What pages should my business website have?

You're planning a new website, or finally replacing the old one, and the designer asks for a page list. You write Home, About, Services, Contact. Every site seems to have them, so it feels safe.

Then the enquiries arrive asking what it costs, whether you work in their area and what happens after they call. Four pages, and none of them answers that. Start from the questions instead, and the list mostly writes itself.

Why does the standard page list fall short?

Each template page is a guess at a question, and the guess is often off.

"About" usually answers "Who are you?" Your buyer is asking something sharper: "Can I trust you with this job?" Contact gives a form, while the buyer wonders what they're signing up for by filling it in.

Here's how the usual pages line up against what buyers want to find out.

Template page	The question behind it	Where it often falls short
Home	What do you do?	A slogan instead of a plain description
Services	Is this for me?	Offers listed, but no customers or situations named
About	Can I trust you?	Company history, but no people, examples or proof
Contact	What happens next?	A form with no word on replies, visits or cost
Nowhere	How much?	No answer, so it becomes the first email

The labels aren't the problem. Filling them in because they exist, rather than because a buyer needs the answer, is.

What are the five questions every buyer asks?

Whatever you sell, a buyer usually needs five answers before getting in touch.

Buyers want to know what you do, whether it's for someone like them, roughly what it costs, why they should trust you and what happens when they get in touch. Your page list is the set of places where those answers live, in that order.

We call this the five-question sheet. Take a piece of paper and write the five questions as headings:

1. What do you do? In words a stranger gets on first read. Here's a quick test for whether visitors understand what you do.
2. Is it for me? The customers, places and situations you serve, and the ones you don't.
3. How much? A price, a range or what changes the quote. See how to show prices.
4. Can I trust you? Work examples, the people involved and anything checkable. The Nielsen Norman Group found visitors wonder who's behind a business and whether it's credible. No reviews yet? Here's what else builds trust.
5. What happens next? The first step, what it costs, how fast you reply and what the buyer should have ready.

How do you build the page list on paper?

You'll need the sheet, a pen and an hour with your recent enquiries. We'll follow a hypothetical kitchen-fitting company through each step.

1) Collect the questions people actually ask

Open your last twenty or so enquiries: emails, WhatsApp messages, call notes. Copy every question in the customer's own words. "Do you come out to measure?" is more useful than "site survey".

2) Sort each one under the five headings

"Do you work in my town?" goes under Is it for me? "Can I see kitchens you've done?" goes under Can I trust you? A few won't fit anywhere; keep those for a short FAQ.

3) Decide whether each answer needs a page or a section

Most answers fit as a section of a bigger page. An answer earns its own page when:

• It needs room. A dozen project photos or a price breakdown won't fit in a homepage strip.
• It changes by buyer. Different customers need different answers, so they need different pages. Our guide on separate pages for each service covers that split.
• People arrive straight at it. If someone might land on it from Google, an ad or a link you send, it has to make sense on its own.

Everything else stays a section, usually on the homepage.

4) Name the pages in your buyer's words

Use the wording from step 1, not your internal terms. The Nielsen Norman Group's guidance on how people choose which link to click warns that jargon and branded labels tend to get ignored. "Kitchens we've fitted" says more than "Portfolio".

5) Put the pages in question order

The homepage runs through all five questions as short sections, each pointing to the full page where one exists. The menu follows the same order, with the next step last and a button to it on every page.

After sorting its last twenty enquiries, the kitchen fitter ends up with this list:

• Home: what they fit, the towns they cover, three recent kitchens, the steps and a "Book a home visit" button.
• Kitchens we've fitted: its own page, because people want to browse lots of photos.
• Prices: its own page with typical ranges and what changes them, because it's the most asked question.
• How it works: the visit, the design, the fitting days and how long the room is out of use.
• Book a home visit: a short form, what the visit costs and when they'll reply.

There's no About page. "Who will be in my house?" became a section on How it works, with photos of the fitters, because that's where buyers asked it.

What changes when you're rebuilding?

On a rebuild, check the pages you already have against the sheet before adding or cutting anything.

List every current page and write next to it which of the five questions it answers. Some will answer none: an old news post, a "Mission" page, a service you've stopped selling. Those are candidates to merge or remove.

Check before you delete. If a page gets visits from Google or other sites link to it, ask your developer to send its old address to the closest new page. Our guide to redesigning without losing SEO explains how.

Then look the other way. Any question on your sheet with nothing behind it is a gap the rebuild should fill.

If you're planning a new website or a rebuild and want the page list settled before anyone designs a screen, we can work through it with you. In an Aruno project, we turn your buyers' questions into the page list, the order of each page and the design, then build it in custom code, with the scope agreed before development starts. The intro call is free and doesn't commit you to anything: book a free intro call, or send your question sheet to hi@aruno.studio, WhatsApp or Telegram @mihaipostelnicu.

How do you test the list before design starts?

Ask three people to find answers using only the page names.

Write your menu labels on a card, in order. Give each person a task without explaining anything: "Where would you look to find out roughly what it costs?" or "Where would you click to get started?"

Watch where they point and where they hesitate. If two people pick the wrong label for the same task, rename it. This is a simple version of a tree test, which the Nielsen Norman Group notes can be done on paper, before any layouts exist.

When the list holds up, send it to your designer:

Here's the page list for the new site, in menu order. Under each page are the customer questions it needs to answer, in their words. Before you start designing, could you tell us if anything should merge, split or move?

That gives the designer a plan to question, not a menu to decorate. For the rest of what they need from you, see how to brief a website designer.

Frequently asked questions

How many pages should a small business website have? There's no right number. Count the answers that need their own page: a business with one main service might need three or four, one with several distinct services more. Don't add a page that answers nobody's question to reach a total.

Do I need an About page? Only if "Can I trust you?" needs more room than a section gives it, for example when buyers want the team, history or qualifications in detail. Otherwise, put the people and proof where buyers ask about them.

Does every business website need a blog? No. Our guide to whether your website needs a blog covers the decision. A blog helps when you'll publish regularly and your buyers search for answers you can give. If nobody will write for it, leave it out.

Does each extra page make the website cost more? Usually, but what's on the page matters more than the count. At Aruno, a landing page is $1,150 to $1,700 and a company website is $2,250 to $4,500, designed and built; our website cost guide explains what moves a project within those ranges.

How long does it take to plan the page list? An afternoon with your recent enquiries is usually enough for a first version. Allow a few more days if you want questions from your team or a paper test with buyers first.

Bring your last twenty enquiries to the planning meeting instead of a template. The questions in them are your page list.