How to create a website for a small business: the complete guide

Do you really need a website if you already have a Google listing?

Many business owners think their Google listing “does the job”. It does help you get found on a map. But when a customer is torn between two places, they often tap “Website” to learn more: the full menu, prices, recent photos, whether they can come with a group or a dog, whether there is parking. If that link does not exist, or leads to an empty or outdated page, they move on to the next option.

Your website is also the only online presence you truly own. A Google listing can be changed by suggestions from the public, a Facebook page depends on Facebook’s rules, a booking platform keeps your customers’ details. On your own site you decide everything: the words, the photos, the prices and how people book you.

Finally, Google reads your website to understand what you do. A listing that points to a clear site, with the same address, the same hours and text that describes your trade precisely, is easier for Google to understand. Our guide to optimising your Google Business Profile explains how to connect the two.

Which pages should a small business website have?

A local business website does not need dozens of pages. It needs the right information, easy to find from a phone. These are the pages almost every neighbourhood business needs.

1. Home

In one sentence, visitors should understand who you are, what you offer and where you are. Right below: a visible button to book, order, call or request a quote, depending on your trade. Add a strong photo of your place or your products, today’s opening hours and two or three customer reviews.

2. Menu, products or services

In many trades this is the most visited page. Write it as text, not only as an image or a PDF: text reads well on a phone, can be updated in seconds and Google can read it. Show prices, allergens for a restaurant, the length of each treatment for a salon, the area you cover for a tradesperson.

3. Hours and directions

Opening hours (and exceptional closures), address, map, public transport, parking and step-free access. This information must match your Google listing exactly: inconsistencies make customers doubt and muddle what Google displays.

4. Customer reviews

A selection of recent reviews, with a link to your Google listing so people can read the rest and leave their own. It reassures new customers and is a simple way to invite happy ones to write a review. Our guide on how to get more Google reviews explains how to receive them regularly.

5. Contact, booking or quote

A short form, a tap-to-call phone number, and a link to your messaging app if you use one. For a restaurant, hotel or salon, an online booking module built into the site saves endless phone calls. For a tradesperson, a quote request form with a few questions (type of job, address, timing) saves time on both sides.

6. About

Your story, your team, your commitments (local produce, homemade, guarantees). This is often what makes the difference against a chain: customers like to know who they are dealing with.

7. Legal notice and privacy

Required in most countries, and covered in detail below. A discreet link at the bottom of every page is enough.

Should you build it yourself, hire an agency or use a tool made for local businesses?

There are three main ways to build a small business website. None is best in every case: it depends on your time, your budget and what the site has to do (simple showcase, bookings, orders, quotes).

Before you choose, ask yourself three simple questions:

• Who will keep the site up to date? A site whose hours or menu are two years old does more harm than good. Pick a solution you can edit yourself, ideally from your phone.
• What does the site need to do? Showcase, take bookings, receive quote requests, sell online? The more features you need, the more you should check they are included rather than charged as extras.
• Who owns the domain name and the data? The domain should be registered in your name, and you should be able to take your content and customer list with you if you switch provider.

How much does a small business website cost?

The cost mostly depends on the approach and the features. There are three parts: the domain name (a few to a few dozen euros a year depending on the extension), the hosting and the tool (often a monthly subscription), and the time spent, yours or a provider’s. Be wary of very cheap starter offers that then charge for every feature (bookings, forms, an extra language).

At Voxtya, the Website module costs €29/month, and the Website + Bookings & quotes bundle is €49/month. The domain name is included free with an annual plan that includes the Website module. If you would rather have a fully custom site, we build those too: see our custom website service.

What are the steps to get your website online?

Whether you do it alone or with help, the steps are the same. Set aside half a day to gather your content: it is usually the part that takes longest.

1. Choose and register your domain name. Short, easy to say over the phone, close to your business name. Use your country’s extension or a .com, and add the town if the name is taken (for example “martin-bakery-york.co.uk”).
2. Gather your text. A three or four sentence introduction, your menu or list of services with prices, opening hours, address and practical details. Write the way you talk to a customer at the counter.
3. Prepare your photos. Real photos of your place, your products and your team, taken in daylight. Around ten is enough to start. Avoid stock photos: customers spot them straight away.
4. Build the pages. Home, menu or services, hours and directions, reviews, contact, about. Start with the phone version: that is where most of your visitors will read you.
5. Add booking, ordering or quotes. A visible button on every page leading to a short form or a booking module. Test it yourself from your phone.
6. Write your legal notice and privacy page. Business identity, hosting provider, how form data is used, cookies (see below).
7. Link the site to your Google listing and social accounts. Add the website address to your Google Business Profile, Instagram, Facebook, business cards and menus.
8. Check, then announce. Read every page on a phone, tap every button, ask a friend to make a “fake” booking. Then tell your customers: a sign in the shop, a social post, your email signature.

