Small Business Website Design: What Actually Works
The pages, structure and design decisions behind a small business website that brings in work rather than just existing.
Most small business websites aren't bad-looking. They're just built as brochures - a home page, an about page, a contact page - and then nobody can work out why they produce no enquiries. Design is only half of it; the structure underneath does the heavy lifting.
The pages a small business site needs
- Home. What you do, where, proof, and one clear action.
- One page per service. This is where almost all your search traffic will land.
- One page per area you genuinely work in, with real local detail.
- About. A real photo of you and your team, not a stock handshake.
- Work or gallery. Finished jobs, products, or results.
- Reviews. Pulled from Google, with names.
- Contact. Phone, form, hours, area.
- Pricing or a price guide, if you can. It builds trust and saves you time.
| Brochure site | A site that wins work |
|---|---|
| One page listing all services | A page per service |
| "Servicing south east Queensland" | Named suburbs, each with a page |
| Stock photos | Real photos of your work and your team |
| "Contact us" in the footer | A clear action on every page |
| Pretty, vague headlines | Plain wording naming the job and the place |
| Never updated | Small monthly updates |
Design decisions that change results
- Mobile-first, genuinely. Big tap targets, readable type, a phone number that dials on tap.
- Speed. Compressed images and light pages. A slow site loses people before design ever matters.
- One accent colour for actions. If everything shouts, nothing does.
- Generous white space. Cramped pages read as amateur.
- Short forms. Every extra field costs you enquiries. Four is plenty.
- Headings written for people searching, not clever taglines.
The mistakes that cost the most
- Cramming every service onto one page.
- Never naming the suburbs you work in.
- Hiding the phone number in an image or the footer only.
- A contact form nobody has tested in a year.
- No reviews anywhere on the site.
- A domain registered in the designer's name, not yours.
Related reading: the small business website checklist, how many pages you need and what SEO actually means for a small business.
Small business website design checklist
- A page for every service you sell
- A page for every area you genuinely serve
- What you do and where, in the first line of the home page
- Real photos of your work, your team and you
- Google reviews shown on the site
- Tap-to-call in the header on mobile
- A four-field form that has been tested
- Pages that load fast on mobile data
- The domain registered in your own name
If you'd rather have this built than assemble it yourself, see small business website design or web design packages. I write all the content for you - $99 to get started, the first 14 days free once your website goes live, then $45/week with no lock-in contract.
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$99 to get started. First 14 days free once live, then $45/week.
Common questions
- How many pages should a small business website have?
- Usually eight to twenty: home, about, contact, one per service and one per main area. More detail in how many pages a small business website needs.
- Do I need a blog?
- Only if the questions your customers ask are worth answering publicly. A neglected blog does nothing; a handful of genuinely useful articles can bring in steady traffic for years.
- Can I just use a Facebook page?
- It helps, but you don't own it and it barely shows up in Google. See website vs Facebook page.
Written by Mike - Web Guy Mike
I build and look after websites for Australian tradies and small service businesses. Every site is built by me - no outsourcing, no account managers. More about Mike.