What a 5-page small business website needs, and what it doesn’t

Why five pages

Nobody reads a small business website for fun. People arrive with a few questions: do you do what I need, do you work where I am, can I trust you, and how do I reach you. A good site answers those fast and gets out of the way.

Five pages cover those questions for most local service businesses. That number is our recommendation, not a rule from Google. Google’s own starter guide says there’s “no magical word count target, minimum or maximum.” What it asks for is content “that your readers will find helpful and reliable.”

The five pages

Each page has one job: answer one question a customer is already asking.

If you publish reviews or testimonials on your site, they have to be real. The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials took effect on October 21, 2024, and it allows civil penalties for knowing violations. Our review guide covers the rules.

Anatomy of a home page

Your home page does most of the work. On a phone, a visitor should know what you do, where, and how to reach you before they scroll.

What Google expects

Google’s SEO Starter Guide is short and worth reading in full. For a small site, it comes down to a few habits:

• A clear title on every page. Google: “a good title is unique to the page, clear and concise, and accurately describes the contents of the page.” It specifically says to avoid vague titles like “Home.”
• A short description on every page. “Short, unique to one particular page, and includes the most relevant points of the page.”
• Readable web addresses. Words that may be useful to people, not long ID numbers.
• Alt text on meaningful images. A short description that explains how the image relates to your content.
• Make it obvious who’s behind the site. Google’s helpful-content guidance asks whether it’s self-evident who wrote your content, suggests an About page, and says “trust is most important.”

And one expectation to set: Google says there’s no guarantee any site will be indexed, and that changes can take anywhere from a few hours to several months to show. Our guide Can Google read your website? shows how to check.

Speed and mobile

Google uses the mobile version of a site’s content for indexing and ranking, so your phone layout is your real website. Make sure it has the same content as the desktop version, not a cut-down copy.

Google says its ranking systems use Core Web Vitals and reward good page experience, but that good scores don’t guarantee a top ranking, and that the most relevant content can still win with a weaker experience. Speed matters most for the customer holding the phone. Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool measures all three.

Accessibility

The U.S. Justice Department’s guidance says the ADA applies to businesses open to the public, including the goods and services they provide online. It also says the department hasn’t issued a detailed technical standard, and that businesses have flexibility in how they comply. The standard most sites follow is WCAG 2.2, the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which is now also an ISO standard.

Four basics cover a lot of ground:

• Text alternatives for images that carry meaning.
• Strong contrast: at least 4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text.
• Tap targets at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, with some exceptions.
• A page title that describes each page’s topic or purpose.

This guide isn’t legal advice. If you receive a complaint or demand letter about accessibility, talk to a lawyer.

What you can skip

• The keywords meta tag. Google says plainly: “Google Search doesn’t use the keywords meta tag.”
• Word-count targets. There’s no minimum or maximum. Say what customers need to know, then stop.
• Keywords in your domain name. Google’s advice is to do what’s best for your business.
• Pop-ups that cover the page. Google says intrusive dialogs make your content hard to understand and may lead to poor search performance. Unless one is legally required, leave it out.
• Pages you won’t keep up. A blog, news page or events calendar that stopped in 2023 does more harm than good. That one is our view.

Check your site

Twenty checks, grouped the way a visitor and Google meet your site. Tick as you go, or print it for whoever builds your site. Nothing is saved or sent.

Once it’s built, it needs looking after. Our website maintenance checklist covers the monthly routine.