A tip for step 2: use the words your customers use. People search for “wood-fired pizza in Bath” or “walk-in barber near me”, not “a unique culinary experience”. Putting those plain words in your headings and text helps Google show you to the right people.

What should you write on the home page?

Your home page must answer four questions within seconds: what is it, where, when, and how to book or visit. Everything else can wait further down. Here is an example of home page text for a restaurant, to adapt to your business:

The Market Bistro, seasonal cooking in the heart of town. Market produce, homemade dishes, a menu that changes every week. Open Tuesday to Saturday, lunch and dinner. Book your table online in 30 seconds, or call us on 01234 567890.

And for a tradesperson:

Martin Plumbing, emergency repairs and bathroom installation across the city and within 20 km. Fast call-outs, a free, detailed quote before any work. Describe what you need online and we will call you back the same day.

Notice what works: the trade and the town in the very first sentence, what sets you apart in a few words, opening days or service area, and a clear action at the end. No “Welcome to our website”: your visitors already know where they are.

What to show without scrolling

• The business name and the trade (“restaurant”, “hair salon”, “plumber”).
• The town or neighbourhood.
• The main button: Book, Make an appointment, Order, Request a quote or Call.
• Today’s hours or a direct link to them.
• A photo that genuinely shows your place or your products.

Why should your website be designed for phones first?

When someone looks for a restaurant for tonight, a hairdresser nearby or an emergency plumber, they usually do it on their phone. So your site will mostly be read on a small screen, often in the street, sometimes on a patchy connection.

In practice, that means:

• Text you can read without zooming and buttons big enough to tap with a thumb.
• A tap-to-call phone number and an address that opens directions in the maps app.
• No PDF-only menu: a PDF reads badly on a phone and downloads slowly. Keep it as an option if you like, but show your menu as text.
• Lighter images: a photo from a recent phone is usually far too heavy for the web. Good tools shrink it automatically; otherwise, resize it before uploading.
• Few animations and pop-ups: they slow the page down and annoy visitors.

Speed matters: a page that takes a long time to appear loses some visitors before they even see your name. Test your site on your own phone, on mobile data, away from the shop Wi-Fi: it is the most telling test.

Think about accessibility too: enough contrast (no light grey on white), image descriptions for people with low vision, links whose text says where they go (“See the menu” rather than “Click here”). These good habits make the site nicer for everyone.

What are the legal requirements for a small business website?

Even a very simple showcase site has to follow a few rules. They vary from country to country, so check with your local chamber of commerce or trade body, but the same principles apply almost everywhere.

Business identity

In France and many other European countries, a business website must show who runs it. In France, the law on confidence in the digital economy requires:

• the business or company name, its legal form and share capital for a company;
• the registered address, an email and a phone number;
• the registration number and, where relevant, the VAT number;
• the name of the person responsible for publication;
• the name, address and phone number of the hosting provider.

In the UK, company websites must also show the registered company name, number and office. Regulated professions often have extra requirements (professional body, insurance for building trades).

Personal data (GDPR)

As soon as your site has a contact, booking or quote form, it collects personal data. In the EU and the UK you should:

• only ask for what you need (no date of birth to book a table);
• explain on a “Privacy” page what the data is used for, how long you keep it and how customers can ask for it to be deleted;
• never sign someone up to a newsletter without their explicit consent (an unticked box by default).

Cookies

If your site uses analytics or advertising cookies, European rules generally require visitors’ consent before they are set, apart from some analytics tools configured to be exempt. The simplest approach is to keep third-party tools to a minimum.

What should you highlight depending on your trade?

The core pages are the same everywhere, but what makes people book or call changes from one trade to another. Here is the essential for the businesses we work with most often.

Restaurant: the menu and bookings account for most visits. A text menu updated when dishes change, and an online booking module that shows available slots. For tables, a QR code that opens the menu on a phone is handy: our free menu QR code generator creates one in seconds. The detailed guide: how to create a restaurant website.

