How to Plan a Business Website That Gets Enquiries

To plan a business website that brings in enquiries, start with the single action you want a visitor to take, then work backwards: who is visiting, what they need to know before they act, what convinces them you are genuine, and how they reach you. In Kenya that last step is usually a WhatsApp message, a phone call or an M-Pesa payment, not a long contact form. Everything below follows that order, and by the end you will have a one-page plan you can hand to any designer.

Most sites that sit quietly for years were never planned this way. They were planned around a look ("something modern, blue, like our competitor's") and a list of pages copied from somewhere else. The look matters, but it comes last.

Start with one measurable goal

Write down one sentence that finishes "This website is working if…". Keep it countable. Some examples from different kinds of business:

• A plumbing contractor in Ruiru: "…we get at least ten WhatsApp enquiries a month from people we have never met."
• A private primary school in Nakuru: "…parents book school visits through the site instead of calling the office repeatedly."
• A dental clinic in Kisumu: "…new patients can book an appointment without phoning during clinic hours."
• A hardware supplier in Eldoret: "…contractors request quotations with a list of items, so we can price them the same day."

Notice that none of these says "look professional" or "have an online presence". Those are fine side effects, but you cannot measure them, so you cannot tell whether the money was well spent.

A secondary goal is allowed, but rank it. A tours company might want bookings first and newsletter sign-ups second. When the two compete for space on the home page, the ranking settles the argument.

Turn the goal into a number you will check

Decide now how you will count enquiries. WhatsApp clicks and phone taps can be tracked as events in Google Analytics; forms can email you and save a copy; bookings land in a system. If nobody will look at the numbers monthly, at least ask every new customer "How did you find us?" and write the answer down. A plan without a feedback loop is a guess.

Map your customers and their questions

Next, list the two or three types of people who will visit. Be specific. "Everyone" is not a customer type. A hypothetical event venue in Machakos might have three:

1. Couples planning a wedding, usually six to twelve months ahead, comparing venues with family on a WhatsApp group.
2. Company HR or admin staff booking a team-building day, who need an invoice, a KRA PIN and a clear package price.
3. Church and chama groups wanting a day venue, very price-sensitive, often deciding as a committee.

For each type, write the questions they ask before they commit. Pull these from real life: scroll through your WhatsApp chats, ask whoever answers the phone, and check what people ask in your Google Business Profile reviews. For the venue, the list would include capacity, price per head, whether outside caterers are allowed, parking, distance from Nairobi, what happens if it rains, and how much deposit is required.

This question list is the most valuable thing you will produce in the whole planning process. Every question becomes a sentence, a section or a page. Every question you leave unanswered becomes a phone call you have to take, or worse, a visitor who goes to the next venue on the list.

Questions that come up in almost every Kenyan business

• How much does it cost, or at least where does pricing start?
• Where exactly are you, and do you serve my area?
• Can I pay by M-Pesa, and to which Paybill or Till?
• How long will it take?
• Are you a registered business? Can you give an eTIMS invoice?
• Who have you worked for before, and can I see examples?

Site structure and page list

Now group the questions into pages. The rule of thumb: one page per thing someone might search for or decide on separately. If a customer would compare your services one by one, they deserve one page each; if they always buy as a bundle, one page will do.

A practical starting structure for a service business looks like this:

We go page by page, with the blocks each one needs, in our guide to the pages every business website needs. For planning purposes, keep the first version small. Five to ten strong pages beat thirty thin ones, and you can add more once you see what people search for.

Sketch it as a sitemap, not a menu

On paper, draw the home page at the top and the main pages underneath. Then ask of every box: how does a visitor get here, and where do they go next? If a page has no route in, nobody will read it. If it has no route out, they will leave. The menu is just the shortest version of this map; the real routes are the buttons and links inside each page.

This is also the moment to decide what software the site needs. A brochure site with a few forms suits WordPress or a simple custom build. Bookings, member logins or stock that changes every hour may need something purpose-built. Our comparison of WordPress and custom-coded websites walks through that choice by business type.

Trust signals Kenyan buyers look for

Kenyan buyers are careful online, and with good reason. Fake shops, cloned pages and "send the deposit first" scams are common enough that most people look for evidence before they message a business they do not know. Plan where each of these will appear:

• A physical location with a building name, street or landmark, and an embedded map. "Nairobi" alone is not enough; "2nd floor, the building opposite the Total petrol station on Thika Road, Roysambu" is.
• A landline or a consistent mobile number that matches your Google Business Profile, signage and invoices.
• The registered business name, and for B2B buyers, a note that you can issue KRA-compliant invoices. Some businesses show their KRA PIN; decide whether that suits you.
• M-Pesa details that match your business name. A Paybill or Till registered to the company is more reassuring than a personal number.
• Real photos of your premises, team and work. Stock images of smiling strangers do the opposite of building trust.
• Named testimonials with permission, ideally with the person's organisation or town, and links to your Google reviews.
• Licences or memberships that genuinely apply to your trade: a pharmacy's registration, an NCA registration for a contractor, a professional body membership.

