In short
An effective showcase site fits in five to ten pages: a home page that says in one sentence what you do and where, one page per service, an about page, your projects and reviews, a contact reachable in one tap and the legal notices. It must also display quickly on a phone. At Orbitoile, a five-page showcase site starts at €590 during the launch period.
What is a showcase site?
A showcase site presents a business without selling directly online: your services, your projects, your way of working and your contact details. Its purpose is to reassure the visitor and then trigger a contact: a call, an e-mail or a quote request.
It is the most common format for a freelancer, a tradesperson, a local shop or a small business. It differs from an online shop, which adds a catalogue, a basket and payment, and from a booking site, which adds a calendar.
If you are hesitating between these formats, the three packages on the home page compare them at a glance.
The essential pages of a showcase site
Home: who, what, where, how
At the top of the home page, the visitor must read in one sentence what you do and where you work, then find a clear button to contact you. A slogan can catch attention, but it never replaces this explanatory sentence.
One page per service
Each service deserves its own page, with what it includes, who it is for and how it works. It is clearer for the visitor, and it lets Google suggest you for precise searches rather than on a single catch-all page.
About: the person behind the business
People choose a provider as much as a service. A page presenting your background, your way of working and a real photo builds the trust that no list of services can replace.
Proof: projects and reviews
Show real examples of your work and invite your satisfied customers to leave a review. Never invent testimonials: fictitious reviews are a misleading commercial practice, and visitors spot them quickly.
Contact, in one tap
Phone number clickable on mobile, visible e-mail address, short form: a determined visitor should never have to look for how to reach you. Also give your service area and your hours.
Real example
On sentinelle-investigations.fr, the website of a private detective agency in Lyon that I built, these principles translate into pages by geographic area, an FAQ, a contact assistant and a one-tap call button on mobile. Measured on 24 October 2026 with PageSpeed Insights, the site scores 99/100 on mobile, with the main content displayed in 1.1 seconds.
Legal notices
Any site published in a professional capacity must display legal notices: publisher identity, address, SIRET number, contact and host. The full list is detailed on Service-Public.fr, and our guide legal notices of a website goes through them one by one. If your site sets cookies other than those strictly necessary, the visitor’s consent is required: the CNIL explains the rules.
What Google expects from a showcase site
A showcase site can rank very well in searches, provided it respects a few basics:
- a title and description specific to each page;
- a main heading (H1) that clearly states the subject of the page;
- real text, not just images or slogans;
- a site that is fast and pleasant on a phone, where a large share of visits happen;
- your city and service area mentioned naturally.
To go further on visibility near you, read the guide local SEO in Lyon. Google also publishes its own very accessible SEO starter guide.
The mistakes that drive visitors away
- A slogan with no explanation: the visitor leaves without knowing what you do.
- A phone number nobody can find: hidden at the bottom of the page or absent on mobile.
- “Under construction” pages: better one page fewer than an empty page.
- A slow site: often because of images that are too heavy.
- Copied texts from another site or a template: they do not inspire trust and Google ignores them.
- An endless form: beyond a few fields, many give up.
When a showcase site is no longer enough
A showcase site presents and reassures, but it does not do everything. Three signals show that you need to go further:
- your customers mainly call you to book a slot: a site with online booking saves them that call, and you too;
- you sell products that can be ordered without speaking to you: an online shop becomes useful;
- you want to publish articles every week without going through a provider: the choice of technology matters, see WordPress or custom-coded site.
In other cases, a well-built showcase site remains the simplest solution and the cheapest to maintain.
How many pages for a showcase site?
For most businesses, five to ten pages are enough: home, one page per service, about, projects, contact and legal notices. Guides or articles can be added later if you want to work on your SEO over the long term.
Example of a five-page showcase site
| Page | Its role | What it contains |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Say who you are and what you do | One explanatory sentence, your area, a contact button, a preview of services and reviews |
| Services | Describe what you offer | What is included, for whom, how it goes |
| About | Build trust | Your background, your way of working, a real photo |
| Contact | Trigger the enquiry | Clickable phone number, e-mail, short form, area and hours |
| Legal notice | Comply with the law | Publisher, registration, host, personal data |
This is the basic structure of an Orbitoile showcase site. With a single main service, one page is enough; with several, plan one for each, which quickly brings the site to six or eight pages. Projects and reviews first find their place on the home page, then deserve their own page when they become numerous.
The number of pages is also one of the first elements that make the budget vary: the guide price of building a website details the others.
Key takeaway
A good showcase site says what you do from the first sentence, devotes a page to each service, shows real proof and lets people contact you in one tap. The rest is detail.