The three jobs
A small business website has three jobs, in this order. First, to convince a stranger in the first ten seconds that they've landed on a real, capable business that's for them. Second, to give that stranger enough of the right information, in the right order, to make a confident next step. Third, to make that next step easy: an enquiry, a booking, a call, an order, a download. Everything else - the blog, the about page, the careers section, the press page - is supporting work. It only earns its place if it helps one of those three jobs.
Most small business websites do the second job tolerably and the first and third jobs poorly. The information is roughly there if you go looking. The first impression is generic. The next step is buried under a header link or sitting at the bottom of a long page. The result is a site that converts the strangers who were already going to get in touch, and quietly loses everyone else.
What a website isn't for
Three confusions are worth naming. The website isn't a brochure. A brochure is a one-way document; a website is a tool the visitor uses, with their thumb, on a phone, in two minutes. The website isn't a portfolio for you to admire. It's a sales surface for a stranger to judge. The website isn't a substitute for the offer. A clearer site cannot save an unclear offer; it can only make the unclear offer easier to refuse. If those three confusions sound familiar, the work in this chapter will pay back inside a month.
The ten-second test
Open your home page on a phone, with the screen at the size a stranger actually sees first. Without scrolling, can a person tell three things: who you're for, what you do for them and what to do next. If any of the three is missing or vague, the home page is failing job one. Most small business home pages fail at least one. The fix is rarely a redesign. It's usually four lines of plain text and a single clear button.
- First impression: in ten seconds on a phone, can a stranger tell who you're for, what you do and what to do next?
- Right information: across the site, are the questions a real buyer asks answered in the order they ask them?
- Easy next step: is the primary action obvious on every page, with no more than one form field per piece of information you actually need?
Three small businesses, three real website pictures
The local plumber for landlords
Job one: home page says "Reliable plumbing for landlords across north Bristol" with a phone number and a "Request a callback" button on the first screen. Job two: a services page that lists the four jobs landlords actually call about and what each costs as a guide. Job three: a callback form with three fields and a phone number that's answered between 8am and 6pm. Total pages: five. The site quietly earns two to four new landlord customers a month with no advertising.
The bookkeeper for tradespeople
Job one: home page opens with "Monthly bookkeeping for trades businesses turning over £80,000 to £400,000" and a clear button to book a fifteen-minute call. Job two: a services page that explains the monthly package, the price and what's included. Job three: a calendar booking link that takes thirty seconds to use on a phone. Total pages: four. Almost every enquiry arrives ready to say yes.
The small online homewares shop
Job one: home page shows three product collections with honest photographs and a single sentence about who the shop is for. Job two: product pages with the materials, the dimensions and a clear delivery promise. Job three: a checkout that works on a phone in under ninety seconds. The site has no blog, no founder story, no press page. It earns its keep.
The pages that don't pay rent
Most small business websites carry pages that don't earn their place. A tab labelled "Our process" with five icons and no detail. A team page with one photo and a sentence. A blog with three posts from 2022. A press page with no press. Each one was a good idea at the time. Together they make the site look like a business that hasn't decided what it is. The kindest thing you can do for a small business website is to delete the pages that aren't doing one of the three jobs and put the energy into the ones that are.
What to do this week
Open your home page on a phone. Time ten seconds. Ask an honest friend who's never used your business to tell you who it's for, what it does and what to do next, based only on what they can see in those ten seconds. Write down their answer word for word. The gap between their answer and the answer you'd want is the work the rest of this eBook is going to do.
Make the offer clear: that's the recurring principle for this whole eBook, and the home page is where the work shows first. The earlier eBook Designing Your First Offer is the better starting point if the offer itself isn't yet sharp. The next chapter, Pages every small business site needs, sets the page list this site is going to live on.
