Content is the part of a website project that stalls. The design gets approved, the build is ready, and then everything waits three weeks on a page of text nobody has written. It is also the part that decides whether the site works, because a visitor is reading your words while they decide whether to call you.
This guide covers how many pages you actually need, what goes on each one, and how to write it without turning into a copywriter.
Start with what your customer is trying to decide
Before you write a word, write down the questions you get asked on the phone. Not the questions you wish people asked. The real ones: what does this cost, how long does it take, do you work in my town, have you done this for someone like me, what happens if something goes wrong.
Every one of those questions is a paragraph, and often a page. A site that answers them in plain sentences beats a site with better adjectives. It also gives search engines and AI assistants something specific to read, which we cover in how to get recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI.
How many pages should a website have?
Most small business sites need fewer pages than people expect, and more than a one page site can carry. A workable starting set:
- A homepage. What you do, who you do it for, where, and what to do next.
- One page per service you sell. Not one page listing all of them. If someone searches for one specific service, that search should have a page to land on.
- An about page. More important than most businesses think.
- A contact page with your phone number, your address or service area, and a form.
- Proof. Work you have done, reviews, before and after, or a gallery.
- A page for each town you serve, if you serve several and want to be found in them. Only if you can make each one genuinely different, which our local SEO guide explains.
That is usually somewhere between six and fifteen pages for a small business. Add pages when you have something real to put on them, not to pad the site.
What should be on your homepage
The homepage has one job: make it obvious what you do, for whom, and what to do next. In order:
- A headline that says what you do and where. "Plumbing and heating repair in Warwick and the East Bay" beats "Quality you can trust". Someone should know within a second whether they are in the right place.
- The next step, high on the page. Call, book, get a quote. On a phone it should be tappable without scrolling.
- Proof. Reviews, recognizable clients, years in business, licenses, certifications.
- What you offer, with a link to each service page rather than the full description.
- Why you and not the other guy. The honest answer, not the one everybody writes.
- How to reach you, including the towns you cover.
What goes on a service page
Service pages do the work in search, because they match what people actually type. Each one needs:
- What the service is, in the words customers use, not industry terms.
- Who it is for. Naming the customer you want filters the ones you do not.
- What it includes, specifically enough that someone can compare you with another quote.
- What it costs, or at least how pricing works. If you will not publish numbers, explain what changes the price.
- How it works, step by step, so the process feels handled.
- Proof for that service. A job you did, a review that mentions it, a photo.
- The next step, repeated at the bottom.
A page with all of that is worth ten pages of general description.
The about page is a sales page
People read the about page before they call, especially for work they have to let into their home or trust with money. Put a real photo of real people on it, say when you started and why, say where you are based, and say who you work with. Awards and memberships belong here. Stock photos of strangers in a boardroom do not.
Write the way you talk
Read what you wrote out loud. If you would never say it to a customer standing in front of you, cut it. A few habits that help:
- Short sentences. One idea each.
- Say the thing first, then explain it. People scan.
- Use "you" and "we". Not "our team of dedicated professionals".
- Cut the words that could describe any business. Quality, professional, solutions, passion. If your competitor could paste the sentence onto their site unchanged, it is not doing anything.
- Be specific. Towns, brands, timeframes, names of services. Specifics are what people believe.
Writing for search without writing for search engines
Write for the person, then make sure a machine can follow along:
- Use the words customers use in your headings, once, naturally. Then stop.
- Give each page one clear subject. A page about everything ranks for nothing.
- Put the answer to the page's question near the top.
- Write a page title and description for every page, because those are the words people see in search results.
- Never repeat a phrase to hit a number. It reads badly and it does not work. The rest of what does work is on our SEO page.
Photos count as content
Words carry the argument, and photos decide whether people believe it. Real photos of your team, your work, your trucks, your space and your finished jobs do more for trust than any paragraph. If all you have is stock photography, a photo shoot is usually the highest value content you can add.
A website content checklist
Work through this per page:
- Does the page say what it is about in the first sentence?
- Would a stranger know what to do next?
- Is the phone number visible without scrolling on a phone?
- Are there specifics: towns, services, timeframes, names?
- Is there proof on the page, not just claims?
- Did you answer the question people actually ask about this topic?
- Could a competitor paste this text onto their site unchanged? If yes, rewrite it.
- Is there a real photo?
- Does the page title describe the page in the words someone would search?
- Read it out loud. Does it sound like you?
Getting it written
The honest part: writing is the slowest step in most website projects. Our own build takes four to six weeks once the content is in hand, and the calendar time depends almost entirely on how fast that content comes back.
Three ways through it. Write it yourself from the questions list, which works if you protect the time. Record yourself answering each question out loud and have someone turn it into text, which is faster than facing a blank page. Or hand it over: we write content as part of most builds, which is covered in what a small business website costs.
If you would rather not do any of this, tell us what your business does and we will handle the words along with the website. Or call (401) 339-4155.
