Website planning worksheet for small business owners

Before you pick a builder or hire anyone, answer a short set of questions about your business on paper. Those answers decide what your website says, how many pages it needs and what the main button does. This worksheet takes about an hour with a cup of coffee. Print it, or copy the questions into a notebook, and write the answers in your own words.

How to use this worksheet

Do not aim for polished sentences. Write the way you would talk to a new employee on their first day. Short answers are fine. Where you are not sure, write "not sure" and move on; those gaps are useful, because they show you what to decide before the site is built.

Keep the finished pages. You will hand them to whoever builds the site, or use them yourself if you build it. They also make it easy to compare quotes, because every provider gets the same answers.

Part 1: Your customers

1. Who calls you most often? Homeowners, landlords, parents, retirees, other businesses? Be specific. "Homeowners in older houses who need wiring updated" is more useful than "everyone".
2. What has usually just happened when they look for you? A pipe burst, a wedding got booked, a tooth started hurting, a new baby arrived.
3. What do they worry about before they call? Price, being upsold, mess in the house, whether you will turn up.
4. What do they ask on the first call? Write the top five questions word for word.
5. Are they mostly on a phone or a computer when they find you? If you do not know, assume a phone.

Question 4 is the most valuable on this sheet. Those five questions, answered clearly, are most of your home page.

Part 2: What you sell

6. List every service or product, then circle the three that bring in the most money or that you most want more of.
7. What do you not do? Writing it down saves calls you would turn away. "We don't do commercial roofs."
8. Do you show prices? Exact, "from" prices, ranges, or none? Write which, and why.
9. What is included that customers do not expect? Free estimates, cleanup, a warranty, delivery, a follow-up visit.
10. Is anything seasonal? Snow removal, holiday orders, summer camps. Seasonal items need a plan for when they come off the site.

Part 3: Where you work

11. Do customers come to you, or do you go to them? Or both?
12. If they come to you: your full address, parking, which door to use, accessibility, nearby landmarks.
13. If you go to them: list the towns or neighborhoods you serve, and how far you will travel. Name real places.
14. Your hours. Office hours and job hours may differ. Do you take emergency calls?

Part 4: Why someone should pick you

15. How long have you been doing this? Since what year?
16. Licenses, insurance, certifications, memberships that matter in your trade. Write the numbers down.
17. Three things customers praise you for, taken from real reviews or thank-you notes.
18. What is different about how you work? Something true and checkable, such as "the owner does every estimate" or "we text a photo when the job is done". Avoid "quality" and "service"; everyone claims those.
19. Where are your reviews? Google, Facebook, Yelp, a trade directory. Copy three short ones you like.

Part 5: What you want visitors to do

20. Pick one main action: call, fill in a form, book online, come in, order, ask for a quote.
21. Who answers? You, a spouse, an office manager? How fast, realistically?
22. Which email should form messages go to? Make sure it is one somebody reads every day.
23. Do you take texts? Only say so on the site if you answer them.

If you are unsure what the main action should be, calls to action for small business websites helps you decide.

Part 6: What you already have

24. A logo? In what form: a file from a designer, a sign, only on the truck?
25. Photos? Count roughly how many good photos of your work, your team or your place you have on your phone.
26. An existing website, domain or business email? Write down where each one is and whether you know the login.
27. A Google Business Profile? Is the information on it correct?
28. Printed materials such as flyers or brochures with text you could reuse.

The full gathering list is in the website content checklist.

Part 7: Upkeep and money

29. What will change on the site, and how often? Hours, prices, menu, staff, photos of new jobs.
30. Who will make those changes? You, someone in the family, the person who builds it?
31. What can you spend up front, and what can you spend each year? Write both numbers. Yearly costs are where small businesses get surprised.
32. When do you need it? A real date, and why. "Before spring season" is a good reason.

Reading your answers back

When you finish, look across the sheet for three things:

Your headline. It usually comes from questions 6, 13 and 20 together: what you do, where, and what to do next. "Pet sitting and dog walking in west Austin. Call or text to set up a meet-and-greet."
Your page list. Each circled service from question 6 may deserve its own page. Parts 3 and 4 often become a service area or location section and an about page.
Your open questions. Every "not sure" is a decision to make before building, not during.

What to do this week

Set aside one hour and fill in Parts 1 and 5 first. They matter most.
Ask a family member or employee to read your answers to Part 1 and tell you what you missed.
Copy the five first-call questions onto a separate card. Keep it next to you when you review any draft of your site.
Gather the logins from Part 6 into one safe place.

Once the worksheet is filled in, you can see a first website for your business built from your business and town, and use your answers to check whether it says what your customers need to hear.