A guide

What goes on a page, and what doesn’t

Everything on a page is a decision: put it in, leave it out, or put it somewhere else. Here’s how I make twenty-seven of them, so you don’t have to.

On a phone

  • The menu

    How somebody gets to your other pages.

    I use it when

    There are enough pages to need one. On a small website the links fit across the top of the screen. Links a visitor can see get used far more than links hidden behind a button.

    I leave it out when

    Three or four links fit across the top of a phone screen. Hiding them behind a button costs a tap, and hides the one page the customer came for.

    Worth knowing: Where it does have to be a button, it goes top right, in reach of a thumb. It says the word MENU, not only three lines.

  • A sticky contact bar

    A strip pinned to the bottom of a phone screen with your number and WhatsApp in it.

    I use it when

    People phone you to buy. It keeps the one thing they came to do under a thumb no matter how far down the page they’ve got.

    I leave it out when

    It’s on the desktop too, where there’s no reason for it and it eats a strip of the screen. It also has to be short — a bar deeper than a thumb is an obstacle, not a shortcut.

  • A big header photo

    A full-width picture across the top of the page.

    I use it when

    The photo is genuinely yours and genuinely good, and the words sit on top of it rather than underneath it.

    I leave it out when

    It pushes everything else off the screen. On a phone a tall header photo can fill the whole first screen. A visitor scrolls past your name, your offer and your number before reading a word.

Words on the page

  • Bullet lists

    A list instead of a paragraph.

    I use it when

    There are genuinely separate items and each one is short. They’re quick to scan, and a short list is easy for Google or an AI assistant to quote back when somebody asks a question your page answers.

    I leave it out when

    It’s really a paragraph that’s been chopped up. Fragments that need each other to make sense read worse as bullets, not better.

  • Accordions (the expanding FAQ)

    Questions that stay closed until you click them.

    I use it when

    It’s a long reference list somebody dips into — twenty questions where each reader wants two of them.

    I leave it out when

    It’s the FAQ that answers objections. Those are the answers a sceptical reader is scanning for, and every click is another chance for them to give up. I leave those open.

    Worth knowing: Google reads what’s inside a closed accordion perfectly well, whatever you may have been told. The problem isn’t Google, it’s the customer who won’t tap.

  • Tables

    Rows and columns.

    I use it when

    The information is genuinely tabular — a price list, opening hours, sizes side by side.

    I leave it out when

    It’s being used to lay the page out. Tables get painful on a phone the moment they’re more than a few columns wide.

    Worth knowing: Used for real rows and columns, a price table is one of the easiest things for Google or an AI assistant to quote back.

Showing the work

  • A photo gallery

    A set of your work you can scroll through.

    I use it when

    The work is visual and there’s enough of it — a bakery, a landscaper, a salon. Then the photographs do more selling than any of the words around them.

    I leave it out when

    There are four photos and two of them are stock. A thin gallery makes a business look newer and smaller than it is. Better to show three real ones well.

  • Sliders and carousels

    Rotating banners at the top of a page.

    I use it when

    Essentially never. I don’t build them.

    I leave it out when

    Always, in practice. People scroll past before the second slide arrives, so whatever you buried on slide three is invisible to almost everybody. If it matters, it goes on the page.

  • Video

    A video playing on the page itself.

    I use it when

    It shows something words can’t — a process, a place, or you talking, which is worth a lot when somebody is deciding whether you’re real.

    I leave it out when

    It’s a slideshow with music over it. Video is heavy to load, plenty of visitors never press play, and a search engine reads far less of it than it reads of a paragraph.

Proof that you’re real

  • Google reviews on the page

    Your Google rating and reviews pulled onto the page automatically.

    I use it when

    You’ve got a decent number of real ones and a rating you’d put on the van. It’s the strongest proof on the page precisely because it’s the one thing you can’t edit.

    I leave it out when

    You’ve got four reviews and one of them is three stars. Then you’re showing people the reason not to phone you. Getting the reviews is a fortnight of asking, and it isn’t a website problem.

    Worth knowing: It pulls the reviews in from Google every time the page loads, so it slows the page down. I put it on one page, not on all of them.

  • A team page

    Photographs and names of the people who work there.

    I use it when

    People are letting you into their house or trusting you with their children. A face does more than a paragraph about values ever will.

    I leave it out when

    It’s one of you. Then it’s the About page. Calling one person a team reads as a business trying to look bigger than it is, which puts people off rather than reassuring them.

  • Testimonials

    Quotes from customers.

    I use it when

    They’re real, named and specific about what actually happened.

    I leave it out when

    You haven’t got real ones yet. “Great service” from “J.M.” is worse than nothing — it reads as invented, and it makes a reader wonder what else is.

    Worth knowing: Reviews on your Google listing do more work than quotes on your own site, because people trust the ones you can’t edit.

Getting hold of you

  • Opening hours

    When you’re open, written on the page.

    I use it when

    Being open at the moment somebody looks is what decides whether they phone. A restaurant, a salon, a shop.

    I leave it out when

    They’re wrong. Hours nobody has touched since the last public holiday do more damage than none at all, because somebody drives out to a closed door.

