Guide · Websites

What to write
on your website.

The text on a small business site is often written last, in a hurry, by whoever has time. The result is a home page that opens with “Welcome to our website” and a services page that lists twenty things in one column. The words do most of the selling and most of the ranking. Here is what to write on each page of a local business site, in what order, with patterns you can fill in.

Published 2026-11-09 · Formory Marketing Group

The page title is the first piece of copy most customers read, before they ever see the site. Google builds the blue headline in search results, which it calls the title link, from several sources, and the page's title element is the first on its list. Google's title link guidance says that headline is often the primary piece of information people use to decide which result to click.

The advice is short: make each title descriptive and concise, give every page its own, do not stuff it with keyword variations, and if you add the business name, keep it brief and set it apart with a separator. There is no length limit, but long titles are cut to fit the screen.

For a local business the missing piece is usually the place. Of the 27,080 GTA business home pages we opened in August 2026, 11,566 (43%) had a page title that named no GTA city or region. Another 1,447 (5%) had a title too thin to say what the business does, and 197 had no title at all.

• Home page: [Main service] in [City] | [Business name]
• Service page: [Service] in [City] | [Business name]
• Contact page: Contact [Business name], [Service] in [City]

Under the title link, Google shows a short snippet of text. Google's snippet documentation says it mostly builds snippets from the page content, but may use the meta description when that describes the page better. So write one for each important page: unique, specific, and readable as a sentence. Google's own examples prefer a description that says what a shop sells, with its hours and location, over a comma-separated list of products. Here too there is no length limit; long ones are cut.

In our survey, 7,184 home pages (27%) had no meta description at all.

Pattern: [Service] for [who] in [City and nearby areas]. [One concrete fact: a starting price, a licence, evening hours]. [Next step: call, or book online].

Every page needs one main heading, the H1, that says what the page is about. Google lists heading elements such as the H1 among the sources it uses for title links, and says that when a page has more than one large, prominent heading and no clear main title, it may use the first heading. In our survey, 5,499 home pages (20%) had no H1 at all.

Below the heading, in this order:

1. The H1: what you do and where. “Plumbing repairs and drain cleaning in Mississauga.”
2. One line on who it is for and what is specific about you: hours, how fast you reply, a starting price, a licence.
3. A way to act: a phone number you can tap and a short form or a booking button.
4. Your services, each with one sentence and a link to its own page.
5. Proof a customer can check: licence numbers, your review count, photos of your own work.
6. The areas you serve, by name.
7. Four to six short answers to the questions people ask before calling.

Our page on what belongs on a service business home page goes through each part in more detail.

Write one page for each service you want more of. Fill in:

• H1: [Service] in [City].
• Opening, three lines: what the job is, who it is for, and what it costs or what the cost depends on.
• What is included and what is not.
• How it works: booking, the visit, how long it takes, what the customer does beforehand.
• Proof for this service: photos of this kind of job, a review that mentions it, the licence it requires.
• Questions: the three or four you hear on the phone about this service.
• Next step: call, form or booking, repeated at the end of the page.

The guide to writing service pages that rank covers the habits that sink these pages.

The about page answers one question: who will actually show up? Write who owns the business, how long it has operated, who does the work, licences and insurance, and the area you cover. A photo of the owner or the crew does more than a stock picture of a handshake. Skip the mission statement.

The contact page needs the phone number as a tappable link, a short form, an email address, your hours, the areas you serve, and how fast you reply. If you reply within one business day, say exactly that. A modest promise you keep beats a fast one you miss.

If you pay for clicks, send them to a page written for that ad, not to the home page. Google Ads' advice on landing pages: choose a page that closely matches your ad and keywords, provide useful, original information about what you advertise, be clear about the service, and mirror the call to action in your ad text. Landing page experience, which Google describes as how relevant and useful your landing page is to people who click your ad, is one of the three components of Quality Score.

In practice: the ad says “Emergency drain cleaning in Mississauga. Call now.” The page's H1 repeats “Emergency drain cleaning in Mississauga”, the first screen has a tap-to-call button, and the page covers that one service. No menu of fourteen other services, no blog links. If the ad mentions a price, the page shows the same price.

The business below is made up, and so is the text. The pattern is the point.

The “before” is not wrong, exactly. It names no service and no city, and every sentence in it could sit on a competitor's site unchanged. The “after” says what, where and roughly how much in the first screen. Put only facts in it that are true for you: a starting price you actually charge, hours you actually keep.

The facts have to come from you: prices, areas, what is included, the questions customers ask. A writer turns them into pages. When we build a site, we write the first draft of the text from your answers to a few questions, and you correct it; a site of up to six pages is $990, paid after delivery. If you are hiring someone else, our guide to briefing a web designer lists what to hand over.

To see how your current titles and headings look, run your home page through our free site check.

• Google Search Central — Influencing your title links in search results
• Google Search Central — Control your snippets in search results
• Google Ads Help — Optimize your ads and landing pages
• Google Ads Help — About Quality Score for Search campaigns
• Formory GTA small business website report (our survey of 49,994 listings)

Or call (416) 989-3208. One of us answers; there is no sales team.

Technical SEO Issues on 27,080 GTA Business Websites · How to Write a Service Page That Actually Ranks · How to Brief a Web Designer · What Belongs on a Service Business Home Page

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