What Pages Should a Startup Website Have?

Deciding which pages your website needs is the first real planning decision in any web project, and it has a bigger effect on results than most people expect. The right set of pages makes a website easy to navigate, gives Google separate pages to rank for separate searches, and gives every visitor a clear route from arriving to getting in touch.

This guide covers the pages every startup and small business website needs, the ones that are worth adding, how many pages a typical site has, and how to plan the structure before design begins. It applies whether you are building a first website for a startup or planning a redesign of an established site.

The Five Essential Pages

1. Home page

The home page is where most visitors land and where they decide, within seconds, whether to stay. It needs a headline that says what you do and for whom, a short explanation of why you rather than anyone else, visible proof such as reviews or client logos, a summary of your main services with links to their pages, and a clear call to action. It should not try to say everything; its job is to orient the visitor and send them to the right page.

2. About page

The about page is usually one of the most visited pages on a business website, because people buy from people. Include who is behind the business, your experience and credentials, why the business exists and what you stand for. Real photographs of real people make a measurable difference here. Keep it about the customer as much as about you: what your experience means for them.

3. Services or product pages

Give each main service or product its own page rather than listing everything on one. Each page should explain what the service is, who it is for, what is included, what it costs or what affects the price, and what to do next. Separate pages are easier for visitors to scan and far better for search rankings, because Google can match each page to a specific search. A solicitor's website, for example, performs much better with individual pages for conveyancing, wills and family law than with one page headed "Services".

4. Contact page

Make it as easy as possible to get in touch. Include a short contact form, an email address, a phone number if you want calls, your address and a map if location matters, and your opening hours. Tell people what happens next and how quickly you reply. Keep the form short: name, email, phone and a message is enough for most businesses.

5. Legal pages

UK businesses need a privacy policy if the site collects any personal data (a contact form counts), cookie information and a choice if non-essential cookies are used, and terms of business if you sell or take payments online. Limited companies must also display their registered name, number, place of registration and registered office address, usually in the footer. These pages are not glamorous but their absence undermines trust and can cause legal problems.

Pages Worth Adding

Once the essentials are in place, these pages add credibility, answer objections and bring in search traffic:

Businesses that take appointments should consider a proper booking system rather than a page that just asks people to phone, and businesses with recurring customers or gated content may want a members' area. Both are features rather than pages, but they shape the structure of the site.

How Many Pages Does a Startup Website Need?

Most small business websites have between five and ten pages. The right number depends on how many distinct services you offer, because each one deserves its own page:

• Consultant or freelancer: five to seven pages.
• Trade or local service business: six to ten pages, including a page per service and possibly per area.
• Startup: five to seven pages at launch, growing as the product does.
• Solicitors, accountants and other professional firms: ten to twenty or more, with a page for each practice area or service and team profiles.
• Online shops: a handful of core pages plus a page for every product and category.

More pages are not automatically better. A page with two sentences on it helps nobody. Launch with the pages you have good content for and add others as the content is ready. Our startup website design prices start from £2,400 for a custom-designed site of up to around ten pages, which covers most startups and small businesses comfortably, with an admin dashboard available if you expect to add pages and content regularly yourself.

Planning Your Site Structure

Once you know which pages you need, plan how they fit together before any design work starts:

1. Keep the main navigation short. Five to seven items is ideal. Group services under a single menu item with a drop-down if you have many.
2. Put the most important pages in the menu and the legal and secondary pages in the footer.
3. Use readable URLs that describe the page, such as /services/conveyancing rather than /page?id=7.
4. Give every page a next step. Each page should end with a clear call to action that leads towards an enquiry.
5. Link between related pages. Service pages should link to relevant case studies, FAQs and the contact page.
6. Sketch it on paper. A simple tree diagram of pages and sub-pages is all a designer needs to start, and it is one of the most useful parts of a website design brief.

What Every Page Should Include

Whatever the page, a few things should always be present: one clear heading that says what the page is about, content written for the visitor rather than for you, a call to action, a unique page title and meta description for search engines, and a layout that works on a phone. Images should be relevant and compressed so they do not slow the page down.

Pages You Probably Do Not Need

Some pages add clutter without adding value. A separate "welcome" or splash page delays visitors from reaching the content. Separate pages for mission, vision and values can usually be folded into the about page. Thin "area" pages that just swap the town name are ignored by Google and annoy visitors. A news page that is never updated signals a business that has stopped paying attention. If you cannot write at least a few genuinely useful paragraphs for a page, it probably should not exist yet.

Common Mistakes

• Listing every service on one page instead of giving each its own.
• A contact page with no form, or a form that asks for far too much.
• No calls to action, so visitors read and leave.
• Hiding prices entirely when a "from" price would reassure people.
• No about page, or an about page with no people in it.
• Missing legal pages and company details.
• Launching pages that say "content coming soon".

How We Plan the Pages of a Website

Planning the structure is the first stage of every project we take on. Before we design anything, we work through what the website needs to achieve, who it is for and which pages will get it there, and we advise on the pages that businesses in your sector typically need. The structure is agreed before the visuals are created, so the design is built around the content rather than squeezed around it afterwards. You can read about each stage in our guide to the website design process, see examples of finished sites in our portfolio, or contact us to talk through the pages your business needs.