Five. For most small businesses that’s the honest answer: home, about, services, a reviews or FAQ page, and contact. A plumber in Wilmslow, a dog groomer, a bookkeeper working from the spare room. Five well-built pages will win more work than twelve thin ones, every time.
But “most” isn’t “all”. Some businesses genuinely earn extra pages, and it’s nearly always the ones that want to be found for more than one service or in more than one town. Here’s how to tell which camp you’re in, and what each size of site costs.
The five pages that do the work
A small business website needs to answer five questions: what do you do, can I trust you, do you cover my area, roughly what will it cost, and how do I get hold of you. One page per question is the cleanest way to do it.
- Home. What you do, who it’s for, where you work, one piece of proof and one obvious next step. If a visitor only ever sees this page, it should still be enough to win the enquiry.
- About. People buy people, especially locally. A photo, a short story, why you started. On small business sites this is often the second most visited page.
- Services. What you actually offer, in the words your customers use. “Boiler repairs”, not “heating solutions”.
- Reviews or FAQ. Trust. Real reviews if you have them; if you don’t yet, honest answers to the questions people ask you on the phone.
- Contact. Phone number, email, a short form, the area you cover. Make it impossible to get wrong.
That five-page structure is where our own Starter websites begin, and it covers the majority of trades and local services without a gap. If you want the full picture of what you get at each price point, our guide to small business website design walks through it.
When service and location pages earn their keep
Google ranks pages, not whole websites. Your homepage can’t rank well for “boiler installation Stockport” and “bathroom fitting Macclesfield” at the same time; each of those searches deserves its own page. So the moment a bigger site makes sense is the moment you want to be found for more than one thing.
Two kinds of page do that job:
- Service pages, when you offer distinct services people search for separately. An electrician doing rewires, EV chargers and landlord certificates has three different customers typing three different searches.
- Location pages, when you cover several towns and want to show up in each of them. This is the backbone of local business website design, and it only works when each page says something genuinely local rather than swapping the town name.
Here’s the honest sizing guide:
| Your situation | Pages you actually need |
|---|---|
| One service, one town (most sole traders) | 5 |
| One service, covering three or four towns | 7 to 8 (add location pages) |
| Three or four distinct services, one town | 7 to 8 (add service pages) |
| Several services across several towns | 10 to 12 |
| An online shop | A page per product, which is a different conversation entirely |
Notice what’s missing from that table: any business that needs twenty pages. They exist, but they’re rare, and a site that size usually got there by adding pages nobody asked for.
What does a five page website cost?
A five-page website from MarketingDone4U costs £99 a month on our Starter plan. That includes the copy written for you, a contact form, basic SEO, hosting, SSL and professional email, one revision round and 30 minutes of edits every month. It goes live in 7 working days once we have your completed form, content and access details.
If you need the bigger sizes, Growth is £149 a month for up to 8 pages (including three service or location pages) and Pro is £249 a month for up to 12 (including six). Growth is the one most businesses pick.
Worth being straight about the terms, because you should demand this from anyone quoting you: it’s a minimum 12-month term, the website is a managed monthly service, and MarketingDone4U owns the site unless you buy it out (buyout available). Work outside the plan is £50 an hour, and support runs by email or ticket. You can see what each plan costs laid out in full, and our post on what a website package should include shows you how to check any quote against it.
Pages you can probably skip
A few pages turn up on small business sites out of habit rather than usefulness:
- A blog with no plan behind it. A news page last touched eighteen months ago quietly tells visitors nobody’s home. Add one when you’ll actually feed it.
- A separate gallery page. Photos work harder sitting next to the service they prove.
- A team page for a one-person business. That’s your about page.
- “Coming soon” placeholders. Publish pages when they’re ready, not before.
Every page you publish is a page you have to keep accurate. Fewer, better pages are easier to maintain and easier for a visitor to navigate. Start at five, grow when the search demand is really there.
Frequently asked questions
How many pages should a website have for SEO?
As many as you have distinct things to rank for, and no more. Each service or town you want to appear for needs its own page, because Google ranks pages rather than whole sites. Thin pages made purely for search engines tend to sit unread; five strong pages beat fifteen weak ones.
Is a one-page website enough for a small business?
Sometimes, briefly. A one-page site can work for a brand-new business testing an idea or taking bookings for a single service. The ceiling is search: one page can only really rank for one thing. Most businesses outgrow it within the first year, which is why we start at five pages.
How many pages should my website have if I serve several towns?
One location page per town you genuinely work in, on top of your five core pages. So a trade covering Wilmslow, Macclesfield and Stockport would sit at eight pages. Only build pages for areas you actually serve; a page for every town in Cheshire helps nobody and reads as spam.
What does a 5 page website cost in the UK?
With MarketingDone4U, a five-page website is £99 a month, including the copy, hosting, SSL, professional email and monthly edits, on a minimum 12-month term as a managed service. Elsewhere, one-off builds vary widely by agency, so compare exactly what’s included rather than the headline number.
Can I add pages to my website later?
Yes, and it’s the sensible way to grow. Start with five solid pages, then add service or location pages when there’s a clear search reason for each. On our plans that’s the move from Starter to Growth or Pro; on a DIY builder it’s an evening’s work per page.
Want this done for you? See our web design plans, or compare every service and price in one place.
