Build a small business website

The short answer

To build a website for a small business, decide what it must do, gather your facts and photos, buy a domain in your own name, pick a builder or hire someone, write a page for each main service, make contact easy on a phone, then publish, add it to your Google listing and check it monthly.

Decide what the site must do

A good website for small business owners does one job well, so start with one sentence: "When someone lands on this site, I want them to ___." For most local businesses the answer is call, book or ask for a quote. A site for a bakery might exist to show the menu and hours. A site for a roofer exists to bring in quote requests.

Write yours down, because it settles later arguments. If a page, a photo or a paragraph doesn't help that one thing happen, it can go.

While you're at it, list what you need the site to handle beyond words and pictures. It's the question that decides which tools fit:

• Do you need to take bookings?
• Do you need to take payments, or sell products online?
• Will more than one person edit it?
• Do you need it in more than one language?

Gather your facts

Do this before you touch any builder. It's the part that takes the longest when you leave it until later, and it's what makes the site true. Put it all in one document:

• your business name, exactly as it appears on your sign
• your phone, email and address, or the towns you serve
• your hours, including holidays
• each service you offer, and anything you don't do
• what you charge, or how you price
• your license numbers, insurance and memberships
• how long you've been open, and your team's names
• a few customer reviews you have permission to quote

If you have a Google Business Profile, start from it, and correct it as you go. Your site and listing should say the same thing.

Then gather your photos. Take new ones if you have to: the outside of your place, your team, your van, your best work. A phone in good daylight is fine. Real photos do more than stock ones, because customers want to see who's turning up.

Get a domain in your own name

A domain is your address on the web, like northsideplumbing.com. Buy it yourself from a domain registrar, in your name, using an email you'll keep. It usually renews each year, and a .com is commonly around $10 to $20 a year, as a rough range.

Choose a name that's short, easy to say on the phone and easy to spell. Your business name is usually the right answer. Don't stuff it with keywords, because Google says keywords in a domain have hardly any effect alone. Some builders include a domain free for a year, which is handy, but check who owns it and what it costs to renew.

If someone offers to buy the domain for you, ask for it to be in your name. A domain held by a former web designer is a painful way to lose your own address.

Choose how to build it

There are four routes, and the right one depends on your budget and your time. The ranges here are rough US figures for a small site, our own estimate. See what a small business website costs for the full picture, or run your numbers in the website cost calculator.

If you're unsure, start with a builder. Our comparison of the best website builders for small business sets out who each one suits. If you want a first draft written for you, see the best AI website builders, including how to test one.

Try two before you commit, and build your home page in each. You'll know within an hour which one you can live with.

Plan your pages

Most local business sites need five to ten pages. A very simple business can do it all on one.

Our page on what a small business website needs goes through each item and why it earns its place.

Give each page one job, and link between them in plain words. A menu of five or six clear items is easier to use than a menu of twelve.

Write the words

Write the way you'd explain it to a customer on the phone. You don't need marketing language, and customers don't trust it anyway. Short sentences, your customers' own words, and specifics.

The figures in that table are made up for the example. Use your own.

Here's a simple shape for a service page:

1. A heading that names the service and the place. "Water heater replacement in Dayton".
2. One or two lines on the problem you solve. What's gone wrong, and what you do about it.
3. What's included. Parts, labor, removal, cleanup, warranty.
4. What it costs, or how you work out a price.
5. Where you do it. The towns you cover.
6. Proof. A photo of a real job, and a review if you have permission.
7. What to do next. A phone number and a form.

If you use AI to draft any of this, check every line against your facts. Google says to fact-check AI-generated content before you publish it, and a wrong price or a made-up review can cost you more than a slow start. Shingle's builder is made not to invent these, and you should still read what it wrote.

Add your photos

Use your own wherever you can, and make them work properly:

• Crop them so the subject is clear on a small screen.
• Keep files small. Huge images are the usual reason a small site is slow.
• Describe each one in its alt text, in plain words. Google says it's the most important information you can add to an image, and screen readers read it aloud.
• If a photo came from a customer's review, ask first. It's theirs.

Make it easy to reach you

This is what the site is for, so test it like it matters.

• Put your phone number at the top of every page, as text that calls when tapped.
• Add a short form. Name, phone and what they need is usually plenty, and every extra field loses someone.
• Add online booking if you work by appointment.
• Send yourself a test from every form, and check where it lands and how long you'd take to see it.
• Decide who answers, and how fast. A form nobody reads is worse than no form.

Set your page titles and descriptions

These are what people see in search results, so each page should have its own. Use the service and town in the title, plus your name. Our search result preview shows where a title would be cut.

Title: Water heater replacement in Dayton, OH | Northside Plumbing

Description: New water heaters installed across Dayton and Kettering, usually within two days. You get a fixed price before we start.

Google asks for distinct, descriptive titles, and warns against repeating keywords. It may not use your description every time, so make the page itself clear too. Add local business schema while you're here. Many builders do it for you, so check first.

Check it on a phone, then check again

Before anyone sees it, read every page on your own phone and on a computer.

1. Read each word out loud. You'll catch more that way.
2. Check your phone number, email and address, letter by letter.
3. Tap every button and link.
4. Submit each form, and make a test booking.
5. Check that nothing runs off the side of the screen. Google uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking, and many customers will see that version first.
6. Ask someone who doesn't know your business to find your prices and call you. Watch where they get stuck.

Publish and tell Google

Connect your domain and publish. Your builder will show you what to add at your domain provider, and it can take anywhere from minutes to a couple of days to work. Keep your email records as they are when you change these settings, or your email can stop working.

Then, on the same day:

1. Add your address to your Google Business Profile.
2. Add your site to Search Console. It's free, and it shows you what people searched to find you.
3. Submit your sitemap. Google treats it as a hint, and it helps new pages get found.
4. Check Google can see it. After a few days, search for site:yourdomain.com.
5. Add it everywhere else. Your email signature, social profiles, invoices and van.

If you're replacing an old site, stop first and read the website redesign checklist, so you protect the search traffic you already have.

Keep it alive

A website goes stale faster than you'd expect, and a stale site makes people wonder if you've closed. Set a reminder for the first of each month.

• Change anything that's stopped being true: hours, prices, staff, services.
• Add a photo or two from recent work.
• Look at your numbers: visits, calls, form requests.
• Ask for reviews, and reply to new ones. See how to get more Google reviews.
• Improve one page, using what customers keep asking on the phone.

Then work through the local SEO checklist, which is how a new site starts getting found. Nothing here can promise a place in search results, and Google says some changes can take months to show. The businesses that keep their sites true and current give themselves the best chance.