Which website is right for your business?
If you need a website, it'll be one of four kinds: a brochure site, an ecommerce site, a lead generation site, or a content-led site. Almost everything else is a combination of those four. Work out which one you're actually after and the rest of the decisions, platform, budget, timescale, get a lot easier.
Before that, though, the question nobody in this industry likes asking.
Do you need a website?
No. Plenty of businesses do fine without one, and it's worth being honest about that before you spend money.
Think of a plumber who's booked six weeks out on word of mouth, works alone and has no intention of hiring anyone. What does a website change? A free Google Business Profile or Facebook Page puts him on the map, in local search and in the pack with a phone number and reviews. A website would sit there costing money to host and maintain, generating enquiries he'd have to turn down. That isn't a marketing failure, it's a business that's already at the size its owner wants.
A website earns its place when something needs to change. You want to grow beyond what referrals deliver. You want to hire, and people research employers before they apply. You want to sell online, or sell something that needs explaining before anyone buys. You want to charge more, and the work needs to look like it's worth it. Or you want to pick your customers rather than take whatever calls come in, which is where a site that explains what you do, and what you don't, starts doing real work.
If none of that applies, save your money. If any of it does, the case is straightforward enough.
There's one further point that catches people out. If you're building an audience on social, you're building it on rented land. Platforms change their algorithms whenever it suits them, and reach you thought you owned can disappear overnight. Social is a channel. A website is the bit you actually own.
The four types of website
Brochure websites
A brochure site showcases what you do without selling online. It's the right choice for service businesses, professional firms and anyone whose sale happens over a phone call or a meeting rather than a checkout.
Done well, it does three jobs: it explains the offer clearly, it builds enough trust for someone to make contact, and it answers the questions they'd otherwise have to ask you. That last one saves more time than people expect.
Ecommerce websites
An ecommerce site displays products and takes payment. It sells while you're asleep, in any time zone, without you touching it. Remember, this is a business and your website does require your attention.
The complexity sits behind the shop front: stock, shipping rules, tax, returns, subscriptions, and the reporting that tells you what's actually working. That's the bit that decides whether an ecommerce site is a pleasure or a chore to run, and it's the bit worth thinking hardest about.
Lead generation websites
A lead generation site has one job: turn visitors into enquiries. It's built around a funnel, usually with landing pages tied to specific campaigns, and it's measured on conversion rate rather than page views.
These often sit alongside a brochure site rather than replacing it. If you're spending on ads, sending traffic to a general homepage is a reliable way to waste money.
Content-led sites and blogs
A content-led site earns attention by publishing something useful. That might be a personal blog that grows into a business, or a company site where the writing does the heavy lifting for search visibility and credibility.
It's the slowest of the four to pay off and the most demanding to keep going. It's also the one that compounds, because good content keeps working long after you've published it.
Most sites are a mix
Very few businesses need one type in isolation. A brochure site benefits from campaign landing pages. A blog often ends up with a shop attached. An ecommerce store lives or dies on the quality of its category and guide content.
So the useful question isn't 'which type am I', it's 'which type is doing the most work'. Build around that, then add the rest.
Four questions that decide it
- What does a win look like? An order, an enquiry, a booking, a subscriber. Be specific. If you can't name it, nobody can build for it.
- Where does the money actually change hands? On the site, or on a call? That single answer separates ecommerce from everything else.
- Who's updating it, and how often? A site that needs a developer for every change will quietly go stale. Be honest about who has the time.
- What happens if it works? A site that fits today and breaks at three times the volume is an expensive false economy.
Answer those four and you've written most of your brief already.
Which platform
Platform choice follows the answers above, not the other way round.
For selling online, Shopify is our default recommendation, and we're a Shopify Select Partner, so take that with the appropriate pinch of salt. The reasoning is simple enough: hosting, security, payments and PCI compliance are handled, the app ecosystem covers most things you'll need, and it scales from a first order to Shopify Plus without a rebuild. You spend your time on merchandising rather than server patches. We use it for everything from a small artisan producer to a US brand shipping nationwide, and you can see a few of those on our work.
For brochure and content-led sites, Webflow gives clean semantic markup, genuine design control and a CMS your team can actually use. WordPress still makes sense for smaller sites where budget is tight or an existing team knows it well.
The wrong reason to pick a platform is that someone you know uses it. The right reason is that it fits the job in question one, the people in question three and the growth in question four.
What to get right whichever you choose
Some things matter regardless of type or platform:
- Speed. Slow sites lose people before they see anything. Core Web Vitals are a ranking signal and, more importantly, a revenue one.
- Mobile. For most businesses this is where the majority of traffic sits. Design for it first.
- Search. Structure, headings, internal links and page titles need to be considered during the build, not bolted on afterwards. That's true for AI search too, since good SEO is the foundation of AI SEO.
- Accessibility. It's the right thing to do and it widens your audience. It's also increasingly a legal expectation rather than a nice extra.
- Ownership. Make sure you hold the domain, the hosting account and the analytics. It's astonishing how often that isn't the case.
Get those five right and a modest site will outperform an expensive one that ignored them.
Where that leaves you
Pick the type that matches where your money comes from, choose the platform that fits the people who'll run it, and hold the line on speed, mobile, search and accessibility.
If you want to go deeper on the search side, our SEO work covers the technical and content side of getting found, and it's worth reading before you commission a build rather than after.