What to include on a small business website
Six things, in this order: what you do and where, how to contact you, a page per service, proof you are real, pricing or a price range, and a working form. Everything else is optional.
The six that matter
1. What you do and where, in the first line. Not 'Welcome to our website'. Not a mission statement. 'Emergency plumbers in Bellville and the Northern Suburbs, on call seven days a week.' A visitor decides in about three seconds whether they are in the right place.
2. How to contact you, visible without scrolling. Phone number in the header, tappable on mobile. This one change lifts enquiries on almost every site we rebuild.
3. One page per service. The biggest ranking lever a small business has. Search engines rank pages, not businesses — a page covering four services ranks properly for none of them.
4. Proof you are real. Years trading, qualifications, registrations, insurance, the areas you cover, photographs of actual work. For regulated trades the registration number is not optional.
5. Pricing, or at least a range. The most common reason people leave a small business website is that they cannot find any indication of cost. Most of your competitors will not give one. 'From R850 for a standard callout' costs you nothing and separates you from every site that says 'contact us for a quote'.
6. A form that works and emails you. Test it after launch, then test it again in six months. Silently broken contact forms are startlingly common.
What you can skip
A homepage slider. They slow the page down and visitors ignore everything past the first slide. Use one strong static headline instead.
A blog you will not write. An abandoned blog whose last post is from 2022 actively signals that the business is dormant. Do not set one up unless you have a real plan to use it.
Stock photos of handshakes and generic offices. Visitors read them as a signal that there is nothing real to show.
A live chat widget with nobody behind it. Worse than no chat.
Long company history on the homepage. Nobody arriving from a search cares yet. Put it on the About page for the people who do.
The legal bits South African businesses forget
Three that come up repeatedly and are inexpensive to get right:
- A privacy policy — if your form collects names and numbers, POPIA applies to you. Say what you collect and what you do with it.
- Company details — registered name and registration number. Required in the footer if you are a registered company, and a credibility signal either way.
- Terms and a refund policy — required by payment gateways before they will approve you, and by the Consumer Protection Act if you sell to consumers.
This is exactly what we build. Every package from Business up includes copywriting for each of these pages, written from a half-hour call with you — because content is what stalls most projects when it is left with the client.
Common questions
How many pages should a small business website have?
Five to seven for most: home, a page per service, an area page if you serve a region, about, contact. See small business website design.
Should I put prices on my website?
Yes, or at least a range. It is the most common reason visitors leave, and most competitors avoid it — which makes it a genuine differentiator rather than a risk.
Do I need a blog?
Only if you will genuinely write it. A dormant blog is worse than none. If you have no plan to publish, put that money into better service pages instead.
Last reviewed .