Getting a website built for your small business should be straightforward, but there’s a surprising amount to think about. We’ve worked with dozens of small businesses across Gwynedd and beyond, and the ones who end up happiest with their websites are those who went in with a clear understanding of what they needed and what questions to ask.
This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s the checklist we wish every client had before their first meeting with any web developer — whether that’s us or someone else.
Before You Start: Define Your Goals
This sounds obvious, but it’s where most projects go wrong. “I need a website” isn’t a goal. Be specific:
- Do you want people to phone you, email you, or book online?
- Are you selling products directly, or is the site purely informational?
- Who is your audience — local customers, national clients, or both?
- What does success look like in six months?
A clear goal shapes every decision that follows. A local plumber needs a very different website from an online retailer, and the budget, technology, and content strategy should reflect that.
Domain Name
Your domain name is your address on the web. A few practical points:
- Keep it short and memorable — ideally your business name
- Prefer .co.uk for UK businesses targeting UK customers; .com if you have international ambitions
- Register it yourself through a reputable registrar (Namecheap, 123 Reg, GoDaddy) so you own it directly. Never let your web developer register it on your behalf under their account — if you part ways, getting your domain back can be a nightmare
- Set up auto-renewal — losing your domain because it expired is more common than you’d think, and competitors or domain squatters can snap it up within hours
Hosting
Where your website lives matters more than most people realise.
- Shared hosting (from around three to ten pounds per month) is fine for small brochure sites. Providers like Krystal, 20i, or Ionos offer solid UK-based hosting
- Managed hosting is worth considering if your site uses WordPress or another CMS — it handles updates, backups, and security patches for you
- Cloud hosting (Azure, AWS) is appropriate for larger or more complex sites, but overkill for most small businesses
- Check the data centre location — for UK businesses, UK-hosted sites will load faster for UK visitors and avoid potential data protection complications
Make sure whoever hosts your site provides daily backups. Ask them how you’d restore your site if something went wrong. If they can’t give you a clear answer, look elsewhere.
SSL Certificate (HTTPS)
Your site must use HTTPS. This is not optional in 2025:
- Google penalises sites without SSL in search rankings
- Browsers display prominent “Not Secure” warnings on HTTP sites
- If you have any forms at all (even a simple contact form), you’re transmitting data insecurely without SSL
- Let’s Encrypt provides free SSL certificates, and most decent hosting providers include them
If your web developer quotes extra for SSL, ask why. It should be standard.
Responsive Design
Your website must work properly on mobile phones, tablets, and desktops. Over 60% of web traffic in the UK comes from mobile devices. This isn’t a premium feature — it’s baseline functionality.
Test your site on:
- Your own phone (obviously)
- A tablet if you have one
- Different browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox at minimum)
- Both portrait and landscape orientations
Pay particular attention to:
- Navigation — can you reach every page easily on a phone?
- Text readability — is the font large enough without zooming?
- Buttons and links — are they large enough to tap accurately?
- Forms — can you fill them in comfortably on a small screen?
- Images — do they load quickly on a mobile connection?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Basics
You don’t need to become an SEO expert, but your website should cover the fundamentals:
Technical SEO
- Page titles — every page needs a unique, descriptive title tag (under 60 characters)
- Meta descriptions — a brief summary of each page (under 160 characters) that appears in search results
- Header structure — use H1 for the main heading, H2 for sub-sections, and so on. Don’t skip levels
- Fast loading times — Google uses page speed as a ranking factor. Compress images, minimise unnecessary scripts
- XML sitemap — helps search engines discover and index your pages
- Mobile-friendliness — Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it primarily uses the mobile version of your site for ranking
Content SEO
- Write for humans first — keyword-stuffed content reads terribly and search engines are smart enough to penalise it
- Use the phrases your customers actually search for — if people search for “plumber Dolgellau”, make sure those words appear naturally in your content
- Keep content fresh — a blog or news section that’s updated periodically signals to search engines that your site is active
- Claim your Google Business Profile — this is free and crucial for local businesses. It puts you on Google Maps and in local search results
Contact Information and Forms
Make it ridiculously easy for people to get in touch:
- Phone number visible on every page — ideally in the header, and make it a clickable link (
tel:01234567890) on mobile - Contact form that’s simple and works reliably. Name, email, message — that’s usually enough. Every extra field reduces the number of enquiries you’ll receive
- Email address as a fallback for people who prefer it
- Physical address if applicable, especially for local businesses (this also helps local SEO)
- Opening hours if relevant
Test your contact form regularly. We’ve seen sites where the form has been silently broken for months because no one checked whether the emails were actually arriving.
