You are good at plumbing, baking, bookkeeping, dog grooming or whatever it is you do. You are not a copywriter, and staring at a blank "About us" box is a good way to lose an evening.
The good news is that website words for a small local business do not need to be clever. They need to be clear, specific and true. This post gives you a method that works without writing talent: answer a handful of questions in plain speech, then arrange the answers into a few pages. It also covers where an AI builder helps and where you must step in.
What your website words have to do
A visitor to a small business website is usually a local person with a specific problem, a phone in one hand and not much patience. In a few seconds they want to know:
- Do you do what I need?
- Do you cover my area?
- Can I trust you?
- What happens next, and roughly what will it cost?
Everything you write should serve one of those four. If a sentence does not, cut it.
Step 1: answer ten questions out loud
Do not open a document yet. Grab your phone, record yourself answering these as if a new customer had asked, then type up what you said. People write badly and talk well, so use the talking version.
- What do you do, in one sentence a ten-year-old would understand?
- Who is your typical customer? Describe the last three.
- What problem are they in when they call you?
- Which areas do you cover? Name the towns or postcodes.
- What are your three most common jobs or products?
- What do you charge, or how do you work out a price? A range or a "from" figure is fine.
- What happens when someone gets in touch, step by step?
- Why would someone pick you over the other person in your town? Be honest and specific: "I answer the phone myself", "same-week appointments", "twenty years in the trade".
- What qualifications, insurance, accreditations or memberships do you hold? (Only things you actually have.)
- What do customers say about you? Pull two or three real comments from reviews or messages, with their permission.
You now have most of your site. The rest is arranging it.
Step 2: write the pages in this order
A small business can get by with four or five pages. Here is what goes on each.
Home
- A headline that says what you do and where. "Family-run plumbers in Leeds and Wakefield" is better than "Welcome to our website" or "Excellence in every drop".
- One sentence under it on who you help and the main benefit: "Boiler repairs and bathroom fits, with fixed quotes."
- Three things you do, each with a one-line description and a link to more.
- A line of proof: a real review, a years-in-business figure you can stand behind, or a credential.
- One clear action: "Call 01234 567890" or "Request a quote". Choose one main action, not five.
Services
Give each service a short heading and a paragraph covering what it is, who it suits, how long it takes and how pricing works. If you offer a lot, group them. Use the words customers search for, not trade jargon: "emergency boiler repair" rather than "heating remediation services".
About
People hire people. Say who you are, how you got into the work, where you are based and what you care about. Two or three short paragraphs and a real photo of you or your team is enough. This is the page where it is fine to be a bit personal; just avoid your life story.
Prices or "how it works"
Even rough guidance helps. If you cannot publish prices, explain how a quote works: free, on-site, in writing, valid for thirty days. Customers fear surprises more than they fear cost.
Contact
Phone, email, address or service area, opening hours and a simple form. Say how quickly you reply, and only promise what you will deliver.
Step 3: use plain, concrete sentences
A few habits fix most amateur copy.
- Say it once, plainly. "We fix boilers" beats "We provide comprehensive heating solutions."
- Prefer numbers and names to adjectives. "Eleven years, Gas Safe registered" beats "highly experienced and fully qualified". Only use numbers you can prove.
- Write "you", not "customers". "You'll get a written quote the same day."
- Short sentences. If you run out of breath reading it aloud, split it.
- Cut weasel words. Drop "passionate", "bespoke", "high quality", "tailored solutions". Everyone says them.
- Say what is true and unglamorous. "We don't do weekends" saves everyone's time and builds trust.
Step 4: using an AI builder without getting filler
An AI tool can turn your answers into a full first draft quickly, which is a big help if you hate blank pages. It can also produce generic text that could belong to any business anywhere. The difference comes down to what you give it.
Natterio's builder works like this. You choose the type of site you are building, give your business name, and say what you do. You can optionally paste in an existing website so it can pick up what you already say. Then you can add more detail: what the business is for, what you offer, the tone you want and the pages you need. It uses those answers to write a first draft of the whole site, which you edit.
Here is how to get the most out of that:
- Feed it your Step 1 answers. The more specific the input, the less filler in the output. "Mobile dog groomer covering Harrogate and Knaresborough, appointments Tuesday to Saturday, small and anxious dogs a speciality" will produce something much more useful than "dog groomer".
- Pick a tone you would actually speak in. If you are chatty on the phone, do not choose "corporate".
- List your services by name. Otherwise the AI will invent generic ones.
- Treat the draft as a draft. Read every line.
The free plan includes a limited number of AI rewrites of the whole site, with more each month on paid plans, so it is worth getting your answers right before you regenerate. See pricing for the current allowances.
What AI gets wrong, and you must check
AI writing tools can be confident and wrong. Check each of these by hand:
- Facts about you: years in business, qualifications, awards, areas covered. Delete anything you cannot prove.
- Prices and times: opening hours, call-out charges, guarantees.
- Claims and promises: "same-day service", "100% satisfaction guaranteed". Only keep what you will honour.
- Invented reviews or statistics: if the text includes a quote or a figure that you did not supply, remove it. Fake testimonials can also breach consumer law.
- Local detail: street names, landmarks and nearby towns. These are easy for an AI to get subtly wrong.
Step 5: edit with a checklist
Before you publish, read the whole thing aloud once, then go through this list.
- Could a stranger tell what you do and where from the first screen?
- Is there one obvious way to contact you on every page?
- Are your phone number and email correct? Ring the number.
- Is every claim true, and is every figure one you can back up?
- Have you named your area using the real place names people search for?
- Are there any sentences that sound like a brochure rather than a person? Rewrite them as you would say them.
- Does anything contradict something else, such as hours on the home page and the contact page?
- Is the spelling British, and have you proofread names and addresses?
- Have you asked someone who is not in the business to read it and tell you what you do?
That last one is the best test. If a friend can tell you what you offer and how to reach you, the words are working.
A few small SEO basics, without the jargon
You do not need a specialist. Put your service and town in the page headings where it is natural, such as "Boiler servicing in Harrogate". Give each page a different job. Add a short description of your business to your Google Business Profile that matches the site. Keep the site updated, since a page with last year's opening hours is worse than none.
Keep it alive
Once the words are right, put a date in the diary every three months to check them: prices, hours, new services, and a recent review. A small business site that stays accurate beats a glossy one that doesn't.
Next step
If you would like a first draft written from your answers, you can start free on Natterio. You will see a full draft in about a minute, with no card needed, and you edit it from there.