“How many pages should our website have?” is a question we get on almost every enquiry. It is also a question no number can answer, because the page count is not a brief. It is a consequence of one.
Do not count pages, count topics. A page should exist where there is a separate question, a separate reader or a separate search query. Where there is none of those, you get a page nobody finds and nobody maintains.
Short answer
- An ordinary company website comes out at eight to fifteen pages. A tradesperson manages with four; a manufacturer with a catalogue easily runs to thirty.
- What decides it is the number of topics, not the number of menu items. One topic can live on one page, never on half of one.
- Ten thin pages do more harm than three solid ones. Search engines and people alike recognise a page that exists only so that something is there.
- Every page needs a reason and an owner. A page with no owner ages first and then drags down the impression of the whole site.
- Scope is the main thing that moves the price. Anybody offering a turnkey website without a scope is offering an unknown.
Four questions that decide whether a topic deserves its own page
Run them past everything you want on the site. Three yeses mean a page. Three noes mean it belongs as a section somewhere else.
- Is there a separate query for it? Do people search this specific thing, or only the broader one? A search engine shows pages, not websites, and without a page of its own you will not rank for the query.
- Does a different person read it? An engineer and a buyer want different things from the same service. Two different readers usually mean two pages.
- Is there enough to say to fill two screens? If not, it is a paragraph, not a page. This is the most common reason a page should not exist.
- Do people ask about it in meetings? A repeated question is the best brief for a page there is, and the cheapest, because you already know the answer.
How many pages usually come out, by type of company
| Label | From | To |
|---|---|---|
| Tradesperson, small premises | 4 pages | 6 pages |
| Company with one main service | 6 pages | 9 pages |
| Company with several services | 10 pages | 16 pages |
| Manufacturer with a catalogue | 15 pages | 30 pages |
What a site must have and what is optional
Sorted by what the site stops being able to do when the page is missing. This is also the quickest way to check a supplier's quote: whatever is not in it will be charged later.
| Page | Required? | What happens without it |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Yes | No substitute; most arrivals from search and from business cards land here |
| A page per service or product | Yes | The site will not rank for the specific query and the offer blurs together |
| Who it is for | Recommended | Enquiries you do not want keep coming and the right ones hesitate |
| Case studies or references | Yes | The only proof a customer can verify is missing |
| Prices or at least a range | Recommended | More meetings with people out of budget and a longer path to an enquiry |
| About the company and its people | Yes | In services people buy a person. An anonymous site raises the question who is behind it |
| Contact | Yes | Obvious, but contact details without an address and company ID are also a legal problem |
| Privacy notice | Yes | A form on the site does not stand up without one |
| Blog or insights | Optional | The site stops growing in search but keeps working |
| Careers | Optional | Only when you are genuinely hiring. An empty careers page hurts |
| Downloads | Optional | Closer to required at a manufacturer, pointless elsewhere |
What happens when there are too many pages
An overstuffed site is more common than one that is too small, because scope tends to be derived from competitors instead of from your own offer.
- Thin content. Ten pages of two paragraphs each means none of them answers properly. Search engines rank those below one thorough page.
- A menu you cannot choose from. Above seven items a visitor starts reading the menu as a list rather than a junction, and that slows them down.
- Maintenance nobody does. Every page goes stale eventually. With thirty pages and two people in the company, they all go stale at once.
- A price that does not match the value. Scope is the main thing that moves the price of a website, so fifteen unnecessary pages are paid work that returns nothing.
And when there are too few
The opposite is rarer but real, above all with one page sites.
- The site ranks for nothing but the company name. One page can answer only one query.
- The offer blurs. Four services described one under another on a single page read as one service with four paragraphs.
- There is nothing to link to. A salesperson needs to send a link to one specific thing, not to the whole site with a note saying scroll to the middle.
A company ordered an eighteen page site because a competitor had seventeen. Eight of them hold one paragraph, three have no link from the menu and the last news item is two years old. The scope was paid for; the value was not.
