Session 5: Business Website Sections

A small-business website has one job: turn a stranger who found you into a person who contacts you. Every section either serves that or it is decoration. That gives you a fixed order that works almost every time: header with navigation, hero stating what you do and what to do next, services showing what you offer, proof — testimonials or a portfolio — establishing that you can be trusted, about briefly, prices where possible, contact with the easiest possible route, and footer.

For most Nigerian small businesses, one page is enough and is better than several. A single scrolling page loads faster, works on a phone without navigation friction, and keeps the visitor moving toward contact rather than giving them five places to get lost. Multi-page becomes worth it when there is genuinely distinct content — a long portfolio, a full menu, separate service lines — and not before. Building five thin pages is worse than one strong one.

Decide the structure from the business's actual goal rather than from a template. A bakery needs a gallery and prices above all, because the customer decides on appearance and budget. A consultant needs proof and a clear explanation of the service. A repairs business needs a phone number visible everywhere and a list of what it fixes. The sections are the same vocabulary; the emphasis is what makes the site work.

The hero is the top of the page and it has three seconds. It needs three things and nothing else: what you do, in plain words a stranger understands; who it is for or why it is good, in one supporting line; and what to do next, as a visible button. 'Custom wedding and birthday cakes in Lagos, delivered on the day' with a button reading 'Get a quote on WhatsApp' does the whole job. What fails is a hero containing a slogan nobody can act on — 'Excellence in every bite' — which tells a visitor nothing about whether you can serve them.

The button matters more than people think, and its text is the lever. 'Contact us' is weak because it promises effort. 'Get a quote' or 'See our prices' promises a specific, low-risk next step and gets clicked far more. Make it a real link — to WhatsApp with a pre-filled message where possible, because in Nigeria that removes an entire step and the customer already has the app.

Technically: use `min-height` rather than a fixed height so nothing clips when text wraps on a phone, constrain the text block's width so lines stay readable, and make sure any text over a background image has enough contrast — usually by placing a dark overlay behind it. A hero whose headline is unreadable over a photograph is a common and completely avoidable failure.

Services should be a set of cards, each with a clear name, one line on what it includes, and ideally a starting price. The mistake is vagueness: 'We offer quality catering services' tells a customer nothing, while 'Corporate lunch packs — from ₦2,500 per head, minimum 20, delivered across Lagos' answers the three questions they actually have. If the business genuinely cannot price publicly, give a range and say what moves it — hiding prices entirely costs more enquiries than it protects.

About should be short and should be about the customer's confidence rather than the owner's biography. Two or three sentences: how long you have done this, what you are known for, and one human detail that makes the business real — a real photograph of the owner or the team works better than a paragraph. Nobody reads a long about page on a phone; they scan it for reassurance.

Prices are the section most Nigerian business sites omit, and it is the section that loses the most customers. A visitor who cannot find a price will often message a competitor who publishes one rather than send an enquiry and wait. Where prices genuinely vary, publish a table of starting prices by category — customers accept 'from ₦X' readily, and it filters out enquiries that were never going to convert while converting the ones that were.

Trust is the real product of these sections. Testimonials work when they are specific and attributable: a real name, ideally a photograph, and a quote that mentions an outcome rather than a generality. 'The cake was beautiful and arrived two hours early when our caterer cancelled — she saved the wedding' is worth ten times 'Great service, highly recommended', because it describes a risk that was removed. Three or four specific testimonials beat a wall of vague ones.

Get them properly: ask the customer, quote their actual words rather than polishing them into something they would not say, and never invent one. A fabricated testimonial is a genuine ethical and legal problem, and in a small market where customers talk, it is also a commercial one.

The gallery is the bakery's, salon's, photographer's and event planner's most persuasive asset, because the customer is buying an appearance. Show real work, not stock photographs — a Nigerian customer responds strongly to work that looks like their own environment, and stock imagery of a European office actively undermines trust. Caption each with what it is, keep images compressed so the page loads on mobile data, and make sure every image has real alt text so the section is not invisible to a screen-reader user.

Most Nigerian business enquiries happen on WhatsApp or by phone, not through a form, so the contact section should lead with those. A click-to-WhatsApp link — `https://wa.me/2348034567890?text=Hello,%20I%20would%20like%20a%20quote` — with a pre-filled message is the single highest-converting element you can put on a small-business site, because it removes typing and opens the app the customer already uses. A click-to-call link (`tel:+2348034567890`) matters equally, because a large share of visitors are on a phone and expect to tap rather than to copy a number.

Include a form as well, for people who prefer it, built to the standards from session two: every field labelled, `type="tel"` so phones show the numeric keypad, `required` only on what you genuinely need, and — critically — a real submission target that you have tested. A form that appears to work and silently discards messages is worse than no form, because the business believes it is receiving enquiries it never gets, and it can take months to notice.

Then add the practical details customers actually look for: opening hours, the physical address where relevant, and the service area. And repeat the primary contact route in the header and the footer, not only in the contact section — a visitor who decides to call should never have to hunt for the number.