--- title: Homepage Design Best Practices for Small Businesses | Blue Lake Web Design description: What belongs on a small business homepage, how to write the headline, and what to leave off. A plain guide from a Michigan web design shop. url: https://bluelakewebdesign.com/homepage-design-best-practices/ --- Homepage Design Best Practices for Small Businesses | Blue Lake Web Design - Call # Homepage Design Best Practices for Small Businesses What belongs on a small business homepage, how to write the headline, and what to leave off. A plain guide from a Michigan web design shop. Eric Plotts / October 22, 2026 Want this handled for you? Custom sites starting at $899. Most go live in about two weeks. Get a free quote Or call (248) 800-1855 A good homepage answers three questions in a few seconds: who you are, what you offer, and what the visitor should do next. Everything else, from your life story to your full service list, belongs on other pages. This guide walks through what to put on a homepage, how to write the headline, how to lay the page out, and what to skip, in plain terms for a business owner who has never hired a designer. Bluelakewebdesign Build a Homepage That Brings in Leads Blue Lake Web Design creates fast-loading websites with integrated SEO to help small businesses improve online visibility and turn visitors into customers. Visit Blue Lake Web Design ## TL;DR Your homepage is a billboard, not a brochure. Say who you are, what you do, and what to do next. - Write a headline that states the value you offer in about ten words or fewer. Skip “Welcome to our website.” - Use one clear button above the fold (the part of the page visible before scrolling), one real photo instead of a slideshow, and a short menu. - Make text easy to read, make the page load fast, and put your address, phone number and hours where Google can read them. - Cost is simple to plan for: a three page site from us is $899 and an eight page site is $1,999. ## What a homepage is actually for Most visitors do not arrive at your homepage to read. They arrive with a question: can this business do what I need, and is it near me? Usability researchers at Nielsen Norman Group say that effective homepages are simple, communicate the purpose of the organization, show engaging content and prompt users to take action . That is the whole job. The common mistake we see from small business owners is trying to explain everything at once. The homepage ends up with six paragraphs of history, twelve services, three phone numbers and a slideshow. Visitors cannot find the one thing they came for, so they leave. A useful test: show your homepage to a friend for five seconds, then hide it. Ask what the business does and what they would click. If they cannot tell you, the page needs to be simpler, not longer. ## What to put on a homepage Here is the list we work from, in the order a visitor usually needs it. - Your logo and business name in the top left, linking back to the homepage. - A headline that says what you do and for whom. - One or two sentences of support under the headline. - One main button such as “Call for a free quote” or “Request an estimate.” - A real photo of your work, your team or your shop. - Your main services , three to six of them, each linking to its own page. - Proof , if you truly have it: reviews from real customers, licenses, years in business. - Your location and contact details , including phone number, address and hours. - A second chance to act , repeating the button near the bottom. Notice what is missing: a long about section, a blog feed, a list of every product, a pop-up. They can all live on inner pages, reachable from a short menu. ### Proof you can use honestly Only show what is real. A plumber can show a license number, years in business, and a link to the Google reviews customers have actually left. If you have no reviews yet, leave the space out rather than filling it with invented quotes. Our guide on getting more Google reviews covers simple ways to start collecting them. ## How to write a homepage headline The headline is the first thing people read, so it carries the most weight. The advice from DreamHost’s guide to hero sections is to treat it as an elevator pitch, not a greeting, and to keep it to about ten words or fewer. The “hero” is simply the big opening area at the top of the page: headline, supporting line, button and image. ### Say what you do, then who it is for Weak headlines are about you. Strong ones are about the visitor’s problem. Compare these made-up examples for a fictional business, not a real client: Weak Stronger Welcome to Smith Plumbing Fast plumbing repairs in Royal Oak Quality service since day one Broken water heater? We fix it same day Your trusted partner Family dental care for kids and adults in Novi The stronger versions name the service, often the town, and sometimes the problem. Naming the town also tells local visitors they are in the right place. Be careful with promises, though. “Same day” is only a good headline if you can truly deliver it every time. ### Headline ideas you can adapt - Service plus place: “Roof repair and replacement in Oakland County” - Problem plus answer: “Tired of a website that brings no calls? We build ones that work for small businesses” - Clear offer: “Custom cabinets, built and installed in Metro Detroit” - Question: “Need your furnace checked before winter?” Write five versions, read them aloud, and pick the one a stranger would understand without any context. Then write the supporting line to add one detail: how it works, who it is for, or what makes you different. ## The main button Every homepage needs one action you most want visitors to take. For a service business that is usually calling or asking for a quote. Experts at Nielsen Norman Group recommend placing the most important buttons above the fold and keeping them visible on all screen sizes . In plain terms: a visitor should see the button without scrolling, on a phone as well as on a desktop computer. A few rules that hold up well: - Use words that say what happens: “Get a free quote” beats “Submit.” - Make the button a color that stands out from the rest of the page. - On phones, make the phone number a tap-to-call link. - Do not offer five equal buttons. One main action, one quieter second option at most. ## Layout: keep it simple Layout means the order and spacing of things on the page. Good layout is mostly restraint. ### A short menu Nielsen Norman Group suggests flattening navigation to a few top-level categories . For most small businesses that means four to six menu items: Services, About, Reviews or Projects, Contact. If you have twenty services, group them under two or three headings and let the inner pages do the detail. ### Clear section headings Give each section a heading that tells people what it contains, such as “Our services” or “Where to find us.” Accessibility researchers at the W3C note that descriptive headings help people predict what a section holds before they read it . That helps visitors with reading difficulties or who use screen readers, and it helps everyone who skims. ### White space is not wasted space Crowding every inch with text makes the page tiring. Leave room around headings, buttons and photos. A simple rule from designers: if two things are not related, give them space between them. ### Skip the slideshow Many owners ask for a rotating slideshow at the top. Designers writing about hero sections, including LogRocket’s design blog , point out that visitors rarely watch beyond the first slide, and sliders can slow the page. One strong, relevant image that shows your work usually does more. A real photo of your own team or your own finished job beats a generic stock photo of people shaking hands. ## Make it easy to read A beautiful page that is hard to read fails. Two things matter most: text size and contrast, meaning the difference in brightness between text and its background. The W3C’s accessibility guidelines ask for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text and 3 to 1 for large text . You do not need to calculate this by hand. Free online contrast checkers will tell you whether your colors pass. Light gray text on white, or white text over a busy photo, are the usual failures. Here are more habits worth adopting: - Use body text that is comfortable on a phone, not tiny print. - Stick to two fonts at most: one for headings, one for body text. - Keep paragraphs to two or three lines. - Describe images in their alt text (a short written description) so screen readers can read them. If you want a deeper look at designing for everyone, this WordPress accessibility guide explains common fixes. Color choices also affect how people find their way around: this piece on color rules for wayfinding shows why a small, consistent palette keeps people oriented, and the same idea applies to a website. ## Speed is part of the design A homepage that looks great but loads slowly loses people before they see it. Google measures several things here. One of them, Interaction to Next Paint, tracks how quickly a page responds when someone taps or clicks. Google’s guidance says a good score is 200 milliseconds or less , measured at the 75th percentile of page visits. A millisecond is a thousandth of a second, so this is about the page feeling instant rather than sticky. You do not need to master the measurement. You do need to avoid the things that usually slow a page down: huge uncompressed photos, auto-playing video, a pile of add-on plugins and a slideshow. Ask whoever builds your site how fast it will be on a phone. We cover the topic in more detail in our guides on fast local landing pages and fixing page speed on ad landing pages . ## Help Google find your business A homepage has two audiences: people and search engines. For a local business, one quiet technical step makes a real difference to how Google understands you: adding structured data. That is a block of hidden code that states your business name, address, phone number and hours in a format Google reads easily. Google’s documentation explains that local business structured data helps it understand details like location, opening hours and contact method . The required properties are name and address, and Google also recommends adding geographic coordinates, opening hours, telephone and your website address. It can help a business qualify for richer search results, though Google does not guarantee any specific display. The key habit is consistency. Your business name, address and phone number should read the same