Getting a new website for your business: the checklist
Everything a local business website needs to rank on Google, load fast on a phone and turn visitors into calls. The same list we work through on every site we build.
The short answer
A new website for a local business needs five things: a clear message at the top of every page, a separate page for each service and each town you serve, a phone number and quote form that are always one tap away, fast mobile performance, and the SEO setup (titles, schema, sitemap, Search Console) done before launch. Everything else is detail. The rest of this checklist is that detail.
Before you build
- Decide the one job of the site. For most local businesses: get phone calls and quote requests.
- Own your domain. Register it in your own name and keep the login. Never let a designer own it for you.
- List your services and towns. Every service you want customers for and every town you want to rank in. This becomes your page list.
- Collect real photos. Your work, your team, your vehicles. Stock photos convert worse and tell Google nothing.
- Gather your reviews. Your best Google reviews, with permission to quote them.
- If you have an old site, list its URLs. Every old page that has links or rankings needs a redirect to its new equivalent.
The pages you need
- A homepage that says what you do, where, and how to reach you
- One page for each main service
- One page for each town you serve, written about that town
- An about page with the real people behind the business
- A contact page with your phone, email, hours and service area
- A reviews or past work page
- Privacy policy, especially if you collect form details
The top of every page
Most visitors decide in a few seconds whether to stay. Above the fold on a phone, every page should show:
- What you do and where, in one plain sentence ("Roof replacement and repair in Fairfax, VA")
- A tap-to-call button with your number
- A second option for people who would rather not call: a short quote form or a "get a quote" button
- One trust signal: your star rating, years in business, licensed and insured
What to write on each page
- What the service is and when someone needs it, in your customers' words
- How the job works, step by step
- What makes you the safe choice: guarantees, insurance, how you protect the property
- Photos of that specific service
- Answers to the questions customers ask on the phone
- A call to action at the top, the middle and the end
Speed and mobile
- Pages load in about a second or two on a phone connection
- Images are compressed and sized for the screen
- No layout jumping around while the page loads
- Buttons large enough to tap with a thumb
- Text readable without zooming
- Forms that work with the phone's autofill
The SEO setup, before launch
- A unique title and meta description for every page
- One clear H1 heading per page that matches what the page is about
- Schema markup for your business, your services and your FAQs
- An XML sitemap and a robots.txt file
- Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools set up, with the sitemap submitted
- All versions of the domain (www, non-www, http) redirecting to one
- Old URLs redirected to their new pages
- Your Google Business Profile linked to the new site
- Images with descriptive alt text
Forms, calls and what happens next
- Form submissions arrive in your inbox instantly, and you have tested it
- The form asks only what you need to call back
- Someone answers the phone when the site works and people call, including after hours
A website that brings in calls nobody answers is a website that sends customers to your competitors. This is why we pair websites with an AI receptionist.
After launch
- Check in Search Console that every page is indexed
- Ask your recent customers for reviews
- Add a new photo or project regularly
- Review which pages bring in calls, and expand the ones that work
Common mistakes to avoid
- One page that tries to rank for every service in every town
- Hiding the phone number in the footer
- A builder site you cannot move, edit properly or add pages to
- Letting a designer register the domain in their own name
- Launching without redirects from the old site, and losing its rankings overnight
- City pages that are copies of each other with the town name swapped
Common questions
How long does it take to build a new website for a small business?
It depends on who builds it. Many agencies quote several weeks. We launch most local business sites within 24 hours of the first conversation, once the services, towns and photos are ready. Larger sites take longer.
How many pages does a small business website need?
At least a homepage, one page per main service, one page per town you serve, an about page and a contact page. For a business with five services in ten towns, that is twenty pages or more.
Should I use a website builder or hire someone?
Builders work for a simple online presence. If you want to rank in several towns and get calls from the site, you need control over page structure, speed and SEO settings, which is easier with a custom-built site.
Will a new website hurt my Google rankings?
Only if it is launched badly. Redirect every old URL to its new page, keep your business details the same, and submit the new sitemap, and rankings usually hold or improve.