What Is a Company Website and What Should It Do?

Updated

A company website is the owned, permanent online presence for a business: a set of pages under your own domain that presents who you are, what you sell, and how to reach you. It differs from a personal blog (built around one person's voice) and from a landing page (a single page built for one campaign). If you need somewhere to send every prospect, customer, and partner for years rather than weeks, you need a company website.

What a company website is meant to accomplish

Three jobs, in rough order of priority:

  1. Present the company. Establish credibility before anyone speaks to you — who you are, what you do, and evidence that you have done it before.
  2. Generate enquiries. Turn an anonymous visitor into a named contact through clear calls to action and easy contact routes.
  3. Support sales. Give people already in a conversation with you the material they need: service detail, examples of past work, and answers to common questions.

A site that looks good but does none of these is decoration, not a business asset.

The elements most company sites need

Element What it does Why it matters
Services or products Explains what you sell Visitors arrive not knowing your range
Portfolio or case examples Shows proof of delivery Claims are weak without evidence
About / company page Puts a name and face to the business Trust signal for first-time buyers
Contact details Phone, email, form, address If it is hard to find, enquiries stop
Accessibility provisions Makes content usable by everyone Widens your audience and reduces exclusion

MicroAngelo, a UK web development firm, describes its own service pages as covering accessibility consultancy, content management, content writing, internet marketing, hosting and domains, web design, e-commerce, and intranet/extranet development — a useful illustration of how broad "company website" work becomes once you list everything a business actually needs online.

Usability, accessibility, and functionality

These three determine whether the site succeeds, and they are not the same thing.

  • Usability is whether a visitor can complete a task without confusion — finding a service, submitting an enquiry, checking a price.
  • Accessibility is whether people with disabilities can use the site too. MicroAngelo states that "the vast majority of websites are designed in an inaccessible way" and positions accessibility as "an important factor in determining its success." It also offers accessibility audits written "in laymans terms ready for your board," which reflects a practical reality: accessibility decisions are often made by people who are not developers.
  • Functionality is whether the underlying build does what it promises — forms submit, pages load, checkout works.

A site can be attractive and fail all three. Prioritise function over polish.

Template or bespoke build?

This is the decision most small businesses actually face.

Choose a template when:

  • Your budget is tight and your requirements are standard (a handful of pages, a contact form, maybe a simple shop).
  • You need to launch quickly and can accept the constraints of the template's structure.
  • You are comfortable that your site will resemble others using the same theme.

Choose a bespoke build when:

  • You need specific functionality — a custom webstore, a web application, an intranet or extranet.
  • Accessibility to a defined standard is a requirement, not an afterthought.
  • You want the site to remain maintainable and standards-compliant as it grows.

MicroAngelo describes its own work as "bespoke webstores and web applications, built to conform with web standards, resulting in high accessibility and future-proof sites" — the "future-proof" claim is the real argument for bespoke: you are paying to avoid a rebuild in two years, not just for a nicer design.

What to expect from a professional build

If you commission a company website, ask how the process will run. MicroAngelo's stated model is worth using as a checklist when comparing suppliers:

  • A named project manager working with you throughout, rather than a handoff between departments.
  • Regular status reporting — MicroAngelo offers daily status reports.
  • Iterative feedback, where your input shapes the project as it progresses rather than only at the end.

If a supplier cannot describe their process in these terms, that is a signal about how the project will feel.

Practical next steps

  1. Write down the three jobs above and note which one your current or planned site is weakest at.
  2. List the pages you need — services, portfolio, about, contact as a minimum.
  3. Decide template or bespoke using the conditions above.
  4. If commissioning, ask for the process, the reporting cadence, and how accessibility will be handled.
  5. Check that contact details are reachable from every page.

A company website is judged by what it does for the business, not by how it looks in a screenshot.