Worthing is a town of independents. Coffee on the prom between the pier and Splash Point, salons and boutiques along Montague Street and Warwick Street, trades working out of Goring, Tarring and Broadwater, makers and therapists dotted all over. Most of them are brilliant at what they do. A surprising number of them are let down by their website.
We look at a lot of local websites, and the same problems turn up again and again. None of them are complicated. Most can be fixed in an afternoon. Here's what matters, in the order your customers notice it.
They're on a phone, probably on the prom
Most first visits happen on a phone, often while someone is already out and about: strolling the pier, waiting for a film at the Dome, or wondering where to grab lunch after a walk round Beach House Park. They want three things fast: are you open, where are you, and what do you offer. Opening hours, a map link and your menu or services should be one thumb away from the top of the page.
Open your own website on your phone right now. Go on, we'll wait.
If you have to pinch, zoom or hunt for your hours, so does every customer.
Google reads your title before anyone reads your site
The blue link in Google is your page title, and the grey text under it is your description. Lots of local sites leave these as just the business name, the web address, or worse, a template placeholder like "Your Site Title". That tells Google almost nothing about what you do or where you are.
A good title says what you do and where: something like "Seafront café in Worthing | Brunch, coffee and cakes". A good description gives one honest reason to click. It takes five minutes to change and it's one of the most useful five minutes you'll spend.
Your Google Business Profile does half the work
When someone on Montague Street searches "coffee near me", or a new family in Durrington looks up "plumber Worthing", the map results come from Google Business Profiles, not websites. Keep yours complete: correct hours (including bank holidays), real photos, the right categories and a link to your website.
Make sure your name, phone number and website match exactly between your profile and your site. Google trusts businesses whose details agree everywhere. And ask happy customers for reviews. It feels awkward once and pays off for years.
Slow feels broken
People don't wait. We've measured local business websites that take more than ten seconds to show anything on a phone, usually because of huge photos or a heavy template. By then most visitors have hit back and tapped the next result.
Compress your images, cut anything that autoplays and keep the first screen simple.
A fast site feels confident. Google notices too.
Say Worthing like a local would
If you want to be found in Worthing, your site needs to say so, naturally and in the right places. Mention the areas you actually cover, whether that's the town centre, Goring and the Gap, Tarring, Broadwater, Durrington, Findon Valley up towards Cissbury Ring, or out along the coast to Lancing and Shoreham.
If you offer more than one service, give each one its own page with a clear heading. One long page that tries to cover everything ranks for nothing in particular.
Templates get you online. Being memorable gets you chosen.
There's nothing wrong with starting on a template. It gets you online. But when every café from the pier to Goring uses the same layout, the same fonts and the same stock photos, they all blur into one.
A website built around your brand, your photos and your voice gives people a reason to remember you and a reason to choose you over the place next door.
Your Instagram probably shows more personality than your website. That's usually where the gap is.
Somebody has to look after it
Websites don't stay finished. Domains expire, plans lapse, security certificates run out and old opening hours hang around for years. We regularly come across local sites showing an "expired" page, a password screen or a security warning, and the owner has no idea.
Put a reminder in your calendar to check your site every month, or have someone do it for you.
Customers judge your business by the last thing they saw.
If you've ticked everything, nice work. If not, most of these are quick fixes you can do yourself today.
And if you'd rather hand it over, that's what we do. STKR Studio is a small web design studio just along the coast in Brighton. We design and build websites from scratch for independent businesses, write the words, handle the local search setup and look after everything once you're live.