Pages a convenience store or corner shop's website should have

You probably typed "grocery store marketing" into a search box. Fair enough. But here's the thing: your customers aren't typing that. They're typing "convenience store near me" or "corner shop near me", and DataForSEO estimates each of those at about 246,000 UK searches a month. "Grocery store marketing" gets about 10 in the UK, on the same estimates. People search by place, not by shop name. So the website has one job: be the obvious, accurate answer when someone nearby needs milk, a parcel drop or a late-night loaf.

Purpose: Tell a stranger in about five seconds what you are, where you are and whether you're open.

Put the shop's name, the town or area, and a plain line saying what you are at the top. "Family-run convenience store" does the job. Under it, show today's opening status if you can, and the address. Add a phone number that someone actually answers.

Then give three or four links to the pages people want: hours, what you stock, services, offers. That's the whole home page. It isn't a brochure.

Use one clear photo of the real shopfront. People look for it when they're walking up the road.

Avoid stock photos of smiling strangers, long welcome speeches, auto-playing video, pop-ups, and any claim you can't back up on the shelf.

Purpose: Answer the question most visitors came for, and answer it correctly.

Write the full address as text, not as an image. Add a map link, and a line or two on landmarks: the bus stop outside, the corner it sits on, where customers can park or leave a bike. Say which side of the road you're on if it's not obvious.

Hours go in a simple list, one row per day. Then list bank holidays separately, because that's where shops get caught out. If you close early on Christmas Eve or open late on a bank holiday Monday, say so before the day, not after.

And keep it honest. If the page says open until eleven and the shutters are down at ten, you've lost that customer for good. So update it whenever the hours change, even for a week.

Avoid hours that differ between your website, your door and your online listings, "open late" with no times, and old holiday notices left up for months.

Purpose: Let people judge, from their phone, whether the trip is worth making.

You can't list every product. Don't try. Group things by what people shop for: milk and bread, fresh fruit and veg, tins and packets, frozen, snacks, drinks, household basics, baby items, pet food. Mention anything that sets you apart, such as a good selection of world foods or a regular bakery delivery, if it's true.

Services get their own short list. Parcels, bill payments, a cash machine, delivery, newspapers: include each one only if you really offer it today. If the cash machine is out of order, say that. If you take parcels for one courier and not another, name which.

To be fair, a short, truthful list beats a long, optimistic one. Every service you list is a promise.

Avoid listing services you used to offer, "everything you need" with no detail, and product lists that go out of date within a fortnight.

Purpose: Show that you sell alcohol properly, and say what customers should expect at the till.

In England and Wales, selling alcohol needs a premises licence for the business and a personal licence for anyone who sells or authorises sales of alcohol. Both come from the local council licensing team, according to GOV.UK. Its list of businesses that need a licence includes pubs, late-opening cafes, takeaways and supermarkets, and a shop that sells alcohol is in the same position.

You don't need to publish your licence paperwork on the website. But a short, calm note helps: you sell alcohol under a licence, and you ask for proof of age when it's needed. Name the ID you accept only if that's your real policy. If you ask for a particular kind of card or document, say so; if you haven't settled it, leave the detail out until you have.

It also helps your staff. A page that states the policy plainly gives them something to point at when a customer grumbles.

Avoid promising what you won't do at the till, copying another shop's ID rules, mentioning licence numbers you haven't checked, and any joke about underage buyers.

Purpose: Reassure customers that the food you handle is handled properly.

Anyone who sells, handles or stores food must register as a food business with their local authority at least 28 days before trading, per the Food Standards Agency via GOV.UK. If you are trading, you should already have done this. You don't need a page about it, but a line in your About section can say you're a registered food business.

The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme runs from 5 to 0 across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It shows on stickers and online. Displaying it is voluntary in England and required in Wales and Northern Ireland.

If your rating is good, show it, with the date of the visit if you have it. If you're in Wales or Northern Ireland, you have to display it anyway, so put it on the site too.

Then there's allergens. Prepacked food made and sold in the shop, like sandwiches, needs labelling with the name and full ingredients, with allergens emphasised. That's "Natasha's Law", in force since 1 October 2021. A short note on the site saying how you handle it is plenty.

