Small Business Website Checklist: 20 Must-Haves, Explained

How to use this checklist

Open your website on your phone, not your laptop, and go down the list. That is how most of your customers will see it: standing on a pavement, deciding whether to come in, call or keep walking.

The twenty items fall into four groups: basics, trust, getting found, and habits after launch. No website yet? Read the list as a specification, then see how to get a free website for your small business.

The basics every customer needs (1–7)

1. A first line that says what you are and where. “Family bakery in Porto” or “24-hour emergency plumber in Dartford” tells a visitor in two seconds that they are in the right place, and tells search engines the same. How to check: show your homepage to someone for five seconds, then ask what you do and in which town.
2. A phone number you can tap. On a phone, a number that opens the dialler gets called; a number someone has to copy, or one inside an image, often does not. How to check: tap it on your own phone.
3. Your address, directions and a map. A Get directions button that opens the visitor’s maps app at your exact door saves them hunting for a side entrance or a shop in a back street. If you go to customers instead (plumbers, cleaners, mobile detailers), list the areas you cover. How to check: tap directions from across town and see where it takes you.
4. Opening hours that match Google exactly. Hours are one of the first things people check. When the site and your Google listing disagree, customers don’t know which to believe, and sooner or later someone arrives at a locked door. Holiday hours matter as much as regular ones. How to check: open both side by side and compare every day.
5. What you offer, in the words customers use. The menu, the services, the brands you stock, the classes on the timetable, with prices or a range where you can, because people choose before they call. How to check: can a first-time visitor find your best-known dish or service in two taps? Restaurants should also add the menu to Google Maps.
6. One clear next step. Decide what you want a visitor to do (call, book, order, walk in) and make that the most visible button. If you already use a booking or delivery system, link to it rather than setting up a new one. How to check: tap the button and get all the way to a booking or the order page.
7. Fast and readable on a phone. Pages should open quickly on mobile data and read without zooming. Video backgrounds, sliders and pop-ups slow the page and cover the phone number. How to check: switch off wifi and open the site, then try Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

Trust: why someone picks you over the place next door (8–12)

8. Real photos. The room, the counter, the food, the finished job, the team. Stock photos look the same on every site and tell the visitor nothing about you. How to check: would a regular recognise every photo as yours?
9. Real customer words. A few short quotes from your reviews say more than anything you write about yourself, especially quotes that mention something specific: a dish, a staff member by name, how quickly the job was done. How to check: every quote should be genuine and easy to trace to a real review. Why Google Maps reviews make the best website content explains the rest.
10. Answers to first-visit questions. Parking, step-free access, walk-ins or appointments only, children, dogs, vegetarian or halal options, card or cash, the areas you serve. A short FAQ saves phone calls, and the question-and-answer format is easy for search engines and AI assistants to read. How to check: write down the last five questions you were asked on the phone; each should be answered on the site.
11. Who is behind it. A sentence or two about the owner or the team and how long you have been there. Local customers like knowing whose business they are supporting. How to check: does a real name appear anywhere on the site?
12. The legal basics where you trade. If the site collects personal data, through a contact form or a newsletter sign-up for example, you will usually need a privacy notice. Some countries ask for more: Germany and Austria require an Impressum, a legal notice with the owner’s details. How to check: look up your country’s rules once, or ask your accountant.

Getting found on Google, Maps and AI assistants (13–17)

13. A page title and description that name what and where. The title is the headline people see in Google results. Business name | Wood-fired pizza in Leeds earns a click that Home never will. How to check: search your business name and read what Google shows. How to check your website’s SEO for free walks through it.
14. The same name, address and phone as your Google listing. When your site, your listing and your directory entries agree, nobody has to wonder whether they describe one business or two, search engines included. How to check: copy the address from your listing and compare it character by character, unit number and postcode too.
15. LocalBusiness structured data. A small block of code that states your business type, address, coordinates, hours and rating in a format machines read without guessing. The schema.org LocalBusiness type has more specific versions such as Restaurant, Bakery or HairSalon; use the closest one. How to check: paste your page’s URL into Google’s Rich Results Test.
16. Your website address on your Google Business Profile. The Website button on your listing is the most direct route from Maps to your site, and an empty or dead link wastes it. If yours still carries an old business.site link, it has led nowhere since Google switched those sites off in 2024. How to check: open your listing on a phone and tap Website. If it fails, here is how to add a website to your Google Business Profile.
17. Readable by search engines and AI assistants. Important facts should be real text on the page, not baked into images or available only as a PDF. A sitemap helps search engines find every page, and some sites also publish an llms.txt file, a plain summary for AI tools. How to check: search site: plus your address on Google to see what is indexed, and read how to get recommended by AI assistants.

After launch: keeping it working (18–20)

18. The address everywhere you already are. Your Instagram bio, your Facebook page, receipts, business cards, the van, the door, and a QR code on a table card. If you lean on social media today, how a website and your Facebook or Instagram page work together covers the links. How to check: count the places a customer could see your address this week.
19. Kept current. Holiday hours, a new dish, a service you stopped, a price change. A wrong detail costs more trust than a missing one. How to check: put a five-minute review in your calendar each month and before every public holiday, and change hours on Google and on the site together.
20. Reviews coming in, replies going out. Google’s help center names the number of reviews among the things that make a business prominent in local results, and new reviews give your site fresh material. Replies show the next reader how you handle a problem. How to check: have you replied to your last ten reviews? See how to respond to Google reviews, and for the bigger picture, whether a website helps your Google Maps ranking.

Which items blasa fills in from your Google listing

If your business has a Google Maps listing, much of this checklist is already sitting in it. That is the idea behind blasa: you paste your Maps link on blasa.shop and create your website for free, and a few minutes later it is live at yourbusiness.blasa.shop, written from your real reviews, photos, hours and listing data. Here is what it covers by itself:

• Basics (2–7): a tap-to-call button, Get directions with an embedded map, your hours with a live “Open now” badge in local time, the dishes or services reviews mention most plus a View menu link when your listing has one, and Book or Order online buttons when the listing carries those links. Pages are static, mobile-first and light.
• Trust (8–10): the photo gallery from your listing, a “What customers love” section with real review quotes, and a FAQ answered from reviews.
• Getting found (14, 15, 17): name, address and phone taken straight from the listing, so they match; LocalBusiness structured data with the most specific type; FAQPage markup; a sitemap; and an llms.txt file so ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini can read the facts.
• After launch (18): a printable QR code, and a dashboard that counts taps on Call, Directions and Book, plus visits from AI assistants.

What stays with you: a word about who you are (11), the legal check (12), pasting the new address into your Business Profile (16), and the habits in 19 and 20. To see the result on real businesses, look at The River Cafe in Dublin, a breakfast café whose site answers the parking and gluten-free questions, or Plumbers UK in Dartford, an emergency plumber whose site leads with round-the-clock call-outs. The small business website builder page has the overview.

What a small business website can skip at the start

Owners often put off a website because they think it needs everything on day one. None of these does:

• Lots of pages. One well-organised page answers most local questions. Add pages when you have something to put on them.
• A weekly blog. Useful later for answering questions in depth, not a launch requirement.
• Chat widgets and pop-ups. On a phone they tend to cover the call button, and the phone number already does the job.
• An online shop, unless you actually ship products. A café needs a menu and a link to the delivery service it already uses, not a cart.
• A custom design. Clear beats clever. People remember the food and the service, not the font.

What comes first does vary by trade. The guides for restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, bars and pubs, pizzerias, independent cinemas and convenience stores put this checklist in order for each one.