A plumber has a website with a photograph of a bathroom, a paragraph about twenty years of experience and a contact form. A customer with a leaking tap in the next town cannot tell whether he covers her area, what he charges to come out or whether he could come today.
She goes back to the search results. The site did not fail on design.
The checklist, in order
Work down this list and publish what is missing. It matters more than anything else on the site.
1. What you actually do
Specific services, named plainly. Not solutions and expertise, but the things customers search for. Someone looking for a tap replacement needs to see those words.
2. Where you work
Towns, postcodes or a radius. This is the first thing checked and the most commonly missing. A customer who cannot tell whether you cover them assumes you do not.
3. What it costs
Hourly rate, call-out charge, minimum charge, or typical prices for common jobs. A range is fine. Silence is what sends people elsewhere, because they assume expensive.
4. How to contact you
Phone number, email and form, visible on every page. Not only in a footer and not only a form, because many people will not use one.
5. When you are available
Opening hours, whether you work weekends, how quickly you usually respond and whether you take emergency work. Customers plan around this.
6. What happens next
What an enquiry leads to, whether a visit is needed, whether a quote is free and how long it takes. Removing uncertainty about the process removes hesitation.
7. Proof you are real
Photographs of actual work, a business address, registration details, insurance and any relevant qualification. Customers are checking whether you exist.
8. Answers to the questions you keep getting
Write down every question asked twice in a month and answer it on a page. That list is the most valuable content on your site and it costs nothing but an hour, which is the approach in the questions every small business website should answer.
9. Whatever your customers keep getting wrong
Every business has a misunderstanding that costs it work. Customers who think you only do large jobs, or only work commercially, or need booking weeks ahead. Naming that assumption on the page and correcting it directly recovers enquiries from people who ruled you out for a reason that was never true.
What to leave out
A long history of the business, a mission statement and a page describing your values. These are written for the owner rather than the customer and displace the eight things above.
Fix the content before the design
A plain site with all eight is worth more than a beautiful site with three. Redesigns are satisfying and rarely the reason enquiries are low.
Then answer at the hours you cannot
Once the information exists, it can answer questions when you are working or asleep, which is the problem described in small business owners answering messages after hours.
Professional firms make the same mistakes
They are covered in accountancy website mistakes that lose small business clients.
Whether you need an assistant at all
That is worth thinking through honestly, as in do you need a chatbot, seven signs from your website.
Getting started
Publish the eight items above, then let them answer questions at any hour. Setting up takes a few minutes with install the widget and train your bot. SpideyChat for small businesses answers from your published pages.