Your site looks the way you wanted and you are ready to publish. Before you do, it is worth checking that the pages themselves are there, because a good looking website missing two of these will quietly cost you work.
Here is what belongs on a local business website, and more usefully, what each page is actually for. Most sites I review have the pages and have never thought about the job each one is doing.
Home
The home page has one job: tell a stranger who you are, what you do, and where you do it, fast enough that they stay.
You have a few seconds before someone decides to keep reading or go back to the search results. Spend them on plain words rather than a slideshow. A visitor should be able to read the top of your home page and say what you sell and whether you serve their town. If yours opens with a welcome message and a stock photo, it is using those seconds on nothing.
About
About is not your life story. It is the page people open when they are close to calling you and want to know whether you are a real business run by real people.
Photographs of actual staff, how long you have been doing this, where you are based, and any licenses or certifications you hold. That is the whole job. It is also the page where being specific beats sounding impressive.
Services
A services page summarizing what you do, with a separate page for each service you genuinely want more of.
This is the part most sites get wrong. One page listing twelve services ranks for none of them. A dedicated page for each of your top three or four gives Google something to match a search against, and gives the visitor room to answer their actual question about that one job.
Products
Same principle as services. A clear summary, with detail on individual pages for the things that matter most.
If you sell online, this is also where the practical questions get answered: what it costs, what shipping runs, and what happens when someone wants to return it. Burying those loses sales you had already won.
FAQ
The FAQ is the cheapest page on your site to build and usually the most useful, because you already know the content. It is whatever you explain on the phone five times a week.
Write the questions the way customers ask them, not the way you would phrase them internally. Answer honestly, including on price. Owners avoid pricing questions here and it is a mistake, because a visitor who cannot find any indication of cost frequently just leaves.
Reviews and Testimonials
Other people saying you are good is worth more than you saying it. This page is where that lives.
Use real names and real details where you have permission. Pull in your Google reviews rather than retyping a handful of favorites. Three specific reviews that mention the job, the town, and what actually happened will do more than twenty lines of praise with no substance attached.
Contact
Every way to reach you, on one page, all of it current.
Phone number as a tappable link, email, a form, your address with a map if you have a location people visit, and your hours. Check the hours today. Stale hours and a phone number that does not dial on a phone are two of the most common faults I find, and both of them are the difference between a call and no call. Your website may be costing you customers in exactly these small ways.
Privacy Policy
The page nobody wants to write. You still need it.
It sets out what you collect, why, and what you do with it. If you run a contact form or any analytics, you are collecting data. Various privacy laws apply depending on where your customers are, and platforms like Google increasingly expect the page to exist before they will run your ads. Treat it as plumbing rather than content.
What You Can Skip
A few pages get built out of habit and earn nothing. A news or announcements page that has not been updated since 2021 actively hurts you, because it tells visitors you stopped paying attention. A page of client logos with no context. A team page for a business of one.
If a page does not answer a question or move someone closer to contacting you, it is maintenance you have signed up for with no return.
Getting the Pages Working
Having the right pages is the start. Each one still needs to load quickly, read well on a phone, and give the visitor an obvious next step. The 21 elements that turn visitors into customers goes through what belongs on the page itself, and seven technical mistakes covers the faults that undo good pages without anyone noticing.
If you are still deciding whether the site is worth the investment at all, this is the case for having one.
If you want to know which of these your own site is missing, start with a free website audit. I will tell you what to fix first, in plain language, with no pitch attached.
This post was previously published and has been updated for content and relevancy.
Do you have any suggestions for how to make one’s home page especially snappy? I suppose I would need to discern who will be visiting and tailor it according to my ideal visitor? I would love to hear more from you on this!
From what I can see, Julie, your website is using a custom Child theme of Genesis. Your designer should be able to change it for you so it describe your business more thoroughly as opposed to just showing a few of your latest blog posts.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Great list of pages, I have some of them!
Perfect!