How to Build a Small Business Website: 9 Steps, What Each Costs and How Long It Takes

How to build a small business website in nine steps

Each step below says what you do, what the screen shows, how long it takes and what it costs. The steps only you can do come first, because skipping them is how a site ends up with last year's hours and a contact form nobody tested.

What you need before you start:

• The one action you want a visitor to take: call, book, request an estimate, order or visit.
• Your business name, what you do, where, your hours, a phone number and an email address.
• Photos of your work, your team or your place; phone photos are fine and beat stock images.
• Proof: licenses, certifications, years in business, reviews you already have.

Step 1: Decide what the website has to make happen

Before a platform, a template or a headline, write down the decision the site has to support. A plumber needs someone with a leak to call. A bookkeeper needs an owner to understand the services and ask for a conversation. A bakery needs an order or a visit. Pick one primary action for the whole site; a second one can live on the contact page.

Then write the three to five questions a new customer asks before acting: service area, starting prices, turnaround, credentials, what happens at a first appointment. Those answers become the raw material for every page, whoever builds it, and they are the difference between a site that reads like a brochure and one that answers the visitor.

What it looks like: a one-page brief. Business name, what you do, where, the one action, the customer questions with their answers, and the tools you already use for booking, ordering or payments. Time: about an hour. Cost: nothing. A builder, a freelancer or Theo builds whatever it is told, and a clear brief removes a round of rework on every path.

Step 2: Get a domain name

The domain is the address people type, and it is the one part of the site to hold in your own name whoever builds it. Use the business name if it is available, and keep it short enough to read out over the phone. If the exact name is taken, add the city or the trade rather than a hyphen or a misspelling.

If you already own a domain, leave it where it is. It connects in step 8, and the old site stays live until the registrar's records update, so there is no gap. If you do not own one, buy it at a registrar or inside Theo when you publish; beyond the plan, the paid extras on Theo are a domain bought through Theo, top-up credits and the optional backlink packages in the Boost checklist.

Time: 15 minutes. Cost: a yearly fee to the registrar, billed separately from the build on every path. Two things to avoid: registering the domain in a freelancer's or agency's account, and buying a bundle of extra domains you will never point anywhere.

Step 3: Pick who builds it and what that costs

There are four ways to build a small business website, and they differ less in the launch price than in who keeps the site accurate afterward: who updates the hours, adds the new service page and notices when the contact form stops sending. Builder, freelancer and agency prices vary by vendor, so the table below describes each path by its shape, by who does that work after launch and by where the path stops. The dollar ranges, with their sources, are in the small business website cost guide, and the best website builder for small business post describes the builders one by one by the work they leave you. Theo is the path where the building, the hosting and every change after launch are handled from a chat, and these are the situations it is built for:

• Nobody in the business has two or three hours a week for an editor: on Theo there is no editor to learn, and each change after launch is a sentence typed in chat.
• The site will keep changing after launch, with a new service, a new town or a price change every few months: on Theo you type each one into chat, and it is paid for from the plan's monthly credits rather than billed per change.
• There is no room for a retainer every month, but the site still needs pages added and issues fixed after launch: on Starter, $69.99 a month and free for the first 30 days, that ongoing work is in the plan and uses no credits.
• You want to see a site before paying anything: on Theo the first build is free, so this decision can start from a first draft you can open on your phone and refine in chat.

The platform does not decide whether the site gets found

In Theo's audit of 5,974 small business websites, the share of sites with search data that got an estimated zero visitors a month from Google search was 47 percent on Wix (272 sites), 49 percent on Squarespace (177), 56 percent on GoDaddy Website Builder (145) and 35 percent on WordPress (687). The sample is the sites whose owners ran the free audit, not a random sample, and the platform shares run from 35 to 56 percent, so the platform alone does not decide it.

That is why the table above says who does the work after launch and where each path stops, and why those two columns matter more than the launch price. A site on any platform gets found when pages are added for the searches customers make, technical issues are fixed and the pages are submitted to Google, and that is work somebody has to do every month. Decide who that is in step 3, not in month six.

Step 4: Gather the words, photos and proof

Weak websites are rarely short on adjectives. They are short on evidence, and every path, Theo included, builds from what you hand over. Put each item in one folder, named plainly, before the build starts. Time: an afternoon. Cost: nothing but the afternoon. A page with the wrong hours is worth less than a plainer page with the right ones.

