A website for a small business: what do you actually need?

The carpenter with four employees has a Facebook page, an old one-screen site from 2015 and a phone that rings all day. Even so, he hears more and more often: “Do you have a website where I can see what you do?” Customers want to see photos of past jobs, know whether he covers their area and preferably book a site visit without calling. That is exactly what a small business website needs to do, and it is far less than many people think.

The short answer: a small business needs a fast, mobile-friendly site with a few good pages, clear contact options and a Google Business Profile pointing to it. The two big questions are about you: how much do you want to and can you do yourselves, and who looks after the site once it is live?

What should a small business website include?

The table shows the pages the vast majority of small businesses need. If you have several services people search for separately, such as “roof renovation” and “new kitchen”, give each its own page. It is the simplest way to be found for more searches.

Which features does a small business need?

Most small businesses can manage with fewer features than they are offered. Every feature must be maintained, and many plugins make a site slow and vulnerable. Split your wishes into what must be there from day one and what can wait until you know it is needed.

The exception is booking. For hairdressers, physiotherapists, tradespeople and others who live by appointments, online booking is often the feature that saves the most hours on the phone. We have built a solution for exactly that, described under website for tradespeople with booking.

What does a small business website cost?

The price depends mostly on who does the work and how much of it you take on yourselves. The table shows the typical levels. Remember to look at the total cost over three years, because low starting prices are often offset by higher running costs or your own hours.

Worked example: three years with a small business website

A physiotherapist with three practitioners compares two routes. DIY: a website builder subscription, a paid booking add-on and roughly 50 hours of their own work in the first year, plus ongoing hours for updates. The value of those 50 hours is the real question: spent on treatments, they are typically worth more than the subscription itself. Professional: our Small package costs DKK 18,000 plus DKK 600 a month, so 18,000 + 36 × 600 = DKK 39,600 over three years, including hosting, updates, support, security and backups, with one integration, for example to a booking system.

Should you build the website yourselves or hire a professional?

Website builders such as Wix, Squarespace and new AI tools have become good enough for a start-up to get a decent site up over a weekend. The question is what happens afterwards: who updates it when prices change, who takes care of speed and SEO, and what happens when you need booking or an integration with your accounting. The table below is our honest take.

If you want to dig deeper into the two routes, we compare them in AI website builder vs web designer and in website builder vs agency, where we also calculate the total cost over three years.

How does a small business get found on Google?

For most small businesses, visibility is about local searches like “electrician Roskilde” or “hairdresser Nørrebro”. Here your Google Business Profile and your website together decide whether you show up on the map and in the results. A small budget goes a long way when the groundwork is done properly.

1. Create and fully complete your Google Business Profile: category, service area, opening hours, photos and a link to the website.
2. Make one page per service with the service and your area in the heading, title and copy.
3. Use exactly the same name, address and phone number on the website, in Google and in industry directories.
4. Ask happy customers for a Google review, and reply to the ones you get.
5. Make sure the site is fast on mobile and has titles and descriptions that match the searches.
6. Show photos from real jobs with short descriptions of where and what.

We cover the technical foundation that makes this possible in our guide to an SEO-friendly website.

Which rules does a small business website have to follow?

Small businesses also have to follow the rules on cookies and personal data. If you use analytics or marketing tools that set cookies, you need consent first, and rejecting must be as easy as accepting. Contact forms and booking systems process personal data, so you need a privacy policy and data processing agreements with your suppliers. If you sell online, the company name, address, email and company registration number must be clearly shown, and your terms of sale must be in place.

The Danish Accessibility Act applies from 28 June 2025 to webshops among others, but micro-enterprises with fewer than 10 employees and turnover or a balance sheet of no more than EUR 2 million are exempt from the service requirements. Making the site accessible is still good business. Read more in our guides to GDPR for websites and apps and cookie banner rules, and check the details for your situation with a lawyer or the Danish Business Authority.

How does a small business keep its website up to date?

A website nobody touches for a year starts telling lies: prices are wrong, staff have left and a news item from last spring sits at the top. A fixed routine of half an hour a month is enough to avoid that.

• Check prices, opening hours and contact details.
• Send a test through the contact form or booking.
• Add a new case or a new photo from a job.
• Look at analytics: how many enquiries came in, and from which pages?
• Reply to new Google reviews.
• Make sure updates and backups are running, or that your supplier handles them.

Which mistakes do we see most on small business websites?

• The homepage tells the company history before saying what you do and where.
• The phone number is an image or buried at the bottom, so it cannot be tapped.
• No prices or price levels, so customers call a competitor who shows them.
• Stock photos of smiling strangers where photos of your own people and jobs should be.
• A contact form that sends to an inbox nobody reads.
• A theme with 20 plugins that have not been updated in two years.

Our Small package is made for exactly this situation: a fixed price of DKK 18,000 for up to 12 features and one integration, and a monthly price of DKK 600 covering hosting, updates, support, security and backups. You own the code and the domain. To see what your project costs, you can get a fixed price within 24 hours. And if you want to know what belongs on the homepage, read our guide to homepage design.