One of the first questions business owners ask when planning a website is "how many pages do I need?", usually braced for a big number. The real answer is a relief: most small business websites do their job brilliantly with four or five pages.
What matters isn't page count. It's whether each page answers the questions your customers actually have. Here's the full breakdown.
The essential pages
1. Homepage
Your homepage is your shopfront. In the first few seconds it should communicate what you do, who you help and what to do next. It doesn't need to say everything, it needs to say the right things and route people onward: to services, to your story, to contact.
2. About page
Consistently one of the most-visited pages on any small business site. People buy from people, they want to know who they're dealing with, why you do this work and whether they can trust you. Write it honestly: your background, your approach, what you care about. Skip the corporate speak; a small business being human is an advantage.
3. Services page
List what you offer in the words customers use to search for it. If you offer two or three distinct services, give each its own section, or its own page, which also helps each service rank on Google. Be specific about what's included and who each service is for.
4. Contact page
The page everything else exists to reach. Keep it friction-free: a short form (name, email, message, that's enough), plus your email, phone and service area. Tell people what happens after they get in touch, "we reply within one working day" turns a form into a promise.
Strongly recommended
An FAQ section
Every business answers the same ten questions over and over. Put them on the site. FAQs reduce hesitation, save you repeating yourself, and match the exact phrases people type into Google, which is quietly excellent for SEO.
A privacy policy
If your site has a contact form, you're collecting personal data, and UK GDPR expects you to explain how you use it. A clear, plain-English privacy page builds trust and keeps you compliant. It's a footer page, but it should exist.
Worth adding as you grow
- Case studies or portfolio, proof beats promises; even two or three examples help
- Pricing or 'how pricing works', filters enquiries and builds trust, even without exact figures
- A blog, answers customer questions and grows your Google presence over time
- Individual service pages, one page per service, each targeting its own search terms
- Testimonials, real quotes from real customers, added as you collect them
None of these should delay launch. A tight four-page site live this month beats a twelve-page site stuck in drafts. Our post on what a startup website actually needs makes the same case for new ventures.
A simple structure to copy
- 1Home, what you do, who it's for, where to go next
- 2About, who you are and why customers should trust you
- 3Services, what you offer, clearly described
- 4Contact, an easy way to enquire, with a stated response time
- 5(Footer) Privacy policy, plain-English data handling
If you're planning your website and want help getting the structure right, we plan page structure as part of every build, or send us a message and we'll sketch out what your business actually needs.