• Real photos of your work, your team, your place or your product, placed next to the claim they support. Ten good phone photos beat one stock image.
• The look: a logo file, your brand colors if you have them, and the URL of a site whose look you want matched, or two sites you like. On a builder this is the template choice; on Theo it is a line in the brief, and Theo can match the look of an existing site from its URL.
• Licenses, certifications, insurance and years in business, with the numbers where customers check them.
• Reviews you already have on Google or Facebook, quoted with the reviewer's first name and the date, and a link to your Yelp page rather than copies of its reviews.
• Menus, price ranges, service areas, lead times and payment options.
• Your limits, stated plainly: areas you do not serve, jobs you do not take, the smallest order you accept.
• Every contact detail, opening hour and booking link, checked against what is true this week.

Step 5: Build the core pages

A small business site needs a page for each distinct customer question, not dozens of pages: a homepage that says what you do and for whom, a page for each service or product people compare, an about page carrying the proof from step 4, a contact or booking page, and a short page of answers to the questions that stop people acting. The seven-page checklist lists what goes on each page, so this step covers only how to get them built.

On a builder, this is the step that eats the weekends: pick a template, learn the editor, place every block, then repeat for each page. With a freelancer or agency it is drafts, comments and approvals, and each round has a date attached. With Theo it is a conversation, and this is what the screen shows:

1. Describe the business in the chat: what you do, where, for whom, and the one action from step 1. If you already have a site, paste its URL and Theo matches the look.
2. Wait for the first preview, which is usually ready in minutes. The first build is free, so you see a full first draft of the site before deciding anything.
3. Refine it in chat, in plain English. There is no drag-and-drop editor: type "Move the fifth section above section two" or "Add a page for water heater repair" and Theo makes the change. Drag photos straight into the chat.
4. Check each page against the brief: the one action, the customer questions, the proof from the folder. When something is missing, ask for it in a sentence.
5. Publish, choosing Basic, the 30-day Starter trial or Pro: the site goes live on a temporary address, which you can open on your phone and send to a friend; your own domain takes over in step 8. From then on, changes you ask for in chat use the plan's monthly chat credits (1,500 on Basic, 4,500 on Starter, 7,000 on Pro): a small edit uses a little, a new page more, a redesign the most. Top-up credits roll over and never expire.

• Time: on Theo, minutes for the first preview and then as long as you choose to spend refining it; on a builder, plan for an evening or two per page the first time through.
• Cost: the plan or project fee from step 3. The demo plumbing site below shows the shape the core pages take for a trade: the call button in the header, one page per service, one per town, and the license details with the reviews.

Step 6: Connect the store and the tools you already use

A small business rarely needs the website to run everything. It needs the website to connect to the things that already run the business: the store, the booking calendar, the reservation system, the point of sale. Building those into a site from scratch is where budgets and timelines break; linking to them takes minutes.

• Online store: Shopify and Wix stores connect directly to a Theo site on every plan. Products, prices and stock appear on the site with a cart, checkout completes on the store, and after you change a product you open the E-commerce tab and click "Refresh my products". For a new store, Theo recommends Shopify; the Shopify connection page explains what appears on the site and what stays in the store.
• Selling on Etsy, WooCommerce, Square Online, Big Cartel, Gumroad, Payhip or PayPal: you keep the checkout you already have. Theo builds a storefront that links to your real listings, and the store can also live at shop.yourdomain.com.
• Booking, reservations and scheduling: Calendly, Square Appointments, Acuity, Mindbody, Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Toast, OpenTable and Eventbrite are linked from the site, not replaced. The button on your site opens the tool your customers already know.
• Payments and member areas: Theo does not process payments or run a member database. The connected store or tool does that work, and the site itself is a static website served over HTTPS.
• Time: one session in the E-commerce tab for a store connection, a few minutes per booking link. Cost: included on every Theo plan. On a builder, whether a store is included depends on the plan tier; with a freelancer, each connection is a line on the estimate. The demo restaurant site below shows the pattern: the menu as text, hours on every page, and the reservation and ordering buttons pointing at the tools the kitchen already uses.

Step 7: Make the next step obvious and test it on a phone

A visitor can find the business credible and still leave because the next step is vague. Label the action with what happens next: "Request an estimate," "Book a consultation," "Order online," "Call for urgent help." Keep the phone number and the button visible on a phone without scrolling, and repeat the same action at the bottom of every service page, where a reader who has just been convinced is looking for it.

Then test it as a first-time customer would. Give a friend who does not work in the business a real task, such as booking a haircut for Saturday or getting a quote for a leaking water heater, and watch where they pause. Do not explain anything; write down what they did. The checks:

1. Open the site on a phone, on mobile data rather than the office wifi, and find the main service or product within two taps.
2. Read the homepage as a stranger: is it clear what the business does, where, and for whom, before scrolling?
3. Complete the call, inquiry, booking or purchase path all the way to the confirmation, and check that the form or booking lands in an inbox someone reads.
4. Tap the phone number and the address; the call should connect and the map should open.
5. Repeat on a laptop, then read every price, hour and service area against the folder from step 4.
6. Fix the one point of friction that most affects the decision before adding anything decorative.

