When someone asks us what a small business website should have, they almost always expect a long list. And what we found when we counted hair salon websites in Barcelona — 309 of them, one by one — was the opposite: the ones that had a website didn't have a bad one. They had too much of one. Five pages to say three things. A carousel nobody touches. A contact form that goes to an inbox nobody opens any more.

The problem wasn't quality. It was that 61% had no website of their own at all, and that of the remaining 39%, hardly any answered the one question that brings a customer in: are you open, how much does it cost, and how do I get in touch?

So here's the short list.

What it does need

1. Who you are, in one sentence people understand

Right at the top. The business name, what you do and where. "Hair salon in Gràcia specialising in colour." "Bike workshop in Sant Antoni." "Gestoría (accountancy and admin firm) for autónomos (self-employed workers) in Barcelona."

It sounds obvious. It isn't: most websites open with "Quality and commitment since 1998". Google can't quote that, ChatGPT can't quote that, and it tells the person who has just landed on your page nothing at all.

2. What you do, with prices

The list of services with the price next to each one. Not "get in touch". Not "personalised quote" for a haircut.

This makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and we get it: showing your price feels like exposing your flank. But a customer who can't see the price doesn't ring to ask; they go to the next one. And if you're worried the business next door will copy you: they already know what you charge.

If your prices genuinely vary (a renovation, a legal case), give a range and say what it depends on. A range is information. "Get in touch" isn't.

3. Where you are and when you're open — as of today

Address, map, phone number, opening hours. And here's the part almost nobody gets right: the hours have to be today's, not the ones from the website two years ago. If you closed on 15 August, the website should say so.

It's one of the silliest causes of one-star reviews for neighbourhood businesses: someone turns up at your door because your website said you'd be open.

4. WhatsApp, not a form

A WhatsApp button with a message already written ("Hi, I'd like to book an appointment for…"). That's it.

The contact form is an invention of the 2000s that survives out of inertia. It asks for name, email, phone, subject and message for something that could be sorted in two lines, and then it lands in an inbox you check on Tuesdays. You read WhatsApp within five minutes, and the customer already knows how to use it.

5. Your reviews, visible and live

Your Google rating, on the page, up to date. Not three testimonials you wrote yourself in 2021 with a stock photo.

If you have 4.7 from 180 reviews, that number sells better than any text you could write. And if you don't have reviews yet, that's this month's job, not the website's.

6. The legal part, which isn't optional

This won't bring you customers, but leaving it out will bring you trouble. Article 10 of the LSSI-CE (Spain's e-commerce and information society law) requires anyone providing services online — autónomos included, even if the website is only a shopfront — to publish, permanently, easily and free of charge:

Name or company name
Registered address
Email address and one other way of getting in touch
NIF/CIF (Spanish tax ID)
Registry details, where applicable
Professional association and membership number, for regulated professions

And if the website loads anything that sets cookies — Google Analytics, a map, a pixel — you need a consent banner. The AEPD (Spain's data protection authority) is clear on one thing: rejecting has to be as easy as accepting. A banner with a giant "Accept" and a small grey "Settings" doesn't comply.

What it doesn't need

The homepage carousel. Three rotating images nobody waits to see. Practically nobody sees the second and third slides. Put one image and be done.

Stock photos. The handshake. The smiling team that isn't your team. The woman with a customer service headset. Everyone recognises them and everyone understands what they mean: there's nobody here. A real photo taken on your phone, in good light, wins every time.

The 800-word "About us" page. Hardly anyone reads it. Two sentences on the homepage do the same job.

Text that says nothing. "Quality", "commitment", "excellence", "tailored solutions". If the sentence works just as well for a hair salon as for a logistics company, delete it. That's the acid test.

The ten pages. Services, About us, Our team, Philosophy, a blog empty since 2022, Contact. Every page is a page to maintain, and none of them answers anything. A single page done well, with everything above, works better and takes two minutes to update.

