What Makes a Good Small Business Website

Most websites fail for the same reasons

After building dozens of sites for small businesses, we keep seeing the same mistakes: slow load times, no clear CTA, walls of text, and designs that look broken on mobile. Here's what actually works.

1. Speed above everything

A visitor will leave your site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. That's not an opinion — it's data from Google. Every image that's too large, every unnecessary script, every bloated plugin costs you visitors.

We build on Nuxt.js, deploy on Vercel, and optimize every asset. Our sites consistently score 95+ on Google PageSpeed.

2. One clear action

What do you want the visitor to do? Call you? Fill in a form? Book an appointment? There should be one primary action, and it should be visible without scrolling. Don't make people hunt for your phone number.

3. Mobile-first, not mobile-afterthought

Over 60% of web traffic is on mobile. If your site looks broken on a phone, you're losing the majority of your visitors. We design mobile-first — every layout works perfectly on a 375px screen before we even think about desktop.

4. Clear copy, not clever copy

Your headline should say what you do in one sentence. "Premium hair salon in Ghent" beats "Where beauty meets excellence" every time. Be specific. Be direct. Visitors decide in seconds whether they're in the right place.

5. Social proof

Testimonials, Google reviews, client logos, a number of projects completed — any form of social proof dramatically increases conversion. People trust people. If someone else vouches for you, you've done half the sales job already.

The SiteSynth approach

Every site we build gets all five of these right by default. It's not optional — it's the minimum standard. Because a website that doesn't convert isn't just useless, it's actively hurting your brand.