The same company got nine pages: four services, who it is for, case studies, prices, about us, contact. Each answers one question and targets one search query. Two more were added a year later, once it was clear what people actually asked about.
How to read scope out of a quote
Scope is the main thing that moves the price of a website and the most common place where two quotes diverge. When comparing, look for this.
- 1How many pages the quote names explicitly. Not “a company website” but a list. Without a list there is no way to tell whether a quote is half the price or half the size.
- 2Whether pages that generate themselves are being counted. A product detail, a blog listing and an article page are not extra pages, they are templates built once.
- 3Who writes the copy. Nine pages with copy from the supplier and nine pages where you supply the copy are two completely different prices and, more importantly, two different deadlines.
- 4What an extra page costs after launch. This single sentence is worth having in the quote, because scope almost always changes along the way.
- 5Whether the quote contains a structure or only a number. Ten pages with no thought given to the menu are worse than six where it is clear why each exists.
How we handle it
- We propose the scope and say why. The list of pages follows from what the company sells and who the site has to convince. Order “a ten page website” from us and you will get a proposal for eight or twelve with an explanation of the difference.
- Pages generated from a template are not billed as pages. A case study listing and a case study detail are two templates, not thirty items.
- We state the price of an extra page up front, because scope changes during almost every project and nobody enjoys surprises at the end.
- We will not recommend scope you cannot sustain. A blog makes sense for a company that will write it. For everybody else it is one more place where content goes stale.
And the honest other side: more pages do not mean a better site or better rankings. They mean more work at delivery and more work every year afterwards. If you are unsure, start smaller and add according to what people ask about. Adding a page is cheap; clearing up fifteen abandoned ones is not.
Frequently asked questions
How many pages should a company website have?
Usually eight to fifteen. A tradesperson or small premises manages with four to six, a company with several services runs to ten or sixteen, a manufacturer with a catalogue easily thirty. What decides it is the number of topics rather than a target figure: a page should exist where there is a separate question, a separate reader or a separate search query.
When does a topic deserve its own page?
When there is a separate search query for it, when a different kind of person reads it, when there is enough to say to fill two screens, and when people ask about it repeatedly in meetings. Three yeses out of four mean a page; three noes mean a paragraph on another page.
Do more pages improve search rankings?
Not in themselves. What helps is a page that answers a specific query better than the competition. Ten thin pages of two paragraphs each are more likely to hurt, because none of them answers properly and the site reads as a filled in template.
Does a blog count towards the scope of a website?
No. Site pages are fixtures written once; articles accumulate over time. In a quote the blog listing and the article template should count as two templates, not twenty pages. Watch for quotes offering twenty pages where half of them are articles you will end up writing yourself.
Is a one page website enough?
For an event, for validating an idea or for a single service, yes. For a company offering several things, no: one page ranks for one query at most, the offer blurs together on it, and a salesperson has nowhere to send a link about one specific thing.
What does an extra page cost?
We state it up front as part of the quote, because scope changes during almost every project. Generally a page on an existing template is cheap and a page with its own layout is hours of work. The most expensive part is the copy, when the client does not supply it.
Summary
- Do not count pages, count topics. The page count is a consequence of the brief, not the brief.
- An ordinary company site comes out at eight to fifteen pages, a tradesperson at four to six.
- A topic deserves a page when it has its own query, its own reader, enough to fill two screens and somebody asking about it.
- Ten thin pages are worse than three solid ones, search engines included.
- A blog does not count towards scope. In a quote it is two templates, not twenty pages.
- Scope is the main thing that moves the price. A quote without a named list of pages cannot be compared.
- Adding a page is cheap, clearing up fifteen abandoned ones is not. When in doubt, start smaller.
Not sure how many pages you need
Tell us what the company sells and to whom. We will send a proposed structure with a list of pages and one sentence each on why it is there and which query it targets. No invoice and no need to order a website from us.