And one technical thing that does matter, with a number attached: Google considers a website "good" when its main content loads in under 2.5 seconds on mobile. That carousel of four uncompressed full-screen photos is exactly what pushes you out of that range.

Let's be honest about what it takes

The list above takes an afternoon. What doesn't take an afternoon is everything afterwards, and this is where almost everyone gives up:

Done once and finished: the copy, the structure, the legal notice, the WhatsApp button. A day's work, well spent.

Takes weeks: Google noticing. Getting a new website indexed, starting to show up for searches in your barrio (neighbourhood), letting your Google Business Profile settle in. Nobody can really speed that up, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you smoke — we've written about that in the lies of AI marketing.

Never ends: holiday opening hours, prices when they go up, photos when you change premises, new reviews, the cookie banner when you add a tool, speed when the theme updates. This is what kills small business websites. They aren't born bad. They stand still. A 2021 website with 2021 prices does more harm than having no website, because a customer who sees an old price feels cheated.

And if your business doesn't show up when someone searches for you by name, the website is only half the problem: we break it down in why your business is not showing on Google. The numbers from the hair salon count are in 61% of Barcelona hair salons have no website of their own.

FAQ

Do I need a website if I already have Instagram or Booksy?

They're two different things. Instagram and Booksy bring you customers, but they aren't yours: you don't control the algorithm, you don't show up the same way on Google, and the day they change the rules there's nothing you can do. The website is the fixed address everything else points to, including your Google listing.

Is a single page enough to rank on Google?

For most local businesses, yes. Google ranks local businesses mainly on their Google Business Profile, their reviews and the consistency of their details, not on the number of pages. Adding pages makes sense when you cover genuinely different services or areas, not to bulk things up.

What if I sell products online?

Then you need a proper shop, with its own platform and payment gateway. This list is for businesses that serve customers — a premises, a service, a practice — not for ones that take payment online. They're different problems.

How often should I touch the website?

Opening hours, as soon as they change. Prices, when they change. Photos, once a year. And a quick check every month that everything still works: speed, links, Google listing. It isn't much time, but it's time you genuinely have to set aside.

Put numbers on it: building it yourself, hour by hour

The day's work. Writing the who-you-are sentence so it doesn't sound like a brochure: half an hour, and three attempts. The list of services with prices: an hour, plus the afternoon you spend deciding whether to show them. Photos of the premises, taken and compressed: an hour. The WhatsApp button with the pre-filled message: fifteen minutes if you find the right tutorial. The legal notice with the six details from Article 10, the privacy policy and a cookie banner the AEPD would accept: a whole afternoon, or a template copied from another website that looks nothing like yours.

The domain and hosting. Buying the domain, pointing it at the server, the certificate, and keeping it from going down. A morning, and an annual fee.

And the part that never ends. Going back in every time a price, an opening time or a photo changes. If you remember.

None of this is hard. All of it is a weekend you don't have, repeated every few months.

The list above, already built

This list isn't a coincidence: it's exactly how a wiweb page is built, because we wrote it after counting 309 websites and seeing what was always missing.

Your page is made of widgets, and each widget answers one of the questions from the start. The opening hours say open or closed right now, with today's date. Services carry their price and you change them by typing. The map is a real map. The WhatsApp button comes with the message already written. And your Google reviews show live, with your real rating — not copied by hand, so they never go stale. There are no ten pages to maintain because there are no ten pages.

The legal part comes done too: legal notice, privacy and cookies written for your page, and the banner with the three options the AEPD asks for, with "no" as easy to reach as "yes". On every plan, including the free one. It isn't an extra.

And the "never ends" part isn't left in your hands either: photos are compressed and served over a CDN, the certificate renews itself, and changing your August hours means typing "in August I'm closed on Saturdays".

Creating and publishing your page is free, with every widget and no card: start here. If you want your own domain and a monthly check on how you show up on Google and in AI, that's Grow, €9/month; with a weekly check and improvements applied automatically, it's Pro, €24/month. The plans in detail · how it works under the bonnet.

What a small business website needs in 2026 (and what it doesn't)