

What matters is whether your website gives potential customers the information they need to understand your business, trust you and take the next step.

Here are the essentials I'd consider.

1. A clear homepage

Your homepage should quickly answer three questions:

What do you do? Who do you help? And why should I choose you?

Don't waste your most valuable space with vague headlines or lengthy introductions. Get to the point.

2. Clear information about your services

Visitors need to understand exactly what you offer and, more importantly, how it helps them.

Don't just list services. Explain the problem you solve and the outcome your customer can expect.

3. A reason to trust you

Before someone contacts you, they need to feel confident about choosing your business.

Include genuine reviews, testimonials, case studies, examples of your work, qualifications, accreditations or relevant experience.

4. A clear call to action

Make it obvious what someone should do if they're interested.

That might be:

Request a Quote
Book a Call
Arrange a Consultation
Call Us

Don't make people search for your contact details or guess what happens next.

5. An About page

People buy from people, particularly when they're choosing a smaller business.

Your About page is an opportunity to explain who you are, your experience and why you do what you do.

But remember: it's still about the customer. Don't turn it into your autobiography.

6. Easy contact

Make getting in touch simple.

Your phone number, email address, contact form and other relevant details should be easy to find — particularly on mobile.

7. Good SEO foundations

Your website needs to be understandable to search engines as well as people.

Clear page titles, useful content, sensible headings, good internal linking and relevant keywords all help search engines understand what your business offers.

More isn't always better

A small business website doesn't need dozens of pages just for the sake of having them.

It needs the right information in the right places.

If a visitor can quickly understand what you do, see that you're trustworthy, find what they're looking for and know what to do next, you're already doing many of the things a good website should do.

At Orange Hippo, we look at websites through the eyes of potential customers to identify what's working and what could be stopping visitors from becoming enquiries.

You can start with our free 10-minute website health check, where we'll tell you the three things we'd change first.

The best small business website isn't the one with the most stuff. It's the one that makes things easiest for the customer.