Building a website step by step: 7 steps for a small business

Building a website feels like a big project: domain, hosting, design, copy, photos. In reality a small-business website can be ready in a couple of hours if you do things in the right order. These seven steps apply whether you build the site yourself, hire an agency or let AI put it together.

1. Decide what the page must do

Before any design, answer one question: what should a visitor do on the page? For a small business the answer is usually one of three:

call or write (hairdresser, builder, repairs);
send an enquiry or ask for a quote (services, B2B);
come by (café, shop, salon).

That decides which button is the most visible. If the goal is a call, the phone number must be clickable on the very first screen.

2. Gather the content before the design

Most of the time goes not into design but into collecting the content. Put it all in one document:

what you do and for whom — one sentence;
services and prices (at least “from” prices);
the area you work in;
phone, email, address and opening hours;
5–10 good photos of your work, premises or team;
company name and registry code.

Once you have this, the rest is technical work.

3. Choose a domain

For Estonian customers a .ee address feels natural. You register the domain with an accredited registrar for a yearly fee, and it must stay in your name or your company’s name — not the developer’s. A good domain is short, easy to say and, if possible, without hyphens. More on this: domain, hosting and access.

4. Choose how the site gets built

There are four common ways to build a website:

An agency — right if you need an online store, complex features or a full brand. A small-business site from an agency usually costs over €500.
WordPress — flexible, but needs hosting, plugins and regular updates. See WordPress vs AI.
A site builder (Voog, Wix, Tilda and others) — you pick a design and fill in the blocks yourself. Good if you have the time and an eye for design.
AI — you describe the business and the tool writes the copy and assembles the page. Right if you need one clear service page quickly.

5. Put the page together in the right order

On a small-business page this order usually works:

First screen: what you do and where (“Garage renovation in Tallinn and Harju County”), one button and the phone.
Services and prices: short, no long introduction.
Proof: photos of your work, real feedback, years of experience.
Enquiry form: name, phone and a couple of fields — no more.
Footer: company name, registry code, address and contacts.

For a small business, one good landing page is often better than ten half-finished subpages. Read more about what a landing page is.

6. Check before publishing

Open the page on your phone, send yourself a test enquiry, tap the phone number and make sure no placeholder text is left. The full list: checklist before publishing.

7. Let Google know

A new page doesn’t appear in search right away. Add it to Google Search Console, create or update your Google Business Profile and put the website link in your social media profiles. We wrote separately about what Google needs from a new website, and the basics are summed up in what SEO is.

How it works in Odav Koduleht

Odav Koduleht does steps 4 and 5 for you: you describe the business in a couple of sentences, and AI writes the copy and builds a page with an enquiry form in about a minute. The first version costs 5 credits and each edit in plain words costs 1 credit; you get 15 credits at signup, no card needed. Publishing starts with the Start plan at €6 a month — on our subdomain or your own domain. See how building a website works or compare plans.