GDPR and Privacy
If your website collects any personal data — and a contact form counts — you need to comply with UK GDPR:
- Privacy policy — a clear page explaining what data you collect, why, and how you store it
- Cookie consent — if you use analytics, advertising cookies, or any third-party services that set cookies, you need a consent mechanism
- Form consent — include a checkbox or clear statement about how submitted data will be used
- Data retention — have a policy for how long you keep enquiry data and when you delete it
This doesn’t need to be complicated or written in legalese. The ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) provides templates and guidance specifically for small businesses. It’s worth spending an hour on their website.
Analytics
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. At minimum, set up:
- Google Analytics 4 — free, comprehensive, and the industry standard. It tells you how many visitors you’re getting, where they come from, which pages they view, and how long they stay
- Google Search Console — free, shows you which search queries bring people to your site, and flags any technical issues that might affect your search visibility
Check your analytics monthly. You don’t need to become a data analyst, but knowing basic trends — is traffic going up or down, which pages are most popular, are people finding you through search or social media — helps you make informed decisions about your site.
Accessibility
Your website should be usable by everyone, including people with visual impairments, motor difficulties, or cognitive disabilities. Beyond being the right thing to do, it’s also a legal requirement under the Equality Act 2010.
The basics:
- Sufficient colour contrast between text and background
- Alt text on all images describing what the image shows
- Keyboard navigation — every interactive element should be reachable without a mouse
- Clear, readable fonts at a sensible size (16px minimum for body text)
- Descriptive link text — “Read our pricing guide” rather than “Click here”
Performance
A slow website loses visitors. Research consistently shows that if a page takes more than three seconds to load, a significant proportion of visitors will leave before it finishes. For a small business, every lost visitor is a potential lost customer.
Quick wins:
- Optimise images — this is almost always the biggest factor. Compress them and serve them in modern formats (WebP)
- Choose decent hosting — the cheapest shared hosting can be painfully slow during peak times
- Minimise plugins and scripts — every third-party widget (chat tools, social media feeds, analytics scripts) adds load time
- Use caching — most hosting platforms and CMS systems have caching options that dramatically improve repeat visit speeds
Test your site’s speed with Google’s PageSpeed Insights (free) and address the issues it flags.
Content Strategy
The most common mistake we see is treating content as an afterthought. A beautifully designed website with thin, generic content won’t convert visitors into customers.
- Write your own content or at least provide detailed input to a copywriter. No one knows your business better than you
- Be specific — “We provide comprehensive solutions for your business needs” says nothing. “We install and maintain central heating systems for homes across Gwynedd” says everything
- Include testimonials if you have them — social proof is powerful
- Update your site — even if it’s just a news item every couple of months, it shows the business is active
- Photography matters — stock photos are fine for some uses, but real photos of your team, premises, and work build trust in a way that generic imagery can’t
The Handover
When your website is complete, make sure you have:
- Login credentials for your hosting account
- Login credentials for your domain registrar
- Admin access to your CMS (if applicable)
- A copy of the website files and database
- Documentation on how to make basic content changes
- A clear agreement about ongoing support and what it costs
You should never be locked into a single developer or agency because they hold the keys to your website. A good developer will make sure you have full access and ownership from day one.
Final Thought
A website for a small business doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive, but it does need to be done properly. Cut corners on hosting, skip the SSL certificate, ignore mobile users, or neglect accessibility, and you’ll end up paying more to fix it later than you would have spent getting it right from the start.
Take this checklist to whoever’s building your site — whether that’s a freelancer, an agency, or yourself — and make sure every item is addressed. Your website is often the first impression a potential customer has of your business. It’s worth getting right.
