Websites for small businesses
A small business website that looks big and sells
Trust for people who do not know you yet, answers before they call, and enquiries while your team is busy with clients.
You compete with the firm down the road, not with big brands
A small business website has three jobs at once: build trust with people who do not know you, answer their questions before they pick up the phone, and bring in enquiries while you are busy with the clients you already have. Online, you rarely compete with big brands. You compete with the other small firms in your trade and your area, and the one with the clearest site gets the call.
That works in your favour. A small company with a page per service, real photos and a contact route that works on a phone looks bigger online than a larger competitor with a ten-year-old site. Below: which build fits your size, what one extra enquiry a week is worth, what we learned from a small firm that went from invisible to found, and the mistakes that quietly cost small businesses their leads.
How small is small, and what site fits
The EU counts a business as small or medium-sized on its staff and its turnover or balance sheet, and 99 percent of all businesses in the EU fall in that group. The size says a lot about the site you need.
| Size (EU definition) | Staff and turnover | The site that usually fits |
|---|---|---|
| Micro | fewer than 10, up to 2 million euros | one strong page, or a few pages if clients search for each service |
| Small | fewer than 50, up to 10 million euros | a page per service, real case studies, one or two languages |
| Medium | fewer than 250, up to 50 million euros | pages per service, sector and market, plus a calculator, portal or integrations |
The definition matters beyond your website too: many grants and public tenders in Europe use it to decide who qualifies.
A builder, a template or custom
- Choose a website builder ifyou do one thing, in one area, with little competition, and you would rather spend a weekend than a budget. The trade-offs are in Wix vs Squarespace and Wix pricing.
- Choose WordPress with a template ifsomeone on your team will keep plugins updated every month and you need many standard pages fast; custom website or WordPress weighs it up.
- Choose a custom site ifyou want to be found on several services, in several towns or languages, or need a calculator or portal that a template cannot do well.
Whether a business your size needs a site at all is answered in do I need a website. Building it yourself versus hiring someone is covered in build your website yourself or hire.
What one extra enquiry a week is worth
| Extra enquiries a week | Win rate | Margin per client | Extra margin a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 in 4 | 1,000 euros | 13,000 euros |
| 1 | 1 in 4 | 2,400 euros | 31,200 euros |
| 2 | 1 in 5 | 1,500 euros | 31,200 euros |
The numbers are examples; put in your own. Most small firms find the site matters less than the follow-up: a reply within a day wins more of the same enquiries. When you ask for quotes, compare them on the same terms with compare website quotes and our website brief template.
Which pages make a small business site work
| Being found | Trust | Leads | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home page | some | strong | some |
| A page per service | strong | some | strong |
| A page per sector | strong | some | some |
| A page per cityonly with its own content | strong | little | some |
| Guides and questions | strong | strong | little |
| A calculator or check | strong | some | strong |
| Projects and team | little | strong | some |
Home page
- Being found: some
- Trust: strong
- Leads: some
A page per service
- Being found: strong
- Trust: some
- Leads: strong
A page per sector
- Being found: strong
- Trust: some
- Leads: some
A page per cityonly with its own content
- Being found: strong
- Trust: little
- Leads: some
Guides and questions
- Being found: strong
- Trust: strong
- Leads: little
A calculator or check
- Being found: strong
- Trust: some
- Leads: strong
Projects and team
- Being found: little
- Trust: strong
- Leads: some
Our own assessment. A home page alone rarely brings leads from Google: the page per service does that work.
Lessons from a small firm in Ghent
Business Centrum is a small payroll and HR office in Ghent. In mid-September people found it in Google almost only by name. The site got a page per service, per sector, per city and per question that employers ask, each written on the words people type. Five weeks later Google showed the site 10,200 times a day, against 220 a day in mid-September, and 1,593 search terms without their brand name stood on the first page, up from 13. The full story is in the Business Centrum case.
The lesson travels: the home page rarely brings the enquiries. The page that answers one client's exact question does.
Mistakes that cost small businesses leads
| Mistake | What happens | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| All services on one page | Google cannot match the page to a specific search | a page per service, with the service in the title |
| A contact form nobody receives | enquiries vanish for weeks | a test enquiry every month, and a confirmation email |
| Stock photos | the site looks like every other one | photos of your own team, office and work |
| No town or area on the site | local searchers find your competitor | your area in the copy and in your Google profile |
| Old addresses lost in a redesign | your place in Google drops overnight | a redirect from every old address to its new page |
A slow site loses people before the first sentence; test yours with the website speed test. Spam through your form is fixable without losing real enquiries, see stop contact form spam, and moving to a new site without losing your rankings is in website migration SEO. If your form collects personal data, a privacy policy belongs on the site.
Selling across a language border
Many small businesses sell in more than one language without a site that does: a firm with French-speaking clients, an exporter selling into Germany, an expat-run company with local customers. Each language needs its own pages and search terms, not a translation, or the second language never ranks. How we build that is on multilingual website development.
Who owns it, and who keeps it current
A site is not finished at launch. Before you sign with anyone, settle three things. The domain is registered in your company's name, not the builder's. You have your own access to Google Search Console and your analytics, so you can see what the site does without asking. And someone is named for the upkeep: updates, a monthly test of the contact form, and prices and team photos that match reality. What that costs per year is in website cost per year; what it involves is on website maintenance. A small firm that skips this usually finds out when a client mentions the form has not worked since spring.
Pricing a small business site with us
From1,500 euros
A one-pager starts at 1,500 euros; a site with many pages, languages, bookings or a shop runs to 5,000 euros or more. You get a fixed price per part after a first call. What moves it:
- PagesA page per service, sector or area makes you findable on more searches, and needs more copy and design.
- LanguagesEach language gets its own copy and its own addresses, so it can rank on its own.
- Tools and linksA calculator, a booking calendar or a client portal is custom work on top of the site.
Website design
How VBS builds a small business website
We start from what your clients type into Google and build a page per service that answers that question, with your own photos and a contact route that works on a phone. That is how we built the site of Business Centrum and the calculators of SN Group. Being found in your area is local SEO; how we build is on website design. Book a call and tell us which services your clients ask about most.
A site that makes your business look bigger?
Tell us about your business and your clients. We say which pages you need and what they cost.
Rather get in touch right away?