Small business website examples, and why they work

Most lists of “best small business websites” show you shops with big budgets and photographers on retainer. That isn’t much help if you’re a plumber in St Neots or a café by the river. Here are six small business website examples of the kind of site a UK business actually needs — one for each type of business — with the reasons they work spelled out, so you can copy the thinking rather than the colours.

Each one is a live demonstration you can click round. The businesses are invented, so their phone numbers come from Ofcom’s range for TV and film and won’t ring anyone. The structure is exactly what a real site gets.

The three questions every example answers

A visitor gives your website a few seconds. In that time they want to know three things:

• What do you do? “Plumber”, “dog walker”, “café” — in the biggest words on the page.
• Do you cover me? Your town, or how far you travel, right next to it.
• How do I get hold of you? A phone number they can tap, without scrolling.

Every example below answers all three before you scroll. That’s the whole trick, and it’s why these are good small business website examples even though none of them is flashy.

1. A plumber: big number, clear services

See the Trade example → Kettle Bridge Plumbing (invented), Godmanchester.

• Headline: “Plumbing and heating in Godmanchester” — which is close to what someone types into Google.
• The phone number sits in a button that says “Call” and the number itself. On a phone, one tap rings.
• Services as cards, two with “from” prices. Prices answer the question people are too shy to ring and ask.
• A line in his own voice: “by one plumber who turns up when he says he will.” That sells more than any list of qualifications.

Copy this: put your trade and town in the headline, and your number in a button. If a stranger can’t ring you from the top of the page, fix that first.

2. A gardener: warm, local, trustworthy

See the Neighbourly example → Moorhen Gardening (invented), St Ives.

• The areas come first: “St Ives, Hemingford and Houghton”. People hiring someone to come to their home want to know you come to their village.
• A promise, not a slogan: “Tidy gardens, kept that way.”
• Regular work is priced: “From £28 a visit” for maintenance, because that’s the booking that pays.
• Soft, rounded design that feels friendly rather than corporate — the right tone for someone who’ll be in your back garden.

Copy this: list the actual places you work, and price the job you most want more of.

3. A café: hours at the top, menu with prices

See the High Street example → The Lock Keeper’s Café (invented), Huntingdon.

• Opening hours are the second thing you see. For a café, salon or shop, “are you open?” is the question. Answer it before anything else.
• A proper menu with prices, laid out like a menu, not a list of “services”.
• “Find us” instead of “Contact”, with directions. People are coming to you, so tell them where to go.
• Small human details: “Dogs welcome inside. Bikes welcome outside.” Two short sentences that make someone choose you over the chain.

Copy this: if customers come to you, put your hours and address above everything except your name.

4. A bookkeeper: calm and quietly confident

See the Professional example → Ada Finch Bookkeeping (invented), St Neots.

• The headline is a benefit: “Your books, done properly — so you can get on with the work.”
• Services as a clean list, because a professional service reads better as a list than as colourful cards.
• The worry is named and answered: “Fixed monthly prices agreed up front… no surprises in January.”
• Lots of white space. Calm design says “organised”, which is exactly what you want from someone doing your accounts.

Copy this: write down the one thing your customers worry about, and answer it on the home page.

5. A decorator: the work does the talking

See the Portfolio example → Rowan Pike Decorating (invented), Ely.

• Photos first. For decorators, joiners, photographers and makers, a gallery of finished work beats any paragraph.
• Short, confident words: “Clean lines. Careful prep. Rooms you’ll want to sit in.”
• The prep is the selling point: “Dust sheets down, furniture moved and put back.” It’s what customers worry about.

Copy this: use your own photos, taken in daylight, of finished jobs. Never stock photos — people can tell.

6. A maker: products first, and a button to their own shop

See the Shopfront example → Ouse & Ember Candles (invented), St Ives.

