Your homepage is built. Now it’s time to fill in the rest of your website.
Go back to the list you created in Plan Your Pages. You already decided which pages make sense for your business. Now you can build them one at a time.
You do not need every page listed below. These are common, useful pages that work for many small-business websites. Choose the ones that help your customers understand your business and make it easier for them to do business with you.
And remember: a page does not have to be long to be useful.
The About Page
Your About page answers a pretty simple question:
Who am I doing business with?
This is your opportunity to introduce yourself and your business. Tell visitors what you do, who you serve, and what makes your business different.
Depending on your business, you might include:
- How long you’ve been in business
- Your experience or qualifications
- Why you started the business
- The area you serve
- Certifications, licenses, awards or professional memberships
- A photo of you, your team, your shop or your business
You don’t need to write your entire life story.
Think about what you would want to know about someone before hiring them or buying from them. That’s probably what your customer wants to know, too.
A Simple About Page Formula
If you’re staring at a blank screen, start with three questions:
Who are you?
Introduce the business.
What do you do?
Explain what you provide and who you provide it for.
Why should someone choose you?
Experience, personal service, specialized knowledge, years in the community—whatever is genuinely important about your business.
That’s enough to get an About page started.
Services or Products
Depending on your business, you may have a Services page, a Products page, or both.
Don’t assume visitors already know everything you offer.
A lawn service might provide mowing, trimming, cleanup and seasonal services. A bookkeeping business may offer monthly bookkeeping, payroll and tax preparation. A pet groomer might offer full grooming, baths and nail trims.
Tell people what you do.
For each important service or product, consider including:
- What it is
- Who it’s for
- What’s included
- Pricing, if appropriate
- Photos, if they help
- What the customer should do next
If you offer many different services, you can start with one Services page and create separate pages for major services later if you need them.
You don’t have to build a huge website on Day One.
Contact
Make it easy for someone who wants to contact you to actually contact you.
Depending on your business, your Contact page might include:
- Phone number
- Email address
- Business address
- Service area
- Business hours
- Directions
- A map
- Social-media links
- A contact form
Only include contact methods you actually want people to use.
If you don’t want customers calling after hours, clearly list your hours. If customers don’t visit your location, don’t publish an address just because other websites have one. A service-area business can simply tell customers which cities, counties or areas it serves.
If you want customers to contact you through a form on your website, we’ll show you how to build one in Step 13 — Build a Contact Form.
Frequently Asked Questions — FAQ
An FAQ page can be one of the most useful pages on a small-business website.
Think about the questions customers ask you over and over again.
Those are your FAQs.
For example:
Do I need an appointment?
What areas do you serve?
Do you give free estimates?
What forms of payment do you accept?
How long does the service take?
Can I bring my dog?
Do you offer delivery?
Your answers don’t need to be complicated. Answer the question the same way you would if the customer were standing in front of you.
A good FAQ page helps the customer and saves you from answering the same questions repeatedly.
Don’t invent questions just to make the page longer. If nobody has ever asked it and there’s no good reason a customer would need to know it, you probably don’t need it.
Gallery
For some businesses, pictures can explain more than paragraphs of text ever could.
A Gallery page can be especially useful for businesses such as:
- Contractors
- Landscapers
- Painters
- Remodelers
- Salons and barbers
- Pet groomers
- Restaurants and bakeries
- Artists and craftspeople
- Event businesses
- Auto-detailing businesses
If customers want to see your work before hiring you, a gallery probably makes sense.
Whenever possible, use photographs of your actual work.
A beautiful stock photograph may make a page look nice, but it doesn’t show a potential customer what you can do.
You don’t need fifty pictures to get started. A handful of good photographs is better than a page full of poor ones. You can add more as your business creates new work worth showing.
See Step 15 — Images for Your Website.
Which Pages Does Your Business Need?
There is no magic number.
A plumber might need: Home • About • Services • FAQ • Contact
A restaurant might use: Home • About • Menu • Gallery • Contact
A bookkeeping business might need: Home • About • Services • FAQ • Contact
And a business with very simple needs might require even fewer pages.
Your website isn’t better because it has more pages.
It’s better when visitors can quickly find the information they came looking for.
One Question for Every Page
Before you call a page finished, look at it as though you’re a customer seeing your business for the first time.
Ask yourself:
What should the visitor learn on this page—and what should they do next?
Maybe they should call you.
Maybe they should request an estimate.
Maybe they should look at your services.
Maybe they should visit your store.
Maybe they simply need an answer before they’re comfortable contacting you.
If the page gives them the information they need and makes the next step clear, the page is doing its job.
Take Your Time
You don’t have to finish every page today.
Build one. Read it. Look at it on your website. Fix what doesn’t sound right. Then move on to the next one.
You’re not filling empty pages. You’re building the parts of your website your customers will actually use.
