the pages a small business site needs, and the ones to skip
business · 2026-09-04 · 3 min
five pages, if the business is simple: home, one page per service, about, contact, privacy. everything else is optional and should be earned by a question a customer actually asks.
the common mistake is not too few pages. it is ten pages that each say the same thing in a different shade of blue.
the five that are not optional
home: who you are, what you do, where you do it, and one action. one screen is enough to answer those four questions, and most sites spend three screens on a stock photo and a slogan.
service pages: one per service, with what it includes, who it is for, what happens after someone asks, and an idea of the cost.
about: the face, the name, why you, and the things that make you checkable: a real address, a partita iva, a photo of the workshop.
contact: address, phone, form, hours, and what happens after the form is sent. privacy: the page the law expects, linked in the footer, describing what the site actually does.
pages that earn their place
prices, if you can publish a range. a range filters the calls that were never going to close, and it answers the question everybody asks first.
an faq, if the same three questions arrive by email every week. a case study or a portfolio, if you have photos and permission. a blog, only if you will write it: an empty blog with one post from 2023 is worse than no blog.
for a local shop, the address and hours belong in the footer of every page, not only on contact. people decide before they reach the contact page.
what to skip at the start
a team page for a team of one. a news section with the last update in march. a mission and values page nobody asked for. a shop, unless you are actually selling online. the twelve demo pages that the template left in the menu, which is the most common and most embarrassing version of this mistake.
faq
do i need a blog?
no. a blog is a maintenance promise. if you will write six useful pages a year, yes, and they will bring more than a page that just describes the company. if not, spend the same hours on the service pages.
how many service pages?
one per thing you sell and want to be found for. if two services are always sold together, one page is honest. if they go to different customers with different questions, two pages.
do i need a separate contact page?
yes, because people look for it and because google uses it. but the contact details should also be in the footer and at the end of each service page, where the decision happens. how to write those service pages is the next problem.