Five Websites for Local Businesses

If you run a small business around Portland and you’ve been putting off a website, it helps to see a few that were made for businesses like yours. These are five sample sites I built for local businesses: a sandwich shop on SE Foster Road, a roofing company in SE Portland, a paving contractor in Happy Valley, a Portland trail mix company and a brand new emergency fund. You can click through every one of them on my Samples page.

Each one started from what the business already had. Usually that was a Google listing with good reviews and a pile of photos. Here’s what I built for each of them, and why.

What a small business website needs

Most people who look up a local business want the same few things, and they’re usually on a phone when they do it:

• When you’re open, and whether you’re open right now
• A phone number they can tap to call
• What you sell or do, with prices if you can share them
• Photos of your real work, your food or your shop
• What your customers say about you
• One clear way to order, book or ask for a quote

Your Google Business Profile covers some of that, and you should keep it up to date. A website gives all of it room, and your Google listing can link straight to it.

A sandwich shop: Sub Factory

Sub Factory is a family sub shop on SE Foster Road. They had no website. Their Google listing had 570 reviews averaging 4.8, a few photos of their printed menu, and an “Add website” prompt where the link should be.

For a restaurant, the menu and the hours do most of the work. The sample site puts the whole menu online with prices, so nobody has to zoom in on a photo of a paper menu. A time card on the homepage shows whether the shop is open right now and when the shift ends. Party platter orders go through a form that looks like a work order slip and gets stamped when it sends. The homepage also has a conveyor belt of subs running across it, since the shop is called Sub Factory.

A roofing contractor: Tom’s Roofing

Tom’s Roofing is a family roofing company in SE Portland. Tom started it, and his son John runs the jobs now. They had no website either, and their Google listing had 61 reviews averaging 4.8.

People hiring a roofer want to see that the work is good, and they want an estimate without a lot of back and forth. The sample site uses their own job photos to show a roof going on from tear-off to cleanup, with a before and after you can drag across. The free estimate button sits at the top of every page. Realtors came up again and again in their reviews, so there’s a page just for realtors, landlords and property managers. Rain falls over the homepage photo until you switch it off.

A paving company: Oregon Trail Asphalt

Oregon Trail Asphalt paves driveways, parking lots and private roads out of Happy Valley. Their Google listing linked to their website, but the website only said “Site not found.” Meanwhile they had 75 reviews averaging 4.8 and dozens of photos from customers.

A broken website link is easy to miss when you run a busy crew, and people who click it usually just leave. The site I built for them is set up to bring in estimate requests. The estimate form looks like a green highway sign and sends the request straight to them. Their customers’ photos became before and afters you can drag across, and the colors and lettering come from fresh blacktop and road signs. They work from Happy Valley to Vancouver, so there are separate pages for residential paving, commercial paving and repairs.

A local product: Nomad Mix

Nomad Mix makes trail mix in Portland with local makers. There are five blends, each named after a Pacific Northwest landscape. They were selling through a Square Online store and asked to see what I’d do with their brand.

If you already sell online, a new website can keep your checkout exactly where it is. Every order button on the sample site still goes to their Square store, so nothing changes about how they take orders. What changes is everything around it. Every piece of trail mix on the site is cut from their own bowl photos and piles up on the homepage, where you can stir it. Scrolling down is a hike through the five landscapes, and at the bottom you can build a handful from any of the blends and shake it.

A new organization: the Secular Rescue Fund

The Secular Rescue Fund is a new emergency fund for East African immigrants living and working abroad. It had no website yet, only a written introduction from the founder and a site from a similar group they liked.

A membership group needs people to understand it quickly and sign up on their own. The sample site explains the fund over a night map of the world that follows the lights to the cities where members have gone to work. People can join on their own or with their family and pay for the membership online. Members get their own area with their receipts, their next of kin and the requests they’ve sent for help.

What a site like this costs

My launch price for a small business website is $250 for up to 5 pages: home, services or menu, about, photos and contact. A bigger site with up to 15 pages, plus a dashboard where you change your own menu, events and hours, is $500. Online stores, bookings and memberships start at $1,000. Hosting and upkeep is $25 a month, and you own the site, the domain and the logins. The full list is on my small business page.

How the free demo works

Each of these is the kind of demo I build for any small business that asks. You tell me about your business and what isn’t working. I build a real, working homepage and send you the link, so you can try it on your own phone before you spend anything. If you like it, I build the rest. If you don’t, you don’t pay for it.

Questions small business owners ask me

Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile?

Your Google listing is often the first thing people see, so keep it up to date. A website gives you room for your full menu or services, your prices, more photos and a form, and the listing’s website link sends people straight to it. I set up your Google Business Profile and point it at the new site as part of every build.

Do I need photos and writing ready?

No. Phone photos usually work fine, and I can write the words from your notes, your reviews or an old flyer.

Can I update the site myself?

Yes. The bigger website comes with a dashboard for the things you change often, like your menu, events and hours. On any site, you can also send changes to me on the upkeep plan.

Do you only work in Portland?

Most of my clients are around Portland, but I work with small businesses all over Oregon, Washington and Northern California, and everything can happen over email.