Your website is not a brochure

Most business websites are brochures that learned to load. A photo of the building, a paragraph that starts with "Welcome to", a list of services, a contact page. It looks finished. It does nothing.

A brochure is passive. Someone has to pick it up. A website is the opposite: it is the place people go when they are ready to decide, usually alone, usually on a phone, often outside office hours. That is not a leaflet. That is your best salesperson, working the late shift.

What a salesperson does that a brochure doesn't

• Answers the actual question. Not "who we are" but "can you do this, for me, by Thursday, and what does it cost". Put that on the first screen.
• Reads the room. A visitor who came from a search for "emergency plumber" wants a phone number, not your company history. A visitor who came from a recommendation wants proof. The page should serve both without making either scroll.
• Asks for the sale. One clear next step on every page. Call. Book. Order. Ask a question. Brochures never ask; that is why they end up in the drawer.
• Never makes you wait. A slow page is a salesperson who takes three minutes to say hello. People leave. They do not tell you why.

The 11pm test

Picture your customer at 11pm, on the sofa, phone in hand, looking for what you sell. They land on your site. Within five seconds they should know three things: what you do, that you do it for people like them, and what to tap next. If any of those is missing, they are on a competitor's site before the kettle boils.

Now open your own site on your phone and time it.

Start with the job, not the design

Before we draw anything, we ask what the site has to make happen. More calls. More bookings. Fewer "are you open?" emails. Then every page has to justify itself against that job. It is remarkable how much of a typical site disappears under that question — and how much better the rest gets.

A brochure is finished the day it is printed. A website is never finished; it just gets better at its job, or it doesn't. We prefer the first kind.