Put the strongest two or three near the top of the home page and next to every call to action. Trust is needed most at the moment someone is deciding whether to tap "Chat on WhatsApp".

Calls to action: WhatsApp, call, form or pay

A call to action is the button or link that turns a reader into an enquiry. Pick a primary one and a backup for each page, based on how your customers actually behave rather than what looks tidy.

Decision rule: if more than half of your current enquiries arrive on WhatsApp, make WhatsApp the primary button and the phone number the backup. If you sell something with a fixed price that people buy without discussion, take payment on the site itself. Our guide to an M-Pesa integrated website explains how STK Push checkouts work.

Whatever you choose, write the button labels during planning, not after the design. "Get a quote on WhatsApp" or "Book a site visit" tells the visitor exactly what happens next. "Submit" and "Learn more" tell them nothing.

Mobile and data-light design

Plan for the phone first, because that is where most of your visitors will be. Picture a customer standing at a matatu stage in Kitengela on a patchy connection, with a mid-range Android and limited bundles. That person decides within seconds whether your page is worth waiting for.

Planning decisions that make a site data-light:

• Limit the home page to what someone needs on the first visit. Long sliders and autoplay video cost bundles and rarely earn their keep.
• Budget for properly sized, compressed photos rather than raw camera files straight off a phone.
• Choose one or two fonts, not five.
• Avoid stacking chat widgets, pop-ups and social feeds; each adds weight and slows the first screen.
• Make phone numbers and WhatsApp links tappable everywhere they appear.

When the first draft is ready, open it on the cheapest phone in the office using mobile data, not the office Wi-Fi. That one test catches more problems than any design review.

Planning for SEO from day one

Search engine optimisation is far cheaper to plan in than to bolt on. You already have most of what you need: the customer question list is a keyword list in disguise. People type those questions, or short versions of them, into Google.

During planning:

1. Give each main service its own page with a clear name people actually search for. "Borehole drilling in Machakos" beats "Water Solutions".
2. Decide your locations. If you serve several towns, plan whether you need separate, genuinely useful pages for them, or a single "areas we serve" section. Thin copy-paste town pages tend to do more harm than good.
3. Plan the words, not just the layout. A service page with two lines of text has little to rank with. Aim for enough to answer the real questions.
4. Keep your name, address and phone identical across the website, Google Business Profile and directories. For map results, our local SEO guide for Google Maps covers the details.
5. If you are replacing an old site, list every existing page URL so each one can be redirected to its new home. Losing those addresses throws away whatever search ranking they had built up.

From plan to brief

Pull everything together into a one-page brief. It takes about an hour once the steps above are done, and it changes the quality of every quote you receive, because designers can price what you actually need instead of guessing.

A planning worksheet you can copy

1. Goal: This website is working if… (one countable sentence)
2. Customer types: two or three, with what each needs to decide
3. Top ten questions customers ask before buying
4. Page list: with one sentence describing the job of each page
5. Primary and backup call to action for the site, and any page that differs
6. Trust proof you already have: photos, reviews, registrations, past clients who agreed to be named
7. Features: forms, booking, M-Pesa payments, member login, blog, multiple languages
8. Who updates the site after launch, and how often
9. Domain and hosting: do you already own your .co.ke or .com, and who controls the login?
10. Budget range and deadline, including any fixed date such as a school term opening or a product launch

A worked budget example

Say a physiotherapy clinic in Nyeri plans six pages, a WhatsApp button, an enquiry form and no online payments. That fits a standard business website, which at Edgecom starts from KES 20,000 plus 16% VAT, so from KES 23,200 in total, and usually takes two to four weeks. If the same clinic later wants patients to pick a time slot and pay a deposit online, that becomes a booking system, which starts from KES 60,000 plus VAT and takes longer to build and test. Knowing which of these you need before you ask for quotes stops you from paying for features you will not use, or being surprised by ones you forgot. Our website cost guide for Kenya breaks down what moves the price.

Common planning mistakes

• Copying a competitor's page list without checking whether your customers ask the same questions.
• Leaving the content until the design is approved, then delaying launch for weeks while someone writes it.
• Planning a site no one in the business can update, so prices and staff photos go stale within a year.
• Letting the designer register the domain in their own name. Make sure you are the owner on record.
• Skipping a launch review. Once the site is built, run through our website launch checklist before you share the link.

If you would like a second pair of eyes on your plan, or want us to turn it into a working site, see how our web development service works, or send the worksheet through our contact page and we will tell you honestly what it needs.