What a good business website does
The job of a business website is simple. A visitor has to understand within a few seconds what you do, where you work and how to reach you. Everything else on the page supports that.
Many visitors arrive on a phone, from a search engine or on a friend's recommendation. They do not read the page from top to bottom. They look for the answer to one question: can this company do what I need? If the answer is not quick to find, they go back to the search results and open the next one.
A good site does five things
- Says on the first screen what you do and where.
- Looks like your trade. A builder's site looks like a builder's site, and a hair salon's like a hair salon.
- Makes getting in touch easy. The phone number and the form are right there, on a phone too.
- Proves what you can do with real photos of your work, your customers' words and a clear list of services.
- Opens fast. A slow site gets closed before it has shown anything.
Looking impressive is not a goal in itself. A site can be beautiful and still lose the visitor if the phone number has to be hunted for in the footer.
What belongs on the front page
The front page is the one most visitors see first. That is why I always build it in the same order, from top to bottom:
- The first screenWhat you do, where, and one clear way to get in touch. The phone number and the form show straight away.
- ServicesA short list of what you do. If the site has more pages, each service leads to a page of its own.
- Proof of your workPhotos of your work, your customers' words and their logos, if you may use them.
- How it worksA couple of sentences on what happens when a customer gets in touch. Then getting in touch does not feel like a big step.
- Contact details againAt the end of the page the form, the phone number and your service area, so the reader does not have to scroll back up.
Why the site has to look like your trade
Many sites are made from three stock photos and a short text. The result is tidy, but it could be anyone's site. The visitor does not recognise the trade, and the site is forgotten while they compare three companies.
I start from the trade. A digger and a building site for a builder, shears and leaves for a gardener, a roof and a hammer for a roofing contractor. Fonts, colours and illustration are chosen so the viewer recognises the trade before reading a single word.
If you have your own logo, colours, photos and texts, I use them. If not, the site does not stay empty: I make what is missing myself, and that is included in the price.
- Builder
- Gardener
- Roofing contractor
Five common mistakes on business websites
These are worth checking on your own site first. Each one can make a visitor leave before they get in touch.
- The phone number is hidden in the footer or inside an image that cannot be tapped on a phone.
- The information is out of date. Opening hours, prices or services no longer hold.
- The photos come from a stock library, and not one of them shows real work or a real person.
- The text is one long paragraph with no subheadings, too heavy to read on a phone.
- The form has too many required fields. A name and a phone number or an email are enough.
Each of these is easy to fix. Many fix themselves once you can change the texts and images yourself.
When an old website is worth renewing
Not every site needs renewing. If your site says clearly what you do, works on a phone and brings in enquiries, updating the texts may be enough.
Signs that renewing pays off
- You cannot update the texts and images yourself.
- The site is slow or awkward to use on a phone.
- The site does not look like your trade or stand out from competitors.
- You would rather not show the site to a customer.
If you are not sure, ask for a demo. Once you see the new front page next to the old one, the comparison is easy.
Do it yourself, an agency or one maker
You can build a site yourself with a ready-made template. It is a cheap way to start if you have the time and an eye for it. A template easily looks like many other companies' sites, though, and the time it takes comes out of your own work.
At an agency the work is often split between a salesperson, a designer and a developer. That works for large projects, but a small company's message can change along the way.
I do both the design and the build myself, and you talk to me the whole way. You see the demo before you decide anything, and the price is fixed.
What a website costs
The price of a website depends above all on the number of pages. My prices are public, so you see the range before you ask. You get the exact price from the plan that comes with the demo, which shows every page.
- One-page site490 €One long page: services, photos, contact details and a form. Right when you offer a handful of services.
- What I recommend for most3-5 pages990 €A front page and pages of their own for your services, your company and contact.
- 5-7 pages1 490 €When there are many services and each needs its own page.
- More than 7 pages1 990 €A larger site with many services, locations or areas.
Online shopOn Shopify, customised from start to finish. Quoted separately, as a fixed price before the work starts.
What's included
- A free demo and a plan before you decide.
- The front page and every page in the plan.
- Texts and images.
- The technical groundwork for search engines.
- An admin panel (Payload) where you update the texts and images yourself.
I look after the hosting, 29 €/month.
The price is agreed in writing before the work starts, and the same sum is on the invoice. I do not bill the build by the hour, so the sum does not grow with how long the work takes.
Texts and images are included in the price. An online shop is always quoted separately. Hosting costs 29 €/month. SEO is monthly work, 190 €/month, and changes I make for you later cost 50 €/hour. Neither is compulsory.
When you compare quotes, ask these three things
- Is the price fixed, or can the bill grow during the work?
- How much does the site cost a month once it is finished?
- Can you update the texts and images yourself, or do you pay for every change?
If any answer in a quote stays unclear, ask again before you sign anything.
See the price list and work out your priceHow the work goes
The work goes in four stages. The first is free for you, and you commit only once the price is agreed.
- DemoFirst I build a free demo of your front page in your trade. You get a link you can open on your phone and show to others. The demo does not commit you to anything.
- Fixed priceIf you want to go on, we go through what the site needs: services, subpages and ways to get in touch. You get a fixed price in writing before the work starts.
- BuildI build the site on top of the demo. You see a working version before anything is locked, and changes happen at this stage, not at the end.
- LaunchI launch the site, measure and fix. I look after the hosting, and you update the texts yourself.
You talk to the same person the whole way, and that person also does the work. There is no salesperson or outsourced developer in between, so the message does not change along the way.
What you need yourself
Less than many people think. For the demo I only need an email address to send the link to. If you already have a website, I use its texts and images, and you do not need to send anything. If you have no site, a few photos and the basics of your business are enough, and if there is enough about your company online, I look it up myself.
For the actual site it is worth gathering your own photos of your work, a list of your services and customer feedback, if you have any. Your own photos tell more about your company than any stock photo.
The domain, the address such as yourcompany.com, is worth registering in your own name. Then the address stays yours, even if the maker of the site ever changes.
You update the texts and images yourself
I build sites with Next.js and the Payload content management system. For you that means an admin panel you log into with a browser. You change a text or an image and save. You need no code and no me for each change.
Next.js is the same technology large web services are built with. The site is fast, and it keeps the look it was designed with, even as the content changes.
I look after the hosting, so you do not need to think about where the site lives or how it stays up.
How a site gets found in search engines
Search visibility does not come from one trick. It comes from the page answering clearly what the customer is searching for, and from the search engine understanding it.
The basics worth getting right
- Every page has its own title and description saying what you do and where.
- Every service has its own page. One clear page per service is easier to find than one page about everything.
- The site opens fast on a phone too.
- Your Google Business Profile is filled in, and your name, address and phone number are the same everywhere.
- The site answers the questions customers really ask on the phone.
Once the groundwork is right, visibility can be improved continuously. I do it as monthly work, 190 €/month. It is optional.
The same basics also help in AI search, such as ChatGPT. It reads the same pages, and clear text that answers customers' questions is easier for it to understand too.
This is what one client said about SEO:
The SEO work was carried out excellently and at exactly the right time before the summer season. We saw a significant rise in traffic and now we have work booked for the whole summer again. The collaboration ran smoothly and the results beat expectations. Highly recommend!
Sam VirtakangasManaging Director, Terassisepät