Hairdresser and beauty salon: list your services with duration and price, introduce the team and show your work. An online appointment button on every page stops the phone ringing while you have scissors in hand.

Bakery: hours, closing days and best sellers first. If you take orders for cakes or celebration pieces, a simple form with a pick-up date is enough.

Tradesperson: the service area (towns, radius), your services and a precise quote form. Before/after photos of real jobs reassure far more than a long text.

Hotel: direct booking on your own site avoids platform commissions. Our guide to online booking without commission explains how to set it up.

How do you connect your site to your Google listing and get it known?

A website nobody finds is not much use. The good news: for a local business, most visitors arrive through the Google listing, social media or word of mouth. A few simple steps are enough.

• Add your website address to your Google listing. And, if it fits your trade, your booking or appointment link. Our article on why your Google listing is not enough on its own explains how the two work together.
• Keep the same details everywhere. Same name, address, phone number and hours on your site, Google listing, Facebook, Instagram and directories.
• Put the link on printed materials. Business cards, menus, bags, receipts, shop window. A QR code on the table or at the counter works well.
• Share what’s new. New menu, new service, holiday closure: post it on the site, then on social media. Our guide to social media for local businesses helps you keep up without spending hours on it.
• Show your reviews. Recent Google reviews reassure new visitors, and a “Leave a review” link invites happy customers to write one. Remember to reply to your reviews: future customers read your replies too.

Want to know where you stand? Our free visibility check tells you in one minute whether your business is well presented on Google and in assistants like ChatGPT, and what to fix first.

Which mistakes should you avoid when building a small business website?

The same mistakes come up again and again. They are easy to avoid once you know them.

1. Wrong or outdated opening hours. The most costly mistake: a customer who finds the door closed rarely comes back. Update the site and the Google listing at the same time, holidays included.
2. A menu only as a PDF or photo. Hard to read on a phone and invisible to Google. Write it as text.
3. No visible action button. Visitors must see at a glance how to book, call or request a quote.
4. A domain registered to your provider. Make sure it is in your name, or you risk losing it if you switch.
5. Vague text. “Quality and passion since forever” says nothing. Say what you do, where, for whom, and what makes you different.
6. Stock photos. They feel impersonal. Real photos, even simple ones, build more trust.
7. Forgetting the legal notice and privacy page. Required, and reassuring for customers who leave their details.
8. A site that is never updated. News from three years ago suggests the business has closed. No news is better than old news.
9. Too many pages. A small, clear site beats a big one where people get lost. Start simple, add later.

And how do you keep it up to date without spending hours on it?

A website is never “finished”, but it should not become a chore. The idea is to plan small regular moments rather than big redesigns.

• Every week (5 minutes): check hours, the daily special or availability, answer form messages.
• Every month (15 minutes): add two or three recent photos, update prices if needed, add one or two recent reviews.
• Every season: new menu, new services, holiday closures, upcoming events.
• Every year: reread every page, check the legal notice, renew the domain name (or turn on auto-renewal).

Choose a tool you can edit easily from your phone: you will make updates when you think of them, between two customers, instead of putting them off. That is what we built the Voxtya Website module for: your hours, menu and photos change in seconds, your Google reviews appear automatically and online booking is built in when you add the Bookings module.

The steps at a glance

The steps to put a simple, effective website online for a local business.

1. Register the domain name. Choose a short name close to your business name, registered in your own name.
2. Gather your text. Introduction, menu or services with prices, hours, address and practical details, written with your customers’ words.
3. Prepare your photos. Around ten real photos of your place, products and team, taken in daylight.
4. Build the pages. Home, menu or services, hours and directions, reviews, contact and about, designed for phones first.
5. Add booking, ordering or quotes. Put a visible button on every page leading to a short form or booking module, and test it.
6. Write the legal notice and privacy page. Business identity, hosting provider, how form data is used and how cookies are handled.
7. Link the site to your Google listing. Add the website address and booking link to your Google Business Profile, social accounts and printed materials.
8. Check, then announce. Read every page on a phone, test every button, then tell your customers in the shop and on social media.

Go further

• How to create a restaurant website: the guide
• Why your business needs a website
• Why your Google profile is no longer enough
• Restaurant QR menu: the complete guide
• 7 Google mistakes killing your restaurant website
• Our website templates by trade
• Custom website: our service