Small Business Website Tips: 8 Plain Things That Make You Stand Out Online
Small business website tips that actually move the needle. A name people remember, a site built for the phone, real reviews, plain words, real photos, a clear next step, an obvious menu and the customer's own language. Google's own rules for each, and the order to fix them in.
By Boostable · 13 September 2026
Websites and SEO for Australian businesses · ~12 min read
Most small business websites don't stand out because they were never built to. They were built to exist. Someone paid someone, a site got made, and it sits there quietly failing to earn its keep. We've rebuilt hundreds of them since 2014, and the ones that start working share the same eight plain things. These are the small business website tips we'd give a mate over the bar, with Google's own rules behind each one so you don't have to take our word for it.
None of it is clever. That's the point. Nine in ten small business sites are the same beige soup: the same stock handshake, the same "we are passionate about" line, the same buried phone number. Do eight ordinary things properly and you stand out, not because you were clever but because nobody else bothered.
- Web design with Boostable: a site built to be found and to get the phone ringing.
- How to tell if your website is actually working
- The questions to ask your web designer before you sign
- How fast does your website need to be?
1. Pick a name people remember
Your domain is the thing people type into their phone at a red light, or try to remember from the side of your ute. Short. Easy to say. Easy to spell over a pub table. Skip the dashes, skip the numbers, skip the cute spelling. Your brand, or your town plus your trade. If the bloke at the bar can't remember it by the time he gets home, it's the wrong name.
The same rule applies to the page titles Google shows in its results. Google's advice is to "write descriptive and concise text" for every title, and to "avoid vague descriptors like 'Home' for your home page."[4] "Home" tells a searcher nothing. "Emergency Plumber Preston" tells them everything. Google also says the parts of your web address can show up in results as breadcrumbs, "so users can also use the URLs to understand whether a result will be useful for them."[9] A clean, plain address is a small win you get for free.
One caution. If the domain you have is ugly but it's been ranking for years, don't throw it away; moving a site is a job in itself and you can lose ground doing it. Buy the memorable one as well, put it on the van and the cards, and point it at the site you already have. The customer types the easy one; Google keeps the one it knows.
2. Build for the phone first
The ACMA's 2025 research found 97% of Australian adults used a mobile phone to go online, and 91% of those went online on it multiple times a day.[1] Even among Australians aged 75 and over, 88% used a mobile to go online, up from 18% in 2017.[1] Your customer is on a phone, often walking, often with one hand on a coffee.
Google is on a phone too. Its own documentation says it "uses the mobile version of a site's content, crawled with the smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking."[2] So a site that looks fine on a desktop and breaks on a phone is failing the customer and the crawler at once. Pull out your own phone and open your site. If you have to pinch and zoom to read anything, the job's not done. This is the bit most web designers still get wrong: they build on a big screen and test on a big screen, and the customer never sees it there.
Speed is part of the same tip. Google's Core Web Vitals say the main content should appear within 2.5 seconds, the page should respond to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and nothing should jump around as it loads.[3] Test it on mobile data in a car park, not on the office wifi. We've written a whole post on how fast a site needs to be.
3. Put your reviews on Google, then on the site
Reviews are the single biggest trust-builder on the internet. Not a shiny logo, not a stock photo of a handshake. Real reviews from real locals. Pew Research found 82% of adults read online reviews before a first-time purchase,[7] and Northwestern's Spiegel Research Center found purchase likelihood with five reviews is 270% higher than with none.[8]
They belong on Google first, because Google reads them: "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking."[5] Then show them on the site, with the rating and a link to the rest. Ask every customer who liked the job, the way Google itself suggests: "ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code."[6] Reply to every one; Google says helpful replies "can help your business stand out."[5] And never pay for one. Google calls incentivised reviews "fake and misleading content" and prohibits them.[6] Fifty real reviews will sell more work than a fifty-thousand-dollar ad campaign. It costs nothing. It just takes asking.
"Highly recommended Tamhas. The whole website construction process was made easy and the result is professional, functional and easy to use. Back up service has been a well appreciated bonus for us too."
Kevin Hill ★★★★★ Verified Google review
4. Write like a person, not a brochure
Your content is what Google reads and what customers read. Write it for the customer; Google follows. Google's own guidance calls this people-first content, "created primarily for people, and not to manipulate search engine rankings."[10]
Drop the corporate lines. "Industry-leading solutions" means nothing to a mum searching for a plumber at 7pm. "We fix blocked drains in Preston within two hours" does. Say what you do. Say where you do it. Say what it costs, if you can. Specific beats clever, every time.
✗ Brochure voice
- "Industry-leading plumbing solutions for modern homes"
- "We are passionate about exceeding expectations"
- "Servicing the greater metropolitan region"
- "Contact us to discuss your requirements"
✓ Plain talk
- "We unblock drains in Preston. Same day. $149 fixed."
- "Twenty years on the tools, licensed, insured, tidy"
- "Preston, Reservoir, Thornbury, Coburg, Heidelberg"
- "Call 0400 000 000 now, or book a time below"
5. Use photos that look like your business
Stock photos are lazy, and customers smell them from a mile off. Google's guidance asks whether your content "clearly demonstrate[s] first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge," the kind that comes from "having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place."[10] Nothing says first-hand like a photo of the actual van outside the actual job.
Pay a local photographer for one hour and get twenty shots of the real shop, the real team, the real work. Or use your phone. A genuine phone photo of your own work beats a glossy stock image of a handshake every time. Show the before and after. Show the faces. People buy from people.
