Quick answers to common website questions
The questions business owners ask us most, answered in a few plain sentences first and the detail second. Written by the developers who build and maintain websites for a living, from Mississauga, Ontario.
Getting started
Do I need a website for my small business?
Yes, in almost every case. Most people check a business online before they call or visit, and a website is the one place you control what they find: your services, prices, hours, reviews and a way to contact you. Social media and a Google Business Profile help, but they are rented space with rules that change; a website is the asset you own.
Do I need a website if I have Facebook and Instagram?
Yes. Social accounts are good for reaching people who already follow you, but they do not show up when someone searches Google for what you sell, they can be suspended or changed by the platform at any time, and you cannot control how they look or what they link to. Use social media to bring people in and a website to turn them into customers.
What is the difference between web design and web development?
Web design is deciding how a website looks and how people move through it: layout, colours, type, images and the flow from page to page. Web development is building the working site from that design: writing the code, setting up the platform, making forms, menus and integrations work, and making it fast and secure. Small studios often do both; the two words describe two kinds of work, not two kinds of company.
What does a web developer do?
A web developer builds and maintains websites and web applications, from the pages and forms visitors use to the servers, databases and integrations behind them. Day to day that means writing code, setting up platforms such as WordPress or Shopify, building pages and forms, connecting payment, booking and email systems, making sites fast and secure, fixing what breaks, and handling the technical side of search visibility. Front-end developers work on what visitors see; back-end developers work on servers, databases and logic; full-stack developers do both.
How many pages should a small business website have?
Most small business websites need 5 to 10 pages: a homepage, one page for each main service, an about page, a contact page, and a privacy policy. Add a page per location if you serve more than one area, and a reviews or portfolio page if your work is visual. One focused page per service beats one long page listing everything, both for visitors and for search.
What should a business website homepage include?
A homepage should tell a visitor within seconds what you do, who it is for and where you work, then give them one clear next step such as a phone number, a quote form or a booking button. Below that, show your main services with links to their pages, proof (reviews, logos, photos of real work), a short note on who you are, and a final call to action. Keep the writing plain and the page fast.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a web page built for one audience and one action, usually the page people arrive on from an ad, an email or a specific search. Unlike a homepage, which routes visitors to many places, a landing page removes distractions and focuses on a single offer with one call to action, such as requesting a quote or booking a call. Businesses use them for ad campaigns, specific services and specific locations.
What is the difference between a website and a web app?
A website presents information: pages people read, with perhaps a contact form. A web app is software that runs in the browser and does something for the person using it: logging in, saving data, processing orders, generating reports. A restaurant's menu site is a website; its online ordering system is a web app. Most business sites are websites with a few app-like features such as booking or payments.
Does my business website need a blog?
No, a business website does not need a blog. It needs useful pages that answer what your customers search for, and a blog is only one way to publish those. A blog helps when you will genuinely write something useful every month or two; a blog with three posts from 2021 hurts more than having none. Guides, FAQ pages and detailed service pages often do the same job with less upkeep.
Cost and timelines
How long does it take to build a website?
A typical small business website takes 3 to 6 weeks from kickoff to launch. An online store or a site with custom features usually takes 8 to 16 weeks. The biggest variable is not the developer: it is how quickly the business supplies content, photos and feedback.
How much does website hosting cost in Canada?
Most small business websites in Canada cost between $10 and $50 CAD a month to host. Shared hosting runs roughly $5 to $25 a month, managed WordPress hosting $30 to $100, and a cloud or VPS server $20 to $150 depending on size. Introductory prices are often half the renewal price, so compare the renewal rate.
How much does a domain name cost in Canada?
A standard .com or .ca domain costs about $15 to $30 CAD a year at a reputable registrar. First-year promotions can be lower and renewals are sometimes higher, so check the renewal price before buying. Domains that are already owned and offered for resale, called premium domains, can cost hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars.
How much does website maintenance cost?
Professional website maintenance for a small business usually costs $100 to $600 CAD a month. PrimaryDM's plans are $149, $299 and $599 CAD a month depending on how much monitoring, updating and hands-on work the site needs. Hosting and the domain are separate, typically another $15 to $60 a month combined.