• The products lead. Candles, melts and gift sets, each with a price or a “from”, before any story.
• One clear button to the shop. “Shop online” goes to the maker’s own shop, wherever they sell. The website itself takes no payments.
• A Where to buy page, with their Instagram and Facebook, so people can follow new ranges.

Copy this: if you sell on Etsy, through your own online shop or at markets, let your website be the front window, and send people to the place they can actually buy.

What all six have in common

• Three pages. Home, services (or menu, or prices), and contact. Nothing added for the sake of it.
• The phone number on every page, in the header and the footer.
• Plain words. “We fix leaks”, not “bespoke water management solutions”.
• A headline Google understands: trade plus town.
• Fast on a phone. No video, no pop-ups, no heavy plugins.
• Their own .co.uk, not a free sub-address, which tells a UK customer they’re a real business.

Website copy for a small business: write it like you’d say it

The words on your website matter more than the design. The easiest way to get them right is to imagine someone has just rung you and asked “so what do you do?” Write down what you’d say, then tidy it up. A few rules that work:

• Lead with the job, not the company history.
• Use the words your customers use. “Boiler service”, not “heating appliance maintenance”.
• Keep sentences short. People read websites on a phone, often in a hurry.
• Only say what’s true. “Gas Safe registered” only if you are; “20 years’ experience” only if it’s 20.
• End every page with what to do next: call, get a quote, or find us.

What good small business websites leave out

No auto-playing video. No pop-ups. No ten-item menu. No stock photo of people in suits shaking hands. No “Welcome to our website” as the headline — it wastes the most valuable words on the page. Great simple sites win by removing things that get between a customer and your phone number.

Tradesman website examples: what the good ones share

A customer judges a tradesman’s website in a few seconds: can I tell what they do, do they cover my area, and how do I ring them? The plumber above is built around those three questions, and so is every trade example. The good ones share five things:

• A headline with your trade and town, like “Emergency electrician in Huntingdon”.
• A big tap-to-call button, because most local customers want to ring you.
• Services in the words people search for: “boiler repair”, not “thermal solutions”.
• One line of trust: years in business, “fully insured”, or your review score.
• Your own .co.uk, in your name, not a free address on someone else’s platform.

See a finished example for your own trade: plumbers, electricians, building firms, painters and decorators, gardeners and cleaners, or browse every example site on one page.

Business website examples by trade

A café, a roofer and a dog walker need different things from three pages. See what a site for your kind of work leads with, and an example laid out for it:

• Plumbers — services and areas up front, one big call button
• Electricians — the work you take on, and any registration you hold
• Gardeners — your rounds, your rates and photos of gardens
• Roofers — call for a quote, and photos of your own roofs
• Cafés — hours on the home page, a menu, and directions
• Hairdressers — a price list and a call-to-book button
• Dog walkers — your walks, your prices and a bit about you
• Builders — your own jobs, and call for a quote
• Cleaners — what you clean, where, and from what price
• Painters & decorators — finished rooms first
• Makers & small brands — your products first, and a button to your own shop
• Market stalls — where you’ll be, and when

Copy this: a three-page checklist

• Home: your trade and town in the first line, your number in a button, one line in your own words, your main services.
• Services: each thing you do, a sentence on each, and a “from” price where you can.
• Contact: your number again, your email, the areas you cover, your hours, and your address if customers come to you.
• Every page: the same button in the same place, and your own photos, not stock.
• Your address: a .co.uk registered in your name.

The long version: what to put on a tradesperson’s website. And what it should cost: small business website prices in the UK.

Make your own in the same way

Every example here is built in the same looks 3 Wee Pages customers choose from. Start building, answer a few questions, and your site appears beside them in whichever of the six looks suits you — with your own name, services and photos. You see it before you pay, and a person checks it before it goes live, with a .co.uk registered in your name.

Want the reasoning behind the three pages? Read the perfect three-page website, or what to put on a tradesperson’s website.

What would yours cost? £149 to launch, then £49 a year, with the .co.uk registered in your name. Here is how our small business website design works, and what is in the package, line by line.