    Worth knowing: These belong on your Google Business Profile first, which is the listing that shows beside a Google search. Google puts your hours in the result itself.

  • A map

    A live Google map on your page, showing where you are.

    I use it when

    People come to you and might struggle to find you. A guest house, a restaurant, a preschool, a salon.

    I leave it out when

    You go to them. A plumber’s map tells the customer where the plumber lives, which helps nobody, and the map is heavy, so it slows the page down for nothing. A named list of the areas you cover does the actual job.

  • A contact form

    Fields somebody fills in instead of phoning.

    I use it when

    As the fallback for people who aren’t ready to talk yet. Some people will never phone a stranger.

    I leave it out when

    It’s the only way to reach you. Every extra field loses people — name, number and a message is almost always the whole form.

  • Live chat

    A chat window in the corner.

    I use it when

    Somebody is genuinely there to answer it.

    I leave it out when

    It’s one of you and you’re under a sink. A chat window nobody is watching is a promise you break within a minute of making it, in front of the customer.

Getting booked and paid

  • A booking calendar

    The customer picks a slot themselves and it lands in your diary.

    I use it when

    Your day is a grid of appointments — a physio, a salon, a driving instructor. Then it saves both of you a day of phone tag.

    I leave it out when

    Every job needs a quote before it needs a time. A plumber can’t book a slot for a leak nobody has seen yet, and a calendar standing in front of that conversation loses the job.

  • A price list

    What things cost, in writing.

    I use it when

    You can publish a real number. Somebody comparing three businesses phones the one that told them the price.

    I leave it out when

    Every job genuinely is different. Even then a starting price beats silence — “from R1,200” tells somebody whether to phone you at all, which is the only job that line has.

Finding your way around

  • Search

    A search box for your own site.

    I use it when

    There’s genuinely too much to navigate. A shop with a few hundred products.

    I leave it out when

    On an eight-page website a search box does the menu’s job badly. People type in words the website has never used, and get nothing back.

  • Breadcrumbs

    The small trail at the top: Home / Services / Geysers.

    I use it when

    Pages sit inside other pages and somebody can land three levels down straight from Google. A shop with categories.

    I leave it out when

    The site is flat. A trail reading “Home / About” tells a visitor something they already knew and takes up a line doing it.

    Worth knowing: Built right, the same trail can show under your listing in a Google result, which makes the website look bigger and better organised.

  • A back-to-top button

    A small arrow that jumps you back to the top.

    I use it when

    The page is genuinely long. A guide, or a full price list.

    I leave it out when

    The page is a normal length. On most phones a tap at the top of the screen already jumps you back, and a floating button sits on top of your own words to do the same job.

Things that end up on websites for no reason

  • A cookie banner

    The box asking permission to track somebody.

    I use it when

    You’re actually setting cookies that need consent — advertising trackers, and most ways of counting visitors.

    I leave it out when

    You aren’t. A banner on its own changes nothing. If the site sets nothing that needs consent, it’s an obstacle standing in front of your business for no reason at all.

    Worth knowing: This gets decided before the banner does. I count visitors in a way that sets no cookies at all, so there is nothing to ask permission for.

  • A social media feed

    Your latest Facebook or Instagram posts pulled onto the page.

    I use it when

    Rarely. It can work where the feed genuinely is the product and it’s genuinely current — a restaurant posting today’s menu.

    I leave it out when

    It’s a box of Facebook’s branding on your page, loading slowly, showing a post from March. The button on it sends your customer back to Facebook, away from you.

  • Things that move as you scroll

    Text and pictures that fade or slide in as you come down the page.

    I use it when

    Almost never. Never on anything a customer needs to read.

    I leave it out when

    It holds the words back. Nothing should wait for a scroll on a page whose job is to be read quickly, and on a cheap phone the movement stutters, which looks broken rather than smart.

  • Icons

    Small symbols next to headings or list items.

    I use it when

    They carry meaning. A phone, a WhatsApp mark, a tick against something that’s included — those are read faster than the word would be.

    I leave it out when

    A different piece of clip art beside each of six services makes the page busier and says nothing. Most of them, you couldn’t say out loud what they are meant to mean.

  • Pop-ups and newsletter signups

    A box that interrupts to ask for an email address.

    I use it when

    You are genuinely going to send something worth reading.

    I leave it out when

    Interrupting somebody to collect an address for a newsletter you never write buys you nothing. It also annoys the person who was about to phone you.

  • A blog

    Dated posts you add to over time.

    I use it when

    You’ll actually write it, and you’re writing to answer the questions customers really ask.

    I leave it out when

    You won’t. A blog with three posts, the last from three years ago, quietly suggests the business might be closed. That’s worse than not having one.

That’s twenty-seven decisions

And that’s twenty-seven on one page. A small website is a few hundred of them. Most barely matter on their own, right up until four or five go wrong in the same place — then the page stops working and nobody can tell you why.

You could learn all of this. It takes a while, and it isn’t what you do for a living. Or you could tell me what your business does and let me make the calls. That’s the job.

See what a website costs