What belongs on a local business homepage

Most people arrive on a local business homepage with a simple question. Are you open? Where are you? Do you do what I need? How much? How do I get in touch? A good homepage answers those questions quickly, on a phone, without making anyone hunt.

Here is what belongs on it, and what can wait.

Say what you do, plainly, at the top

The first thing a visitor sees should tell them what your business is and where it operates. “Family-run Mexican restaurant in central El Paso” is better than “Welcome to our website” or a clever slogan. Use the words your customers would use when describing you to a friend.

If you serve an area rather than a single location, say so: “Plumbing repairs across north Austin”.

Make the main action obvious

Decide what you most want a visitor to do, and make it easy: call, book, order, request a quote or visit. Put that action near the top and repeat it lower down. On a phone, a tappable phone number or a clear button does far more than a paragraph asking people to get in touch.

Resist the urge to offer six equal choices. One main action and one or two secondary ones is plenty.

Hours, location and contact details

For many local businesses, these are the most important facts on the site:

• Opening hours, including the current week’s exceptions if there are any
• Address with a link to a map, or the area you serve
• Phone number and email address
• Parking or access notes if they matter to your customers

Keep them identical to what appears on your Google listing, social media and signage. Search engines and customers both notice when details disagree. If you want to go a step further, structured data (a small block of code describing your business name, address and hours) helps search engines read these details reliably.

A short summary of what you offer

List your main products or services in a few words each, with a link to more detail where it helps. A restaurant might show a few popular dishes and link to the full menu. A service business might list its four main services, each linking to a page that explains it.

If you publish prices, a short “from” price is often enough on the homepage. Customers use price to decide whether to keep reading.

Signs that you are real and active

Visitors want reassurance that you are a real business and still trading. Things that help:

• Real photos of your premises, your work or your team
• A recent update, such as a seasonal menu, a new listing or a short post
• A clear business name and contact details, not only a form

What does not help: stock photos that could belong to anyone, or a “latest news” section whose newest item is two years old. An empty section is worse than no section.

Make it readable on a phone

Most of your visitors are probably on a phone, often in a hurry. That means:

• Text large enough to read without zooming
• Buttons and links big enough to tap easily
• Nothing important hidden behind animations or slides that move on their own
• Pages that load quickly, even on a weak signal

Readable, well-structured pages also help people who use screen readers or larger text settings. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines set out the widely used standard for this, and meeting them tends to make a site easier for everyone.

What can go further down, or elsewhere

Some things are worth having but do not need to lead the page:

• The story of how the business started
• Detailed descriptions of every service
• Frequently asked questions
• Policies, terms and background information

A short introduction on the homepage with a link to a fuller page works well. The homepage’s job is to answer the first questions and point people onward, not to hold everything.

A quick test

Hand your phone to someone who does not know your business, open your homepage and ask them three questions: What does this business do? Is it open right now? How would you contact them? If they can answer all three within about ten seconds without scrolling far, your homepage is doing its job.

If you’d like help with a homepage that answers those questions clearly, let’s talk.