Home page checklist: the first screen, checked

A small business builds its home page one section at a time: a banner, a list of services, a booking button, a gallery, a map, a newsletter box and a footer with the hours. Each block was added for a reason, and the owner reads each one as a separate job to finish. A stranger does not read it that way. They see the blocks as competing choices, and when every block asks for a different action, the visitor picks none of them and leaves to find a site that asks for one.

• Business name, what it does and the town, all visible before the first scroll
• One main button, and no more than two secondary links in the first screen
• Opening hours and phone number on the first screen, or one tap away on a phone
• Slider: can a visitor who never touches the arrows still see the main offer?
• Map, chat bubble or booking widget: does it cover the phone number or the address?

Start with the first screen on a phone and count the actions in it: the banner button, the booking link, the call button, the newsletter field, the chat bubble and the menu. A visitor does not count them. They feel a crowd, and the one that looks like a shortcut gets the tap. For a small business the shortcut is usually the phone number, so the number belongs on the first screen next to the name and the town. If the list has more than one main button, decide which one a stranger should press first, and turn the others into plain text links.

A slider does not show all its slides at once. The first one fills the frame when the page loads, and later slides appear on a timer or when a visitor presses an arrow. A visitor who reads slide one and then scrolls never sees slide two, and a slide three with a link to a different service may never get a look. Check two things. The first slide should carry the offer you most want seen, and the button on every slide should lead to the page that slide describes. Then open the page on a phone, do nothing, and wait through one full cycle.

Small business sites often put the opening hours and the address in the footer, under the gallery, the reviews and the newsletter box. A stranger who wants to know whether the shop is open on Saturday has to scroll through every block to find them. On a phone the footer can also sit behind a fixed bottom bar, so the hours are in the page source but never on the screen. Open the home page on a phone and count how many screens it takes to find the hours without opening the menu. If the answer is more than one, move the hours up.

Floating chat buttons, booking widgets and map embeds are added by other tools, and each one places itself by its own rules. A chat bubble is usually fixed to a lower corner, so it stays on top of whatever scrolls beneath it. On a phone that means the call button or the phone number in the footer can pass under the bubble as the visitor scrolls down. A map embed can fill the whole screen and take over the scroll for a visitor who touches it. Check each widget on a phone in portrait, scroll to the footer with the widget open, and confirm the number can still be tapped.

Small business home pages change with the season: a banner for a sale, a closure notice for a holiday, a booking widget a supplier adds. Each change can push the hours or the call button out of the first screen. Walk the home page on a phone after each change, and compare where the visitors stop with the last run. A closure notice should be checked with the regular opening hours beside it.