A restaurant doesn't need the same website as a roofing company. A hair salon doesn't need what works for a law firm. But most web designers build the same generic template for everyone and call it done.
Your website should be built around how your customers actually find you and decide to buy from you. Here's what that looks like for three of the most common small business types.
Restaurants and food businesses
When someone searches for a restaurant, they want three things fast: the menu, the location, and whether it's open right now. Everything else is secondary.
What a restaurant website must have
- Menu on the homepage — not buried behind two clicks. If your menu is a PDF, make it a webpage instead. PDFs are terrible on phones and invisible to Google.
- Hours and location above the fold — the first thing someone sees, no scrolling required
- Click-to-call phone number — one tap to order or reserve
- Google Maps embed — so people can get directions instantly
- Online ordering link — if you use DoorDash, Uber Eats, Toast, or your own system, make it prominent
- Photos of actual food — not stock photos. Real shots from your kitchen. Even phone photos beat generic stock images.
What restaurants don't need
- A blog. Nobody reads a restaurant blog. Put that energy into your Google Business Profile posts instead.
- An "about the chef" page nobody visits. A short bio on the homepage is plenty.
- Fancy animations. They slow your site down. Hungry people won't wait 4 seconds for your parallax hero to load.
- A custom reservation system. Use OpenTable, Resy, or a simple "call us" button. Don't reinvent the wheel.
Restaurant SEO priority
Your Google Business Profile matters more than your website for local restaurant searches. But your website reinforces it. Include your city name, neighborhood, and cuisine type in your page titles and descriptions.
Example: "Tony's Wood-Fired Pizza | Authentic Italian in Westport, Kansas City" beats "Tony's Pizza | Home" every time.
Salons and beauty businesses
Salon clients book based on trust. They want to see your work, read reviews, and book without calling. Your website is a portfolio and a booking engine.
What a salon website must have
- Portfolio/gallery of real work — hair transformations, nail art, lash extensions, whatever you specialize in. Before-and-after shots are gold.
- Online booking — embedded directly on the site. Square Appointments, Vagaro, Booksy, or Fresha. The fewer clicks to book, the more bookings you get.
- Service menu with prices — or at minimum "starting at" prices. People hate calling just to find out what a haircut costs. List your prices and you'll attract more of the right clients.
- Staff bios with photos — clients pick their stylist by vibe. A photo and a sentence about their specialty goes a long way.
- Reviews/testimonials — pull your best Google reviews onto the site. Social proof converts browsers into bookings.
- Instagram feed — if you're active on Instagram (and most salons should be), embed your feed. It shows fresh, recent work without you updating the website constantly.
What salons don't need
- E-commerce (unless you sell products heavily — most salons shouldn't prioritize this online)
- A separate "gallery" page with 200 photos. Show your 12 best shots. Quality over quantity.
- Blog content about hair care tips. It rarely drives salon bookings. Your time is better spent on Instagram and Google reviews.
Salon SEO priority
Target "[service] near [neighborhood]" searches. "Balayage salon Brookside" or "nail salon Overland Park" are the searches that turn into bookings. Make sure your service pages mention specific services and your location. Link your website to your Google Business Profile.
Contractors and home service businesses
Plumbers, electricians, roofers, HVAC techs, landscapers, painters — your website's job is to build trust fast and make it easy to call or request a quote. That's it.
What a contractor website must have
- Click-to-call on every page — visible, big, impossible to miss. Most contractor leads come from phone calls, not forms.
- Service area listed clearly — "Serving Kansas City, Overland Park, Olathe, Lee's Summit, and surrounding areas." Be specific. This helps Google too.
- Service pages for each offering — don't lump everything on one page. "Residential Plumbing," "Water Heater Repair," "Drain Cleaning" should each be their own page. More pages = more chances to show up in Google for specific searches.
- Photos of real jobs — finished projects, before-and-after, your team at work. Stock photos of a guy in a hard hat hurt more than they help. People can tell.
- Reviews prominently displayed — contractor businesses live and die by reviews. Pull your top Google reviews onto the homepage.
- License and insurance info — homeowners check. Put your license number and "fully insured" in the footer at minimum. Builds instant trust.
- Simple quote request form — name, phone, email, brief description. Don't ask for 15 fields. The shorter the form, the more submissions you get.
What contractors don't need
- Online booking. Unlike salons, contractor work requires a conversation or on-site estimate. A "request a quote" form or phone call is the right conversion action.
- A pricing page with exact numbers. Every job is different. "Starting at" pricing is fine, but don't lock yourself into numbers that vary by job scope.
- Chat widgets. Most contractors can't respond in real-time during the workday because they're on a job site. A chat widget that goes unanswered is worse than not having one.
- Video backgrounds or heavy animations. Your site needs to load fast, especially on cell phones at a job site where someone's toilet just broke.
Contractor SEO priority
This is where the right keywords make a huge difference. Create individual pages for each service you offer in each area you serve. "Water Heater Repair in Lee's Summit" as a page title will outrank a generic "Services" page every single time.
The common thread
Regardless of your industry, every small business website needs to answer three questions in under 5 seconds:
- 1.What do you do?
- 2.Where do you do it?
- 3.How do I hire you?
If a visitor has to scroll, click around, or squint to figure out any of those — you're losing customers.
What this actually costs
Here's the thing most business owners don't realize: a well-built, industry-specific small business website doesn't have to cost thousands. A restaurant site, a salon site, and a contractor site are different — but they're all achievable in the $350-600 range when you work with someone who understands small businesses.
The key is working with someone who asks about your business first, not someone who hands you a template and says "fill in the blanks."
Pick your path
If you're a restaurant: Focus on mobile menu + Google Business Profile. Those two things will drive more customers than anything else.
If you're a salon: Invest in great photos and embed your booking system. Make it frictionless to book.
If you're a contractor: Build out service-specific pages, plaster your phone number everywhere, and collect Google reviews like your business depends on it — because it does.
Need a website built for how your industry actually works? Let's talk — I'll tell you exactly what you need and what you don't.