What to photograph, if you're doing it yourself: the front of the shop or the van with the name on it, each person on the team doing their actual job, three or four finished jobs from the angle the customer would see them, and one photo of you talking to a customer. That's a full set. Take them in daylight, hold the phone level, and don't bother with filters. The rougher ones often do better, because they look like what they are.
6. Ask for the sale on every page
A website without a clear next step is a salesman who won't close. Every page should tell the reader what to do next: call this number, fill in this form, book this time. Don't make them hunt. Phone number at the top, a button at the bottom, a form partway down. When the customer is ready, they want the door open, not a scavenger hunt.
The number should be tappable on a phone, with the spaces in the visible number and none in the link behind it, so it dials cleanly. It sounds trivial. Then you watch someone try to copy a number out of a footer on a phone and give up.
Keep the form short. Name, phone, suburb, and one box for what the job is. Every extra field you add loses people, and you can ask the rest on the phone. Make sure the form actually sends, and that someone reads the inbox it sends to. We've seen sites where the form had been quietly failing for a year and the owner assumed nobody was enquiring.
7. Make the menu obvious
Top of the page. Services. About. Contact. Reviews, if you have plenty. That's about it. Every extra menu item is another reason for the customer to get lost. Every drop-down is another tap. Every clever category name is another thing they have to decode. Watch someone use your site; if they hesitate at the menu, the menu's wrong. Fix it until they don't.
The menu is also where most sites hide the things that sell. Reviews buried under "About", the phone number under "Contact", the service the business is best at sitting fourth in a drop-down. Put the money-makers where a thumb lands. If one service brings in half your work, it gets its own menu item and it goes first.
| Page | What a stranger should know in five seconds | What they should be able to do in ten |
|---|---|---|
| Home | What you do, where you do it, that real people rate you | Tap the phone number |
| A service page | What the job involves, what it roughly costs, how fast you come | Book or call |
| A town page | That you actually work there, and have | Call, or read a review from that town |
| About | Who you are, how long you've done it, your faces | Trust you enough to ring |
| Contact | Number, hours, area, a short form | Reach you without hunting |
8. Use the words your customer uses
Keywords aren't magic. They're the words people type into the search bar. If you fix hot water systems, the phrase on your page should be "hot water repair", not "advanced thermal solutions". Google's starter guide says it plainly: "think about the words that a user might search for to find a piece of your content."[9]
Write how the customer talks, not how your supplier catalogue talks. Don't stuff the words in; Google warns against that too.[4] Use them once in the heading, a couple of times in the body, and let the rest of the page read like a human wrote it. Because one did.
What it looks like when it's done
Take a plumber in Preston. The old site opens on a stock photo of a smiling man in a hard hat and a heading that says "Welcome to our website". The phone number is in the footer. The services page is one paragraph that mentions "plumbing solutions" three times. There are two reviews on it, both from the owner's cousin.
The rebuilt site opens with "Blocked drains and hot water repairs in Preston. Same day." over a photo of the actual van, the number tappable beside it, and the Google rating with three real reviews underneath. There's a page for blocked drains, one for hot water, one for gas, each saying what the job involves and what it usually costs. There's a page for each suburb he covers. The menu is five items. The whole thing loads in under two seconds on a phone. Nothing about it would win a design award, and it earns its keep from the first week, because a stranger can understand it in five seconds and ring in ten.
The same plain words are what AI assistants read, too. When someone asks Google's AI or ChatGPT for a plumber in Preston, the answer is built from the pages that say clearly what the business does and where. A brochure has nothing for an assistant to quote. A plain page does.
Tip three is the one most businesses skip, and it's the cheapest. The card and the text that collect your reviews are free.
Get the free review systemThe order to fix them in
If the site already exists and you're not starting over, don't try to do all eight in a weekend. Do them in the order that pays soonest.
Phone and next step
Tappable number at the top of every page, a button at the bottom. An afternoon's work, and it turns visitors you already have into calls.
Phone-first and fast
Open it on your phone. Fix whatever breaks. Get the main content up inside 2.5 seconds.[3]
Words and reviews
Rewrite the home page and each service page in the customer's words. Put the Google rating and three real reviews on the home page.
Photos, menu, name
Swap the stock for real. Cut the menu to what matters. Fix the page titles so none of them say "Home".
"Great service, no stress, gave him my requirements and he listened and returned a sample very quickly, made some tweaks and was up and running in no time, replies to questions quickly. He knows his stuff, I highly recommend Tamhas to take care of your website & IT needs."
Luigi Bonacci ★★★★★ Verified Google review
The simple truth about standing out
You don't need clever. You need clear. A domain people remember. A mobile site that works. Real reviews. Plain words. Real photos. An obvious next step. A simple menu. The customer's own language. Do those eight things better than the business down the road and you'll stand out, not because you were brilliant but because nobody else bothered.
- Open your site on your phone, on mobile data, away from the office. Time how long the first screen takes. Note anything you have to pinch to read.
- Read your home page heading out loud. If it could be any business in your trade, rewrite it: what you do, where, for whom.
- Check every page title. Any that say "Home" or just your business name get the service and the town added.
- Put your Google rating and three real reviews on the home page, and set up the review card and text so the count keeps growing.
- Replace one stock photo with a real one. Then another.
Build it plain. Build it local. Watch it work. If you'd rather we did the building, that's what our web design service is, and we've written more on how to know whether the site you have is actually working.
