How Many Pages Should a Small Business Website Have?

Most small business websites should have between 8 and 15 pages. Below about six you usually have nothing to rank with; above about twenty-five, without a real reason for each page, you start diluting rather than adding.

The number itself matters far less than the rule behind it: one page per thing you want to be found for. Get that right and the count works itself out.

The pages nearly every small business needs

Home. What you do, who for, where, and one obvious next step. It is not a menu — it is an answer.

About. Consistently among the most visited pages on any small business site, because people want to know who they are dealing with before they contact you. Real photographs of real people. Skip the stock imagery; everyone recognises it and it costs you trust.

One page per service. This is the important one and I will come back to it.

Contact. Every method you actually monitor, a form, your hours, and your address if you have a public one. If you serve an area rather than a location, say which area explicitly.

A proof page. Portfolio, case studies, past work, testimonials — whatever fits your trade. Something that demonstrates you have done this before.

Privacy policy. Not optional if you have a contact form. Under GDPR and its equivalents you are collecting personal data the moment someone submits one.

That is six, plus however many services you offer.

Why one page per service is not padding

This is the single most common structural mistake we see. A business offering six services puts all six on one "Services" page with a paragraph each, and then wonders why they never appear in search for any of them.

Google ranks pages, not businesses. A page with six services covered shallowly is not a strong answer to any of the six questions. Six pages, each covering one service in genuine depth, can each rank for their own searches — and each gives you somewhere specific to send people, which matters as much for conversion as for search.

The test is simple: if someone could search for it, it needs its own page. "Emergency plumbing", "bathroom installation" and "boiler servicing" are three searches with three different intents, three different price points, and three different sets of worries. They are three pages.

Pages worth adding once the basics are solid

Pricing. Uncomfortable but powerful. Even a range, or a "from" figure, or a worked example. Businesses that hide pricing entirely get more enquiries and fewer customers, because the extra enquiries are people who were never going to afford it.

FAQ. Genuinely useful for search, because it answers questions in the exact form people type them. It is also what AI assistants and Google's answer boxes lift from most readily.

Location pages, but only if you have something real to say about each place. A page for each town with the name swapped and nothing else changed is a doorway page, and Google demotes those as a group — it can drag the rest of the site down with them. Five genuine location pages beat fifty thin ones, comfortably.

A blog, if you will actually maintain it. Four good posts a year beats twenty thin ones and vastly beats a blog whose last post is from 2023, which actively signals abandonment.

Terms and conditions, and accessibility statement if you are in a regulated sector or selling to the public sector.

When more pages start to hurt

When they are near-duplicates. Fifteen location pages differing only by town name is the classic case, and it is worse than having none.

When they are thin. A 120-word page ranks for nothing and gives Google a reason to think less of the site overall.

When they compete with each other. Two pages targeting the same search means neither wins — search engines pick one and it may not be the one you would have chosen. This is called keyword cannibalisation and it is very common on sites that grew without a plan.

When nobody maintains them. Every page is a small ongoing commitment. Out-of-date pages cost trust.

A worked example

A domestic plumber covering one city, honestly scoped:

Home · About · Contact · Privacy — 4 Emergency plumbing · Bathroom installation · Boiler repair · Boiler installation · Drain clearance — 5 Recent work · Reviews · FAQ · Pricing guide — 4

Thirteen pages, every one of them earning its place, and five of them capable of ranking independently for a search with genuine buying intent behind it. That is a much stronger position than a 30-page site of which 20 pages are filler.

The honest summary

Start with home, about, contact, privacy, and one page per service. Add proof, pricing and an FAQ when you can write them properly. Add location pages only where you can say something true and specific. Add a blog only if you will keep it going.

And if you are choosing between adding five new pages and making your five existing ones genuinely good — make the existing ones good. It is not close.

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Not sure how your site should be structured? We map it out before designing anything, and we will tell you if you need fewer pages rather than more.