What should a business website actually do?

A plain-English look at what a useful business website should achieve before anyone starts worrying about pages, platforms or design.

3 min read · Plain-English series

If you don’t have a website yet, it’s easy to start with the wrong questions. How many pages? Which platform? What colours? Those all matter eventually. They’re just not where to start.

Willoughby shopfronts in Sydney with parked cars and warm morning light. — Plenty of shops. Still need to be found.

Start with a simpler one: what do you want the website to help the business do?

It’s not just an online brochure

Plenty of business websites end up as a digital pamphlet: a logo, a few paragraphs about the company, a contact page. Nothing wrong with any of that. But a brochure just sits there. A useful website has a job to do.

The jobs a business website can do

Depending on the business, a website’s job might be to:

help the right people find you
explain clearly what you do, and who it’s for
build enough trust that someone feels comfortable getting in touch
make it easy to call, enquire, book or buy
answer the questions customers would otherwise ring up to ask
make choosing you the easy decision

Most businesses don’t need all of those on day one. A plumber might mainly need locals to find them and call. A café might need opening hours, a menu and directions. A consultant might need to explain what they do clearly enough that the right client gets in touch.

Bigger isn’t automatically better

It’s tempting to think a “proper” website needs lots of pages. In practice, a small site that does its job well usually beats a big one full of pages nobody reads.

Every page should earn its place. If a page doesn’t help someone find you, understand you, trust you or contact you, it probably isn’t needed yet.

Take a mobile dog groomer. Five pages (home, services and prices, the area they cover, reviews, and a way to book) will often do more than twenty pages of filler, because a customer can find what they need in a few seconds and get on with booking.

Start with the smallest sensible step

You don’t have to build everything at once. Start with the parts that have a clear job:

Say clearly what you do and where you do it.
Show why someone can trust you: reviews, photos of real work, the people behind the business.
Make the next step obvious, whether that’s calling, enquiring or booking.

Then add more when it has a job to do. A blog, a gallery, extra service pages: all useful later, if they help.

What you don’t need to worry about yet

picking the perfect platform
a long list of pages
having every photo and paragraph ready
getting every detail right before anyone sees it

Those can be sorted along the way.

You don’t need it all figured out

If you’re starting from scratch, that’s fine. Most people don’t know exactly what they need, and that’s not a reason to wait. Knowing what you want the website to help the business do is a good enough place to begin.

Want the short version?

A business website should do a job, not just exist.
Work out what you want it to help the business do before worrying about pages or platforms.
A small site that does its job well beats a big one full of pages nobody needs.
Start with the smallest sensible step, then add more when it’s useful.