on your homepage, your Google Business Profile and other directories. Our article on local citations explains how to clean that up. If you are weighing how a homepage fits into a wider plan, the on page SEO checklist lists the basics, and our local SEO page describes how we help with Google Maps. SEO stands for search engine optimization, the work of making your site easier for Google to understand. On the words themselves, think about what your customers type. Our guide to local keyword research shows how to find those phrases and work them into your headings naturally. ## Mistakes we see most often Mistake Why it hurts Simple fix “Welcome to our website” headline Says nothing about what you do State your service and town Photo slideshow Slow, and few people see slide two One strong photo Ten menu items Visitors cannot decide where to click Four to six No phone number at the top Ready buyers have to hunt Put it in the header Tiny gray text Hard to read, fails contrast guidelines Darker, larger text Stock photos of strangers Feels generic Photos of your real work Autoplay video with sound Annoying and slow Let people press play ## Our perspective We have built websites for small businesses in Metro Detroit and Oakland County since 2011, and the pattern is steady. Owners worry their homepage does not say enough. Almost always the real problem is that it says too much. We design homepages to do a few jobs well: load fast, say clearly what the business does, and make the next step obvious. Search visibility is built in from the start rather than bolted on later, because a page nobody finds helps nobody. We cannot promise you rankings, traffic or sales from any design, and anyone who does promise those is guessing. What we can do is describe exactly what we build and quote it at a fixed price before we start. If you remember one thing from this guide, make it this: write the homepage for the one customer who needs you today. Tell them what you do, where you are, and how to reach you. Eric ## Build a homepage that does these jobs Blue Lake Web Design is owner operated in Novi, Michigan, by Eric Plotts. We build fast-loading sites with search basics included, with fixed-price quotes and no contracts. A three page website is $899 and an eight page website is $1,999. Anything larger gets a fixed quote. Our typical build takes about two weeks. See what is included on our website design pricing page , read about web design and redesign , or call us at (248) 800-1855. You can also browse more plain-language guides on our blog . ## A quick checklist before you launch Run through this list with your homepage open on your phone: - Can a stranger tell what you do within five seconds? - Is the main button visible without scrolling? - Does the headline avoid greetings and buzzwords? - Is there one real photo, not a slideshow? - Is the text dark enough and large enough to read outdoors? - Are your phone number, address and hours easy to find? - Does the menu have six items or fewer? - Does every service link to its own page? - Does the page load quickly on cellular data? - Is your business name, address and phone number identical everywhere online? If you answered no to more than two, start with the headline and the button. Those two changes cost little and affect the most visitors. ## FAQ ### What should be on a homepage? A clear headline, a sentence or two of support, one main button, a real photo, your main services, any genuine proof such as reviews, and your contact details. Keep detailed stories and long lists for inner pages. ### How long should a homepage headline be? About ten words or fewer works well, according to hero section guidance from DreamHost . It should say what you do or what problem you solve. Avoid greetings such as “Welcome.” ### How many pages does a small business website need? Many small businesses start with a homepage, a services page and a contact page. That is what our three page website covers, at $899. If you have several distinct services or want a team and project pages, our eight page website at $1,999 gives more room. ### Should my homepage have a slideshow? Usually not. Visitors rarely get past the first slide, and sliders can slow the page down. One clear, relevant image does the job better. ## Sources - Homepage Design: 5 Fundamental Principles, Nielsen Norman Group - Hero Section: What It Is and How to Design One, DreamHost - Hero section examples and best practices, LogRocket Blog - Headings and Labels, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative - How to Meet WCAG Quick Reference, W3C - Optimize Interaction to Next Paint, web.dev - Local Business Structured Data, Google Search Central ## Recommended - Should You Design Your Website? Here’s the Pros and Cons - Website Design Pricing in Michigan - Website Design Timeline: 8 to 14 Weeks for Small Business Sites - Evergreen Content Examples for Small Businesses, From Guides to Tools Written by Eric Plotts Web designer and SEO consultant in Novi, Michigan. Building websites for small and mid sized businesses since 2011. More about Eric . Get started ## Want this handled for you? Call (248) 800-1855 for a free quote. Fixed price, no contract, and most sites are live in about two weeks. 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