A website for an independent practice has one job: let a prospective client decide, quickly, that you are the right person to contact. Most sites fail at this by describing capability instead of fit.
The five pages that do the work
Almost every effective practice site can be built from a small set of pages. Additional pages should earn their place.
- Home: who you help, what you do for them, and how to start
- Services: one page per distinct engagement, written in the client's language
- About: your background and the basis of your judgment
- Contact: a short form, your working hours, and what happens after they submit
- A resource or writing section, once you have something genuinely useful to publish
Write for the moment before the enquiry
Visitors arrive mid-problem. Name the situation they are in before you name your service. 'You have received a notice and are not sure what it means' does more work than 'End-to-end advisory solutions.'
Make contacting you unambiguous
Keep one primary action per page. Tell people what the next step looks like, how long a first conversation takes, and what you will need from them. Uncertainty about the next step is a common reason people close a tab.
Technical basics that matter more than design trends
These affect whether anyone sees the site at all.
- Fast loading on a mid-range phone on mobile data
- Readable text sizes and sufficient colour contrast
- A descriptive page title and summary for every page
- Working forms with a confirmation message people actually see
TAKE THIS FORWARD
Start with focused pages that help the client understand fit and take the next step.