How to make a website for a small business

Making a website for a small business is mostly words and decisions, not software. Decide what the site is for, choose your pages, write them the way you’d say it, get a web address in your name, add your own photos, then check it on a phone before it goes live. Here are the seven steps, whichever way you build it. Not sure whether to build it yourself at all? Read build it yourself, or have it done for you first.

Before you start: what to have ready

• Your business name, exactly as it is on the van or the sign.
• What you do, in the words you’d use on the phone.
• Where you work: your town, and the villages or areas you cover.
• Three to six services, with a “from” price for any you’re happy to show.
• Your phone number and email, the ones you actually answer.
• Your hours, or when you pick up.
• A few photos of your own work, taken on your phone in daylight.

Step 1: Decide what the site is for

Pick the one thing you want a visitor to do. For most trades it is ring you. For a café it is visit. For a maker it is go to your shop. Every page should make that one thing easy, with the button in the same place each time.

Write it down in one line, such as “This site is for getting people in Ely to ring me about boiler repairs.” Every choice after this gets easier.

Step 2: Choose your pages

Three pages are enough for most small businesses: home, services and contact. If you only do one thing in one place, one page can be enough. Here is one page or three pages compared, and what goes on each of the three.

Step 3: Write it the way you’d say it

Put your trade and town in the first line: “Plumber in St Neots” beats “Welcome to our website”. Use plain words, short sentences and the terms your customers use. Say what you do, where, and how to reach you, in that order.

Then answer the questions people ask on the phone: do you cover my village, roughly what does it cost, how soon can you come? If you’re asked it every week, it belongs on the site. Our small business website examples show what that looks like on six kinds of business.

Step 4: Pick a web address, in your name

Choose a .co.uk that matches your business name, and make sure it is registered in your name as the registrant, not your web designer’s. Here is how to choose a domain name, and how to check who owns yours.

Step 5: Photos

Use your own photos: finished jobs, your van, your shop, you at work. Take them in daylight, hold the phone steady, and clear the clutter out of the shot. Give each one a few words about what it shows, so people using screen readers and search engines know what it is. Only use photos you took or have permission to use.

Step 6: Choose how to build it

A DIY website builder

Website builders are good tools, and you can build as many pages as you like. The time is yours, though, and plenty of sites are started and never finished. Some cheap plans also show the builder’s own branding, or keep you on the builder’s address unless you pay more. See DIY website builders compared with 3 Wee Pages.

A web designer

A good freelancer or agency does the work for you, for more money and a few meetings. Make sure the domain is registered in your name. Here is how to choose a website designer, and 3 Wee Pages vs hiring a freelance web designer.

Answer questions and watch it build

With 3 Wee Pages you answer the questions above in eight short steps, and your three pages build beside them in one of six looks. You see all three before you pay, and a person checks your site before it goes live. We register a .co.uk in your name; connecting it to your site isn’t switched on yet, so for now your site shows at a 3weepages.co.uk address. Start building yours, or read how it works, step by step.

Step 7: Check it before it goes live

• Ring your own number from the site on your phone. Does it dial?
• Read the first line: does it say your trade and town?
• Every page has a next step: a call button, directions or a link to your shop.
• Open it on a phone, not just a computer. That is where most customers will see it.
• Check your hours, prices and areas are right today.
• Ask someone else to read it. They will spot the typo you’ve read past ten times.

Common mistakes when making a small business website

• Starting with the design. Settle the words first; choosing the look is the quick part.
• “Welcome to our website” as the first line. Say your trade and town instead.
• Hiding the phone number in the footer or behind a form.
• Stock photos of people who aren’t you. Your own van beats a stranger in a hard hat.
• Pages with nothing on them, like a news page with one post from two years ago.
• Prices or hours that are out of date. A wrong price costs more trust than no price.

After it goes live: help people find it

A new website doesn’t bring calls on its own. The first jobs are simple:

• Add the website to your Google Business Profile, and use exactly the same business name, address and phone number on both.
• Link to it from everywhere you already are: your Facebook and Instagram, your email signature, your invoices and quotes.
• Ask happy customers for a review, and make it easy by sending them the link.
• Search for your trade and town now and then to see who turns up. Showing up for new searches takes a while, so don’t judge it on the first week.

More in local SEO basics and how a website and reviews win jobs.

Keeping it up to date

Put two dates in the diary each year to read your own site as a stranger would: are the hours, prices, services and areas still right? Change anything wrong the same day. With 3 Wee Pages you can change your hours, services and contact details yourself from your account, and two reviews a year by your Pal are included: see changing your site after it goes live.

What it costs

Building it yourself on a builder is a monthly fee plus your time; a web designer is a bigger one-off or a monthly plan; 3 Wee Pages is £149 to launch, then £49 a year. Here are real UK prices, with a three-year total for each, and what our package includes. Wondering about time rather than money? Here is how long a small business website takes, and where the weeks usually go.