What Should Be Included in a Small Business Website?

A small business website is more than a few attractive pages with your logo and contact details.

It should help potential customers understand what you do, trust your business and know exactly what to do next.

Behind the design, there are also a number of technical essentials that help the website work properly, appear professionally and give search engines the information they need.

So, what should actually be included when you pay someone to build a website?

Mobile-friendly design

Your website should work properly on phones, tablets and desktop computers.

That doesn’t just mean shrinking the desktop version to fit a smaller screen. Text needs to remain readable, buttons should be easy to press, menus should work properly and important information should appear in a sensible order.

For many businesses, the first impression a potential customer gets will be on their phone.

Clear calls to action

Every important page should make it obvious what you would like the visitor to do next.

That could be:

• Call
• Request a quote
• Send an enquiry
• Book an appointment
• Visit your premises
• Buy a product

A beautiful website that leaves visitors wondering what to do next isn’t doing enough for your business.

Secure HTTPS

Your website should load securely using HTTPS.

This protects the connection between the visitor and the website and prevents browsers displaying unnecessary security warnings.

SSL security should now be considered a basic website requirement rather than an optional upgrade.

Foundational SEO

SEO is not something that should simply be added months after a website launches.

A new website should start with sensible foundations, including:

• Unique page titles
• Useful meta descriptions
• Clear headings
• Clean page addresses
• Descriptive image alt text
• Logical internal links
• A sitemap
• A website structure search engines can access

Google provides extensive guidance on helping search engines understand and discover website content (opens in a new tab), and Search Console allows site owners to monitor how Google is able to index their website.

This doesn’t guarantee rankings, and nobody should promise that it does.

It simply means your website isn’t starting with important basics missing. If you’d like more detail, see what foundational SEO is and whether it’s enough.

Google Search Console

Search Console (opens in a new tab) gives website owners information about how their site is performing in Google Search and whether Google is able to index its pages.

Submitting a sitemap (opens in a new tab) can also help Google discover the pages on a site.

For a new business website, I consider this part of getting the site properly set up rather than an optional marketing extra.

Contact forms that actually work

A contact form seems simple until an enquiry disappears.

Forms should be tested before launch and again once the website is live.

Basic spam protection is also important so the client’s inbox isn’t immediately filled with automated junk submissions.

Where suitable, an automatic acknowledgement can also confirm to the customer that their enquiry has been received.

Fast, properly sized images

Uploading huge photographs directly from a phone or photographer can unnecessarily slow a website down.

Images should be prepared for web use so they still look good without forcing visitors to download unnecessarily large files.

Social sharing previews

When somebody shares your website on WhatsApp, Facebook or LinkedIn, the preview should display the correct title, description and image.

It is a small detail, but one that makes the business look much more polished.

A favicon

This is the small icon that appears in the browser tab.

Again, tiny detail. But if your business has a logo, there is normally no reason not to set one up.

A useful 404 page

If somebody follows an old or incorrect link, they shouldn’t simply reach a dead end.

A useful "page not found" page should help them return to the website or find what they were looking for.

Basic accessibility

Accessibility shouldn’t only be considered after the website has been built.

Simple good practice includes:

• readable text
• sensible colour contrast
• descriptive alt text
• logically ordered headings
• labelled forms
• clear buttons and links
• sensible keyboard navigation

A more detailed accessibility audit can be a specialist service, but basic accessibility should influence the original build.

Privacy information

If a business collects personal information, such as names and email addresses through an enquiry form, it will generally need to provide appropriate privacy information explaining how that information is used.

The ICO advises small businesses (opens in a new tab) that privacy information should explain matters including why personal data is being processed, how long it is kept and who it may be shared with.

The exact requirements depend on the business, so website designers should not pretend to replace legal or data-protection advice.

Analytics

It is useful to know whether anyone is visiting the website and which pages they use.

For many straightforward small-business websites, privacy-focused analytics can provide useful information without installing a complicated marketing stack.

Proper handover

Once the website is finished, the client should know:

• Where their domain is registered
• Where the website is hosted
• Which accounts belong to them
• What subscriptions or renewals they are responsible for
• How to access any analytics
• Who to contact if they need future changes

A business owner shouldn’t finish a website project with no idea where anything lives.

What I include

At The Business Workshop, I call these foundations The Business Workshop Standard.

The principle is simple:

If something is quick for me to set up, useful to your website and costs nothing extra, I include it wherever it makes sense rather than turning every small task into another charge.

More complex work, specialist functionality and paid third-party services are priced separately and agreed before the work is carried out.

• See everything included with a Business Workshop website
• View website packages and transparent pricing