• Time: an evening. Cost: nothing. On Theo you type each fix the test turns up into chat; on a builder it is another session in the editor; with a freelancer it is a change request.
• The demo barbershop below is what an obvious next step looks like: the booking link sits in the header and the prices sit next to the services, so a visitor who has picked a cut has nothing left to look for.

Step 8: Connect the domain, go live and set up Google

Going live has two halves, and the second is the one most owners skip. The first half is the domain. Theo walks you through pointing it at the new site, both the root name and the www version: turn off any forwarding or parking at the registrar, leave the email records alone so your mail keeps working, and expect the old site to stay live until the registrar's records update, usually within a few hours. Time: an hour of your attention, most of it waiting.

The second half is Google. A new site is not found by default. In Theo's audit of 5,974 small business websites, 48 percent of the 4,027 sites with search data got an estimated zero visitors a month from Google search, and the median was one (The State of Small Business Websites 2026). Three connections change that, and how to get your website on Google walks through each of them on any platform:

• Google Search Console, which is how the site's pages are submitted to Google for indexing. It connects once the domain is active; on Starter and Pro, submitting pages through Search Console is part of the search work Theo does.
• Google Analytics, so you see what visitors do once they arrive; it connects once the domain is active. The clicks and impressions compared in step 9 come from Search Console.
• Google Business Profile, which is what a "near me" search shows. Theo's Boost checklist walks through it and the other listings that matter: Facebook, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places and Yelp.
• Cost: hosting, security and HTTPS come with every Theo plan; the ongoing Google work is the Starter plan at $69.99 a month, free for the first 30 days, and Basic does not include it.

What happens on Theo once the domain is live

On Starter and Pro the growth work switches on once the domain and both Google connections are in place: Theo researches keywords and competitors, drafts pages, posts and landing pages, fixes technical SEO issues, improves page speed, submits pages through Search Console, works toward citations in AI search tools including ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, and reports all of it in the Growth tab and a weekly report.

None of that work uses chat credits, and none of it needs a request from you. What you see: a Growth tab that lists each page, post and fix as it is drafted, and a weekly email that summarizes it. What you do: review each draft in the Growth tab and publish it, or turn auto-publish on so drafts go live as they are ready; read the report; and tell Theo in chat when a new service, a new town or a price change should be reflected on the site.

Step 9: Keep the site working for the first 90 days

Launch is the start, not the finish. The first 90 days decide whether the site becomes a working part of the business or a brochure nobody opens again. The list below is the version an owner can run in about an hour a week; on Starter and Pro most of it is the growth work Theo does, and your part shrinks to reviewing the drafts and reading the report.

• Week 1, once: tell everyone. Put the address on Google Business Profile, invoices, email signatures, social profiles and the van.
• Every week, ten minutes: open Search Console and note which searches show the site and which pages get clicks. On Starter and Pro this is the weekly report in your inbox.
• Every two weeks, one page: add a page that answers a question customers asked by phone recently, such as a service you were asked about, a town you drove to, or a price question. Owner on a builder; Theo on Starter and Pro, where new pages and posts are drafted weekly and wait in the Growth tab for your review, or go live on their own once auto-publish is on.
• Every month, fifteen minutes: check that the hours, prices and service areas are still true, and send a test through the form to confirm it still lands in an inbox someone reads.
• At 90 days, one hour: compare clicks and impressions with the first month, and keep adding the kind of pages that are earning searches. On Theo the Growth tab lists every page, post and fix, so the comparison is a scroll rather than a spreadsheet.

What the first 90 days looked like for one customer

Buy My Lunch is a school lunch ordering service, and its site has been on Theo since June 2026. Over the 90 days that followed the move, Google sent 929 clicks from search, up from 131 in the 90 days before. Search impressions rose from 7,500 to 61,700 over the same two periods, and the average position moved from 13 to 8 as the growth work published pages. Those are the site's own Search Console numbers through September 27, 2026.

Every site starts from a different place and nobody can promise a ranking, so the number to take from this is not 929. It is the order of events: the site went live, the domain and the Google connections were made, pages were added week after week for the searches customers make, and the clicks followed the pages. On a builder that is your hour a week; with a freelancer each new page is billed; on Theo it is the growth work on Starter and Pro from step 3, which never uses chat credits.

Five things that stall a new small business website, and the fix for each

None of these is a design problem, and none needs a designer to fix. Each one costs a new site weeks or costs the business inquiries it never sees.

Frequently asked questions