Nine things every London, Ontario business website should do

I look at a lot of local business websites: restaurants, clinics, shops, trades and salons, mostly around London and the rest of Southern Ontario. After enough of them you stop seeing designs and start seeing the same nine jobs, done or not done. Here they are, in the order that matters.

1. Say what you do and where, in plain words, before the scroll

A visitor should know what you do and whether you serve them without scrolling. Not your tagline, and not "Welcome to our website." The actual thing, and the actual place.

"Family dentist in north London, accepting new patients" beats "Your smile is our passion" every time, because it answers a question somebody actually has.

2. Make the next step obvious, and make it one step

Every business has one action worth more than the rest: call, book, order, request a quote, or come in. Pick it and design the page around it. One main button, repeated as the visitor scrolls, in the same words every time. Keep the other routes available, just quieter.

If you cannot name the one thing you want a visitor to do, your website cannot either.

3. Put a tappable phone number where a thumb already is

Someone ready to call should be one tap away. Make the number a real link, keep it visible near the top on phones, and if calls are your main goal, consider a slim call bar that stays on screen without covering anything.

4. Answer the questions you get on the phone every week

You already know them. Do you take walk ins? Is there parking? Do you service that brand? How long does it take? Do you come out to Dorchester? Is there a fee for an estimate? Are you open Sundays?

Every one of those left unanswered is either a call you have to take or a customer who went somewhere clearer. Write them down for a week, then answer them on the site in your customers' own words. This one exercise often improves a local site more than a redesign would.

5. Show that real people run the business

Trust does not come from stock photography. Three real photos of your storefront, your team and your work beat any amount of polish. Put a few genuine reviews on the page, next to the service they mention.

6. Load fast on mobile data

Not on your office wifi. On a phone, on data, standing outside somewhere. That is the condition your site is judged in.

The usual culprits are oversized photos, too many scripts and add ons, and heavy fonts. Run a free speed test such as PageSpeed Insights, then fix the biggest problem it names first.

7. Be designed for a phone, not shrunk onto one

A site that merely reflows is different from one designed for a small screen. On a properly built mobile layout, the important thing comes first, buttons are big enough for a thumb, text is readable without pinching, and nothing scrolls sideways.

Open your site on your phone and try to book, call or order in under fifteen seconds. Whatever annoys you in that test annoys every customer, all day.

8. Give each important service a real page

If you want more of a particular job, give it its own page: what the work involves, where you offer it, what it costs or what drives the cost, how long it takes, and how to start. A good page for each service you care about beats a thin page for every keyword you can think of.

9. Save you time behind the counter

This is the one nobody puts on a checklist, and it is often worth the most.

Your website can take bookings straight into your real calendar. It can collect the six things you always ask before quoting, so the estimate is half done before you call back. It can send confirmations, reminders and follow ups on its own, and stop you retyping the same customer details into three systems.

Judge your site by two numbers: the enquiries it brings in, and the hours it gives back.

Run the test yourself

Open your website on your phone and set a timer for thirty seconds. In that time, can a stranger tell what you do, tell whether you serve their part of London, and start the one action you most want them to take?

If not, you do not have a design problem. You have a missing job, and now you know which of the nine it is.