The four pages every small business needs
Almost every small business that earns enquiries from its website does so with four pages: a home page, a services or products page, an about page and a contact page. Some businesses split services into two or three pages, some merge contact into the footer. The shape is the same. Four pages, each doing one job, each worth keeping sharp.
Home page
The home page is the first impression and the traffic controller. It tells a stranger in ten seconds who the business is for, what it does and what to do next. It points the rest of the visitors at the right next page. It's the page chapter three is entirely about. If you only fix one page on the site this year, fix this one.
Services or products page
The page where the business explains, in plain language, what it actually does, who it does it for, what's included and roughly what it costs. For a service business this is one or two pages of clear writing. For a product business this is the collection or category pages and the product pages themselves. The mistake here is vagueness: "bespoke solutions tailored to your needs" is not a services page, it's an excuse for not having one.
About page
The about page is the trust page. It's where a stranger goes when they're nearly ready to enquire and want to know who they'd be dealing with. It needs the owner's name, a real photograph, a short, honest history of the business and a clear sentence about who the business is for. It's not the place for a manifesto. The best about pages are short and human, not long and corporate.
Contact page
The contact page is the easy next step. It carries the primary action - the form, the calendar booking, the phone number - and the basic details a buyer might need: the trading hours, the area covered, the postal address if there is one. The mistake here is too many ways to get in touch. A small business that lists a form, an email, a phone number, a WhatsApp link and three social profiles is asking the visitor to choose. A small business that names one preferred way and supports one other gets more enquiries.
The three optional pages worth building
Three more pages are worth building, but only when the business has a specific reason. A pricing page if the prices are clear and don't change much; vague pricing pages cost trust. A case studies or work page if you have at least three real, named examples; a portfolio with three logos and no detail is worse than no portfolio. A frequently asked questions page if you have a specific list of recurring questions that genuinely need answering; a generic FAQ is filler.
- Pricing page: only if the prices are real and stable for at least six months.
- Case studies page: only if you have three or more real, named, detailed examples.
- Frequently asked questions: only if the questions are genuine and the answers help the buyer make the next decision.
The pages to leave off
Five pages crop up on small business websites that nearly never earn their place in the first three years. A blog with three posts from 2022 - either commit to writing or delete it. A press page with no press - either get press or skip it. A careers page with no jobs - put hiring in the footer when it's relevant. A team page with one team member - the about page already covers it. A long "our process" page with five icons and no detail - the services page should already say what the customer experiences. The energy saved by not maintaining these five pages can be put into making the four core pages much better.
Page list, written down
Owners who treat the site as a sequence of pages tend to keep adding. Owners who treat it as a written list of pages they've chosen tend to keep it sharp. Open a notebook. Write down the four core pages, then any of the three optional pages you have a reason to build, then nothing. That's your page list. Anything not on the list either gets removed from the site or has to earn its place by being assigned a clear job.
Two real page lists
The local plumber for landlords runs five pages: home, services (split into emergency and planned work), about, contact. The bookkeeper for tradespeople runs four: home, services, about, contact. Both businesses turn over enough to live well. Neither has a blog. Both have considered adding a frequently asked questions page and decided their services page already does that job. Both update the four pages once a quarter and the home page once a month.
What to do this week
Write down your current page list. Mark each page as core, optional or unnecessary. For each unnecessary page, decide whether to remove it, merge it or rewrite it for a real job. Aim to leave the week with a written page list of no more than seven pages, ideally four or five. The rest of the eBook is going to make those pages do their work.
Make the offer clear: that principle keeps coming back, and a short page list is where it starts to show. The previous chapter set out the three jobs the website is for. The next chapter, The home page that earns the next click, is where most of the early gains live.
