What to put on a business website? The key sections

Someone lands on your site from Google, from Instagram or from your business card. They have a question in mind, almost always the same one: is this for me, how much does it cost, where and when, how do I reach you.

A business website that works answers these questions in that order, without detours. Here are the sections that make it possible, and what usability studies say about each one.

What visitors look for first

At a glance, the page must say where you are, what the business does and what you can do there. That is the first principle the Nielsen Norman Group, a leading web usability firm, sets for a homepage (2024). A vague slogan or a “Welcome to our website” leaves those three questions unanswered.

The top of the page counts more than the rest. In an eye-tracking study by the same firm, run on desktop, 57% of reading time is spent on the first screen, and 74% on the first two (Nielsen Norman Group, 2018). People scroll, but their attention drops as they go down. So the essentials go at the top, and the secondary lower down.

The sections, in order

Here is the order that suits most shops, practices and craftspeople:

1. The opening. Your name, your trade, your town, a sentence that says what you do best, and a button: call, book, ask for a quote.
2. What you do. Your services, your menu or your treatments, in concrete words. “Bathroom renovation in Rennes and the surrounding area” says more than “tailor-made solutions”.
3. Prices. A rate, a range, a worked example. When the price depends on the job, give the price of a few typical cases: that is the Nielsen Norman Group’s advice for custom services.
4. Proof. Photos of past work, customer reviews, a few true figures: years in business, jobs delivered, weddings photographed.
5. Who you are. Your face, your team, your place. Web users ignore generic stock photos of people, and linger on those of the business’s real people (Nielsen Norman Group).
6. Practical info. Opening hours, address, access, parking, service area, accessibility for people with reduced mobility.
7. Frequent questions. The five or six questions people ask you on the phone, with their answers.
8. Contact. A number people tap to call (on a phone, a “tel:” link dials the number, as MDN notes), an email address, a short form.
9. The footer. The legal notices, the privacy policy, the links to your social networks.

The call-to-action button from the top comes back lower down, after the prices and after the proof, so that convinced visitors don’t have to scroll back up for it.

Adapting the order to your trade

The order bends to the questions your customers ask first:

• Restaurant: the menu, opening hours and booking come first. See the page about restaurants.
• Craftsperson: the service area and the quote request, then photos of jobs, before and after.
• Health or wellness practice: the treatments offered, appointment booking, access and parking.
• Photographer: the gallery first, the packages and rates next.
• Neighborhood shop: what people find at your place, the opening hours, the address.

What inspires trust

The Nielsen Norman Group boils trust down to four factors, stable for decades according to the firm (2016):

• A careful presentation: no spelling mistakes, no broken links, readable.
• Transparency: prices, terms and contact details are found without effort.
• Complete, up-to-date content: last winter’s menu or an expired promotion casts doubt on everything else.
• Links to the rest of the web: your reviews, your social networks, a local press article. A site cut off from everything seems to have something to hide.

What you can leave out

A business page gains from being short. Remove:

• the welcome message and the mood text that say nothing about you;
• the news section you won’t have time to keep up: a latest news item two years old can make people think the business has closed;
• stock photos showing people who don’t work for you;
• lists of values (“passion, quality, proximity”): show them through an example, a job, a review.

One obligation remains: the legal notices, which French law requires of any business website, with the identity of the company and of the host. They belong in the footer.

With the 29webs studio

The studio builds these sections one by one, slice by slice, from a library of blocks: an opening on a video background filmed from the scene you describe, then a statement, a gallery, a numbered list, prices, testimonials, figures, a quote, collapsible questions and answers, a contact and a footer. It also offers 24 ready-made layouts, by type of trade. The copy is written by an AI into the page, and is edited in one sentence.

In short: say first who you are, what you do and where, then your prices, your proof, your practical info and a simple way to reach you. Put the essentials at the top, show real photos and keep everything up to date.