Most small business websites need five kinds of page: a home page, a page for each main service, an about page, a contact page and a privacy policy. Pages for your work, your team and common questions are worth adding once you have real material for them. Everything else is optional, and a thin page with nothing useful on it does more harm than a page that doesn't exist.
The rest of this guide goes through what each page must do, the pages worth adding later, the ones to skip, and a simple way to plan the list for your own business.
The pages every small business website should have
Home page
The home page should tell a stranger, within a few seconds, what you do, who it's for and where you are, then point them to the right next page. "Physiotherapy for sports injuries and back pain, five minutes from Outram Park MRT" does that. "Your partner in wellness" does not.
Below that opening, a good home page usually has:
- a short line for each main service, each linking to its own page
- one or two pieces of proof, such as a project, a credential or a client quote you're allowed to publish
- how to get in touch, with the action you most want people to take
Skip the rotating banner of slogans. A slider hides every message behind the first one, and the space is better spent on one clear sentence.
One page per main service
Many small business sites have a single "services" page that lists six things in a paragraph each. It can't answer anyone's questions properly, and it can't match the different searches people make for each service.
An interior design firm, for example, might need separate pages for HDB renovations, condo renovations, landed homes and commercial fit-outs, because each buyer has different questions about budget, timelines, permits and style. A tuition centre is better served by a page per level (primary, secondary, JC) than by one page that tries to talk to every parent at once.
Each service page should cover who it's for, what's included, how it works, what affects the price, proof that you've done it before, and the next step. Our guide to website copywriting for service businesses walks through that structure in detail.
About page
The about page is often the second or third page a prospect reads. Use it to show who is behind the business, why it exists, what qualifications or memberships are relevant, and how you work. Use photos of the real people involved instead of stock images. If your team is the product, as in a clinic or a law firm, give each key person a short profile with their background and what they handle.
Contact page
A contact page should include:
- every channel you answer (email, phone, WhatsApp), and none you don't
- your address with nearby MRT stations and parking if people visit you
- opening hours, including how you handle public holidays
- what happens after someone writes in, and roughly when they'll hear back, if you can commit to it
- your registered business name, so people can see who they're dealing with
If you use a form, ask only for what you need to reply. Every extra field is another reason to give up, and under Singapore's PDPA it's also more personal data you have to justify and look after.
Privacy policy
If your site collects personal data through forms, bookings, newsletters or analytics, you need to tell people what you collect and why, and make your data protection practices available. A privacy or data protection policy page is the usual way to do that. Our PDPA website checklist covers what it should say and the other places personal data turns up on a typical site.
Pages to add once you have the material
These pages are worth building when you can fill them with something specific. Until then, leave them out.
- Projects or portfolio. Essential for visual work. Each project should say what it was (a 5-room BTO flat in Tengah, a dental clinic fit-out in Novena), the scope and the result, with good photographs. Our notes on interior design websites go further.
- Team or practitioner profiles. Useful once you have more than a few people, especially where clients choose a specific doctor, lawyer or instructor. See our pages for clinic websites and law firm websites.
- Pricing, or how pricing works. Published prices or ranges filter out poor-fit enquiries. If every job is quoted, a page explaining what drives the price still helps.
- Location pages. Only if you operate from more than one place. Each page needs its own address, hours, team and details. Swapping the neighbourhood name into the same text is what Google's spam policies call doorway abuse. Our local SEO guide covers how to do multiple locations properly.
- Guides or articles. Worth it if you'll keep writing pieces that answer real customer questions. A blog with three posts from years ago signals a business that has stopped paying attention.
- Careers. Only while you're hiring, or if hiring is a constant part of the business.
Pages you can skip or merge
Some pages turn up on small business sites out of habit:
- A standalone testimonials page. Proof works hardest next to the claim it supports, so put each quote on the relevant service page. If you're in a regulated profession, check what you're allowed to publish first.
- Mission, vision and values. Fold the parts that matter into the about page, written as plain sentences.
- "Why choose us". If the reasons are real, they belong on the home and service pages, where people are deciding.
- A gallery of loose photos. Organise images into projects with context, or use them on the pages they illustrate.
- A human-readable sitemap page. Your navigation and footer should do this job. Search engines use an XML sitemap, which isn't a page anyone reads.
- Empty "coming soon" pages. Publish a page when it has something on it.
How to plan your page list
The page list should come from the questions your customers ask.
- Collect the questions people ask before they buy. Look through emails, WhatsApp chats and call notes from the last few months. Ask whoever answers the phone.
- Group them. Most fall into a few buckets: what exactly do you do, is it right for me, can I trust you, what will it cost and how long will it take, and how do I start.
- Give each distinct service its own page. A useful test: would a customer search for it on its own? "Wedding photography" and "corporate headshots" are different searches with different questions, so they're different pages.
- Match proof to pages. Note which projects, credentials or quotes support each service. A page with no proof is a page to strengthen before launch.
- Keep the main navigation short. Group services under one menu item if there are many, and put the rest in the footer.
- Write each page's job in one line. If you can't, the page probably shouldn't exist, or should be merged with another.
Here's what that looks like for a typical service business:
| Page | Its one job | The action it leads to |
|---|---|---|
| home | say what you do, for whom, where | open a service page or get in touch |
| service (one each) | answer the questions for that service | enquire about that service |
| about | show who's behind it and why to trust them | read a service page or get in touch |
| projects | prove you've done this before | enquire about a similar job |
| contact | make getting in touch effortless | send a message, call or visit |
| privacy policy | explain how you handle personal data | contact your data protection officer |
What every page needs
Whatever is on your list, each page should have:
- A heading that says what the page is about. "Corporate law" is a label. "Corporate law for growing Singapore companies" is a heading.
- A unique title and description. Google recommends descriptive, concise titles that differ from page to page.
- A next step. Every page should end somewhere: a related service, a project, or a way to get in touch.
- Real text, not images or PDFs of text. Menus, price lists and schedules should be readable on a phone and by search engines.
- Speed on mobile. People often look you up on a phone, on the way somewhere. Our guide to Core Web Vitals explains how to check.
- Contact details in the footer, so nobody has to hunt for them.
Our web design projects start from a page plan like this one, with the structure and copy settled before the visual design.