A plain checklist for a small business website that actually works
Everything a local business site needs, and nothing it does not. Work down the list against your own site and see how it holds up.
6 minute read. Written by Northfolk in Dunnellon, Florida.
The five second test
Open your homepage on a phone. Within five seconds a stranger should know what you do, roughly where you do it, and how to contact you. If any of those three is missing, fix that before anything else on this list.
Most local business sites fail this, usually because the homepage opens with a welcome message instead of a plain statement of the business.
The pages you need
For most local businesses this is the whole structure.
- A homepage that states what you do and where, immediately.
- One page for each service, not one page listing all of them.
- A page for each main town you serve, if you cover several.
- An about page with real photographs and real people.
- A contact page with every reasonable way to reach you.
- Proof of your work, whether that is photographs, reviews or case studies.
The things that must be true
- It loads in under three seconds on a phone on a mediocre connection.
- The contact form actually arrives. Test it yourself, from a different email address, today.
- Every page has a distinct title describing that page.
- Images are compressed. No four megabyte photograph should be anywhere on it.
- It is readable without zooming, and buttons are large enough to hit with a thumb.
- It works if a visitor arrives on any page, not only the homepage.
Proof, which most sites skip
People decide with evidence. Photographs of work you have genuinely done beat stock images by a wide margin, even when the stock images are better photographs, because everybody recognises stock and nobody trusts it.
Reviews, licence numbers, insurance, years in business and the names of places you have worked all belong on the site rather than only in your head.
The things you can skip
A lot of what gets sold to small businesses is decoration. You almost certainly do not need a live chat widget nobody staffs, a blog you will abandon after three posts, an animated introduction, a newsletter signup before anybody knows who you are, or a stock photograph of a business handshake.
Spend the effort on the service pages instead. That is where the customers come from.
After it launches
Set up Google Search Console so you can see what is happening. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile. Ask customers for reviews and keep asking. Add a page when you add a service.
That is genuinely most of it. Local search rewards steady maintenance far more than it rewards cleverness.
We are a website and local search shop in Dunnellon, Florida. If you would rather not do any of this yourself, send us a message. Sites start at $997 one time.