How much do web developers charge per hour in Canada?
Freelance web developers in Canada typically charge $50 to $125 CAD an hour, and agencies $100 to $250 an hour. Senior specialists in React, ecommerce or custom software are at the top of those ranges. Most website builds are quoted as a fixed project price rather than by the hour; at PrimaryDM a regular business website starts at $2,000 CAD.
How much does SEO cost in Canada?
Ongoing SEO for a small business in Canada typically costs $500 to $2,000 CAD a month for local SEO, and $2,000 to $5,000 or more a month for competitive national or ecommerce campaigns. One-time work such as an audit or a technical fix-up usually runs $500 to $3,000. Anyone promising page-one rankings for $99 a month is selling something other than SEO.
How much does a website redesign cost?
A website redesign usually costs about the same as building the site new, because the design, pages and content are all remade and the old content has to be migrated. At PrimaryDM a redesigned business website starts at $2,000 CAD; larger sites and online stores are quoted per project. A refresh that keeps the structure and only updates the look and content costs less.
What happens if I stop paying for my website?
It depends which bill you stop paying. Stop paying for hosting and the site goes offline, usually within days, and the files are deleted after a grace period. Stop paying for the domain and the website and any email on that domain stop working when it expires; after a grace and redemption period of roughly 30 to 75 days the name can be bought by anyone. Stop paying for maintenance and the site stays up but stops being updated, backed up and protected.
Ownership and hiring
Do I own my website if an agency builds it?
You should, but it depends on the contract and on whose name the accounts are in. Owning a website means the domain is registered to you, the hosting account is yours, you have administrator access to the site and its code, and the contract says the design and content belong to you once paid. If any of those sit in the agency's name, you do not fully own it, whatever the invoice says.
Can I move my website to a different developer?
Usually yes. If your site is on WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify or another standard platform and the domain and hosting are in your name, a new developer can take over by being given access; nothing needs to be rebuilt. It gets harder if the site is on a builder tied to the old developer's account, uses a custom system only they understand, or if they control the domain. Start by listing what you have access to.
WordPress and platforms
What is a CMS (content management system)?
A CMS, or content management system, is software that lets you create and edit the pages of a website through a dashboard instead of writing code. WordPress is the most widely used CMS; Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, Drupal and Webflow are others. With a CMS, your developer builds the design and structure once, and you or your staff update text, images, posts and products yourselves.
Is WordPress free?
The WordPress software is free. It is open source, you can download it, install it and modify it at no cost, and there is no licence fee ever. What you pay for is everything around it: hosting (about $10 to $50 CAD a month), a domain (about $15 to $30 a year), optionally a premium theme or plugins (often $50 to $300 a year each), and a developer's time to build and maintain the site.
What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
WordPress.org is where the free, open-source WordPress software lives; you download it and run it on hosting you choose, with full control over themes, plugins and code. WordPress.com is a company (Automattic) that hosts WordPress for you as a paid service, with plans that limit what you can install unless you pay for the higher tiers. Most business websites described as 'WordPress sites' are the self-hosted .org kind.
What is a WordPress plugin, and how many is too many?
A WordPress plugin is an add-on that gives a site a feature WordPress does not have on its own: contact forms, SEO tools, online shopping, backups, caching, security scanning. There is no fixed limit on how many to install, but each one is code someone else maintains and a possible way in for attackers. A well-built business site typically runs 10 to 20 plugins, all actively maintained and actually used.
Is WordPress secure?
WordPress itself is secure when kept up to date; its core software is reviewed by a large security team and patched quickly. WordPress sites get hacked mostly through outdated plugins and themes, weak or reused passwords, and cheap hosting, not through WordPress itself. A WordPress site that is updated weekly, uses strong logins with two-factor authentication, runs on good hosting and is backed up is as safe as any business website needs to be.
Domains and hosting
What is the difference between a domain and hosting?
A domain is your website's address, such as primarydm.com, which you register yearly through a registrar. Hosting is the server space where the website's files live, rented monthly or yearly from a hosting company. The domain points visitors to the host. You need both, they can be bought from different companies, and it is usually wise to keep them separate so no single provider controls everything.
