The first conversation about a new website is usually about looks: colours, a reference site, maybe an animation. Design matters, but it is not where most business websites succeed or fail. They fail because the visitor cannot quickly tell what the company does, whether it serves people like them, and how to get in touch.
A business website has one job: help the right visitor understand what you offer and take the next step, which is usually an enquiry, a call or a visit. Everything on the site should serve that. This post goes through the pages, features and content a business website needs, what usually does not need to be built, and what to have ready before you contact a developer.
If your project involves people logging in, managing records or completing tasks, you are describing a web app rather than a website, and the planning is different. The difference is covered in website or web app. Everything below is about the presentation site most companies need.
Start with the visitor, not the sitemap
Before listing pages, write down who visits and what they want. For most businesses there are three or four kinds of visitor:
- A potential customer comparing options and deciding whether to contact you.
- An existing customer looking for a phone number, an address, opening hours or a document.
- A partner, supplier or investor checking that you are real and established.
- A job applicant looking for open roles or a sense of the company.
The potential customer is almost always the priority. Ask what that person needs to see before they write to you: what you do, proof that you do it well, where you operate, and a clear way to reach you. The page structure follows from those answers.
The pages most business websites need
Home page
The home page is not a summary of everything. It answers three questions within the first screen: what you do, who it is for, and what to do next. A clear heading that states the offer in plain words beats a slogan. Below that, short sections lead to your main services, a few pieces of proof such as projects or products, and the contact path.
A useful test: show the home page to someone outside your company for five seconds and ask what you sell. If they cannot say, the heading needs work, not the design.
One page per service or product line
A common gap is a single "Services" page with six bullet points cannot rank on Google for any of them, and it gives a customer nothing to go on. Each main service deserves its own page that explains what it includes, who it suits, how the work runs, and what the customer should do next.
Service pages are also where search traffic lands. Someone searching for a specific service should arrive on the page about that service, not on the home page. If search matters to you, plan these pages first. The basics of getting found are in SEO basics for businesses in Lebanon, and they apply well beyond Lebanon.
Projects, products or case studies
Proof matters more than claims. Depending on the business, this is a projects page, a product catalogue, a portfolio or a set of case studies. Each entry should say what it was, what was done and, where possible, show it. Real photos of your own work and premises are worth far more than stock images.
About
The About page is where visitors decide whether to trust you. Say who is behind the business, how long you have operated, where you work and what you care about in the work. Keep it specific.
Contact
The contact page should make contact easy in whatever way your customers prefer: an enquiry form, an email address, a phone number, a WhatsApp link if that is how your customers talk to you, an address with a map if people visit you, and opening hours. Put a short contact path on every page too, not only here.
Blog or news, if someone will maintain it
A blog helps with search and shows expertise, but only if it is kept up. A news page with one post from two years ago makes the business look closed. If nobody will write regularly, leave it out at launch and add it later.
Legal and practical pages
A privacy policy is expected on any site that collects personal data through a form, and some markets require one. Depending on what you do, you may also need terms of service or other notices. Your legal adviser should confirm what applies to you; the site just needs a clear place for these pages.
Features worth building
Most business websites need fewer features than people expect. These are the ones that consistently earn their place.
An enquiry form that reaches someone
A form is only useful if submissions reliably reach a person. That means the form sends to an address someone actually reads, emails do not end up in spam, every submission is also stored so nothing is lost if an email fails, and spam protection keeps bots out without annoying real people.
Ask for the minimum: name, a way to reply, and the message. Every extra required field loses some visitors. If your customers are international, a phone field with country codes avoids broken numbers. The Alpha Green website has exactly that kind of enquiry form with an international phone field.
Editing you can do yourself
If your team will update text, add projects or publish posts, the site needs an editing interface they are comfortable with. For many business sites that is WordPress with Elementor, which lets non-developers change pages without touching code. The AgriDev website was built that way so the team manages home, about, services, projects, blog and contact pages themselves.
When the site needs to pull data from your own systems or behave more like software, a custom build in Next.js with a content management layer can be a better fit. The trade-offs are covered in WordPress or a custom Next.js site.
Speed on a phone
Most visitors arrive on a phone, often on a mobile connection. Large images are the usual reason business sites feel slow. Images should be resized and compressed at upload, pages should cache, and heavy scripts and sliders should be questioned before they are added. AgriDev, for example, uses page caching to keep its image-heavy pages fast.
Arabic and English, if your customers use both
If your customers read Arabic, a properly built Arabic version is not a translation pasted into the English layout. Right-to-left pages need mirrored layouts, suitable fonts, and separate URLs per language so each version can be found in search. Decide early whether you need one language or two, because adding a second language after launch costs more than planning for it.
Analytics and Search Console
At launch the site should be connected to an analytics tool and to Google Search Console, so you can see which pages people visit, which searches bring them, and whether anything is broken. Set up conversion tracking on the enquiry form, because the number that matters is enquiries, not visits.
What can usually wait
Some things come up in almost every first conversation and are rarely needed at launch:
- A customer login area. If customers need accounts, invoices or files, that is a client portal, which is a separate piece of work. It is better planned on its own than squeezed into the website build.
- Live chat widgets. Unless someone will answer quickly, a chat box that goes unanswered hurts more than it helps. A WhatsApp link or a clear phone number often does the job.
- Pages for every possible audience. Launch with the pages your main visitor needs, then add pages based on what people actually look for.
Content: the part that delays most projects
The build is rarely what holds a website back. Content is. A developer can build pages quickly, but nobody else can write what your business does, choose the projects to show, or take photos of your work.
Before the build starts, prepare:
- Your logo in a vector or high-resolution format, and your brand colours and fonts if you have them.
- Text for each main page, even as rough drafts. A developer or copywriter can refine wording, but the facts must come from you.
- Photos of your real work, team and premises. A short professional photo session usually pays for itself.
- A list of projects or products to feature, with a few lines on each.
- Contact details exactly as you want them shown, including the email address enquiries should reach.
- Access to your domain and any existing hosting, or the details of who manages them.
If you have an existing site, also gather its current URLs and any traffic data you have. A redesign that changes URLs without redirects can lose search rankings you have built over years.
Ownership and setup
Your business should own its domain, its hosting account and its content, in its own name, not only hold a login someone else controls. Insist on that from the start. At launch, the site should be on HTTPS, have backups running and tested, send form emails from a properly configured address, and have a sitemap submitted to Search Console.
After launch, a website needs light but regular care: WordPress core and plugin updates checked before they go live, backups confirmed, and speed reviewed when content changes. Agree who does this before launch rather than after something breaks.
How I build business websites
I design and build business websites directly with the client, from page structure and content planning through design, development, hosting setup and launch. For sites the team edits, I build on WordPress with Elementor. When the site needs to be faster, more custom or connected to other systems, I build with Next.js and React, with the same attention to hosting, backups and monitoring that I give to larger products. You work with the person building the site from the first call to launch, and you own the result. The details are on the website development page, and more about my background is on the about page.
If you are planning a new website or replacing one that no longer brings in enquiries, get in touch with a short note on what the business does and who you want to reach, or ask for a call. Email hello@eliechaaban.com.