What should a small business website include?

Most quotes for a website start with a page count. That's the wrong end of the problem. A website only has one job: make it obvious what you do, prove you can do it, and make getting in touch easy. Everything else is decoration.

The pages that earn their place

• +A home page that says what you do and where, in the first line
• +One page per service you actually want more of
• +Real photos of your own work, not stock images
• +An about page with a name and a face, people buy from people
• +A contact page with a phone number, an email and a short form

If you sell five services but only want more of two, build those two properly and keep the rest short. A page you can't be bothered writing is a page nobody will bother reading.

The details that get skipped and shouldn't be

• +The suburbs, towns or regions you service, written out in plain text
• +Pricing guidance, even a "from" figure or a typical range
• +How long things take and what happens after someone enquires
• +Answers to the three questions you get asked on every phone call

Those four things do more for conversion than any redesign. They also happen to be exactly what Google and AI search tools need in order to match you to a specific question.

What you can leave out

Sliders nobody scrolls, a mission statement, a blog you'll never update, and a chat widget that goes to an inbox you don't check. If it doesn't help someone decide or help them contact you, it's costing load speed for nothing.

A quick test

Open your site on your phone. Can a stranger tell what you do, whether you cover their area, and how to reach you, in under ten seconds, without scrolling twice? If not, that's the work, and it's rarely a full rebuild.