Avoid showing a rating that's out of date, calling food "allergen-free" without proof, and any suggestion that the rating is better than the sticker says.

Purpose: Explain, step by step, how a customer gets goods without walking in.

If you offer neither, skip this page entirely. Don't leave a "coming soon" placeholder. It reads as a promise you haven't kept.

If you do offer one, say how it works. How does someone order: phone, message, form? What's the delivery area, in streets or postcodes? What's the minimum order, and what does it cost? Keep those details as short as you can, and put real figures in only when they're yours to set. For click and collect, say when orders are ready and where in the shop to pick up.

So treat it like a short instruction sheet. Three or four steps. Someone who's never ordered from you should get it right first time.

Avoid vague promises about "fast" delivery, areas you can't cover on a busy night, and an order form that sends messages nobody reads.

Purpose: Give regulars a reason to check back, and give the neighbourhood a noticeboard.

Offers work best when they're real and current. A weekly list of what's discounted, with an end date, is enough. If you can't keep it up, don't start. An offer page from last season does more harm than none.

Community notices are the quiet extra. A local event, a charity collection, a school fair, a change to bin collection that affects the street. Put it up if you'd stick it in the window anyway. It tells people you're part of the place, not just standing in it.

Keep each notice short, dated and removed once it's passed. You'll need a rule for that, or the page clogs.

Avoid offers with no end date, notices for events you haven't confirmed, and anything that looks like an advert for someone else's business.

Purpose: Put a face and a story behind the till.

People choose a corner shop partly on trust. So say who runs it, how long you've been here, and why you do it. Two or three honest paragraphs will do. Add a photo of you or the team, if you're comfortable with that.

Mention what you do for the area in plain terms: early opening for people on the way to work, keeping regulars' orders aside, knowing which newspaper someone wants. Only include what's true.

You can say a bit about your own background too. Skip the mission statement. Keep it to what customers would find useful.

Avoid invented history, quotes from customers you can't point to, grand claims about being the best in town, and names or photos of staff who haven't agreed.

Purpose: Make sure the listing people see first matches the shop they'll find.

Your Google Business Profile often shows up before your website does, so treat it as a page of your site you don't host. The name must match the real-world name, the one on the fascia. Address and hours need to be accurate, and kept that way.

Check it whenever your hours change, and before every bank holiday. Add real photos of the shop, outside and in. Link it to your website, and make sure the phone number on both is the same.

Consistency matters. A listing that says one thing and a site that says another gives people a reason to go elsewhere. Nobody can promise a ranking from this. What you can control is being correct.

Avoid adding keywords to your business name, listing a different address from the real one, and ignoring the profile for months.

Purpose: Show who is behind the shop, in the small print where people expect it.

If you trade as a UK limited company, GOV.UK says the site should show the registered company number, the registered office address, where the company is registered, and that it is a limited company. Put them in the footer of every page, in small plain type. A phone number and email sit nicely alongside.

Add a short privacy note if your site collects anything, such as an order form or an email sign-up. Keep it short and honest about what you do with the information.

It's dull. It's meant to be. Customers rarely read the footer, but it's what separates a real shop from a hollow one.

Avoid copying footer details from another site, leaving out the registered office, and showing a company name that differs from your trading name without explaining it.

Purpose: Give you an order of work so the site is useful quickly, not perfect eventually.

1. Home page. Name, area, what you are, today's status, a phone number.
2. Opening hours, address and how to find you. Full hours, bank holidays, a map link.
3. What you stock and the services you offer. Only what's true today.
4. Google Business Profile. It sits outside your site, so fix it in the same week.
5. Company details in the footer. One edit, shown on every page.

Everything else can wait. Alcohol, hygiene rating, delivery, offers and the About page come next, in whatever order fits your shop.

Avoid starting with the page you find most fun, building all ten at once, and leaving the first five half-finished. Get those right, keep them honest, and the rest follows.

Not sure which pages you're short of? Seracu offers a free snapshot: a free look at which topics your site lacks compared with its competitors. For more background, see our guides on SEO for small business, content gap analysis and getting found on Google, or browse the retail pages and the wider pages you should have directory. Or start with the five pages above.