A local business homepage needs nine things, and they belong in a particular order, because a visitor on a phone meets them one screen at a time and leaves at the first one that is missing. Here they are, top to bottom, with what each is for and the way each usually goes wrong.
1. The first screen: what, where, how
Before any scrolling, a stranger should be able to read what you do, the area you do it in, and how to contact you right now. In practice that is:
- A headline that is a plain sentence naming the trade and the town. Not a slogan.
- One line under it saying what you are most hired for.
- A button that dials your phone, and a second one that opens the form.
- Your own photo of your own work behind or beside it, if you have one.
The usual mistake is putting something else here: a welcome message, a slider, a mission statement, an announcement bar. Everything above the headline pushes the thing that converts off the screen.
2. The promises you can keep
Two to four short lines, right under the first screen, saying how you work: "Written quote before we start", "We answer the phone ourselves", "Licensed and insured, ask to see it". Only things that are true and that you control. Not "Satisfaction guaranteed" unless you mean something specific by it. This is where a visitor decides you are a real business rather than a brochure.
3. The services, as a list someone can scan
The three to eight things you want to be hired for, each with a name a customer would use and one sentence saying what it involves. Each one that matters enough gets its own page, which is what Google finds when someone searches for that service in your town. "Everything plumbing" is not a service list; "Drain cleaning. Water heaters. Emergency repairs. Repiping." is.
4. Proof: reviews with a source
Real reviews, with the platform named and a link to the rest of them. A Google rating that links to the Google listing is believed because it can be checked. Five anonymous quotes are not. If you have no reviews yet, this section is honestly empty and the page is shorter; it is not filled with quotes from nobody.
5. Proof: your own work
Photos of jobs you actually did, each with a line saying what it was. For a roofer or a landscaper this is the most persuasive section on the page. For a dentist it is the practice and the team. For everyone it has to be real; most people recognise stock photography and discount the whole page when they see it.
6. How a job goes
Three steps: what happens when they call, what happens next, what happens on the day. This is the section that answers "what am I getting into?", and it reduces the hesitation that stops people from making the call. Keep it to three steps and keep each step honest.
7. Who you are
A name, a face, how long you have been doing this, why. A paragraph, not a page. People hire people, and a local business without a person on it reads as a franchise.
8. Where you work
The towns you cover, named, so that someone in one of them knows they are in range and so that Google can connect the page to the places. A map helps when it shows the area; a list of twenty towns in small type helps nobody.
9. The question that is still in the way
Four to six questions people actually ask before hiring you, answered plainly: do you charge to come out, how soon can you come, which towns, what happens next. End the page with the phone number and the form again. The person who read this far is ready.
The order matters more than the parts
Most local business homepages have most of these nine things somewhere. The problem is the order: the proof is above the offer, the about page is before the services, the phone number is at the bottom. Put them in the order above and the same content converts better, because each screen answers the question the visitor has at that moment.
If the first screen says what, where and how, and the phone number works, you are ahead of most of the sites in your town. Everything below is what turns a visit into a call.
Where to start
Compare your homepage against the nine on a phone. Write down which are missing and which are out of order. Then either fix them on the site you have (fix it or start over is the test for which) or build the page right from the start.
The free website audit checks the top of this list automatically — whether the headline and title are there, whether the page is mobile-friendly, whether there is a way to call — and the rest of this list you can check yourself in a few minutes. If the problem is bigger than the homepage, why your website isn't generating leads is the wider diagnosis.
The emphasis shifts by trade. See what the nine look like on a site for plumbers, dentists or roofers.