What is DNS and why does it matter for my website?
DNS, the domain name system, is the directory that turns your domain name into the address of the server that holds your website and the server that receives your email. Your domain's DNS records say 'send website visitors here' and 'deliver email there'. When you change hosts, add Google Workspace or verify your site with Google, you edit these records. Changes usually take minutes to a few hours to spread, occasionally up to 48 hours.
How do I transfer my domain to another registrar?
Unlock the domain at the current registrar, get its transfer authorization code (also called an EPP or auth code), start the transfer at the new registrar and approve the confirmation email. For .com and most endings the transfer completes within five to seven days and adds a year to the registration; .ca transfers through CIRA usually complete faster. Domains registered or transferred within the last 60 days cannot be moved yet.
What is an SSL certificate, and does my website need one?
An SSL certificate (now technically TLS) is what makes a website load over HTTPS, encrypting what passes between the visitor and the site and showing the padlock in the browser. Yes, every website needs one: browsers label sites without it 'Not secure', Google treats HTTPS as a ranking signal, and forms on an HTTP page send what people type in plain text. Certificates are free from most hosts and from Let's Encrypt.
What is a CDN (content delivery network)?
A CDN, or content delivery network, is a set of servers spread around the world that keep copies of your website's files and serve each visitor from the server nearest to them. It makes the site load faster for people far from your host, takes load off your server, and usually adds protection against attacks. Cloudflare offers a free CDN that most small business sites can use; many hosts include one.
Speed and mobile
What is responsive web design?
Responsive web design means a website is built once and rearranges itself to fit whatever screen it is shown on: a phone, a tablet, a laptop or a wide monitor. Text stays readable without zooming, menus collapse into a tap-friendly form, images scale, and columns stack. It has been the standard way to build websites since the early 2010s, and Google indexes sites based on their mobile version, so a site that is not responsive is already behind.
How do I check if my website is mobile friendly?
Open it on your own phone and try to do what a customer would: read a service page, find the phone number, fill in the contact form. Then run the page through Google's PageSpeed Insights, which tests it as a mobile device and reports layout, speed and tap-target problems. Google retired its separate Mobile-Friendly Test and the Search Console mobile usability report in late 2023, so PageSpeed Insights and Chrome's device mode are the tools to use now.
How fast should a website load?
The main content of a page should appear within 2.5 seconds on a typical phone over a mobile connection; that is Google's 'good' threshold for Largest Contentful Paint. Visitors start leaving noticeably after about three seconds. A total load time under two seconds on desktop and under three on mobile is a realistic target for a business website, and most slow sites miss it because of oversized images and too much code, not because of the host.
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to judge how a page feels to real visitors: Largest Contentful Paint (how fast the main content appears, good is 2.5 seconds or under), Interaction to Next Paint (how quickly the page reacts to a tap or click, good is 200 milliseconds or under) and Cumulative Layout Shift (how much the layout jumps while loading, good is 0.1 or under). Google collects them from Chrome users and uses them as a ranking signal.
SEO and Google
Why is my website not showing up on Google?
Either Google has not indexed the site yet, something is telling Google not to, or the site is indexed but ranks too low to be seen. Search for site:yourdomain.com; if nothing appears, the site is not indexed, which on a new site can take days to weeks, and on an older site usually means a 'noindex' setting, a blocked robots.txt or a penalty. If pages do appear, the problem is ranking, which is a content and authority problem rather than a technical one.
How long does SEO take to work?
Expect the first measurable movement in three to six months and meaningful results in six to twelve. Local SEO for a single-location business is often faster, with Google Business Profile and local pages improving within weeks to a few months. Competitive national or ecommerce terms can take a year or more. Technical fixes show up fastest; building the content and reputation that competitive rankings need is the slow part.
What is local SEO?
Local SEO is the work of making a business show up when people nearby search for what it does: 'dentist near me', 'roofing company Oakville', 'emergency plumber'. It centres on the Google Business Profile that appears in the map results, on pages of your website written for each service and area you serve, on reviews, and on your business name, address and phone being consistent everywhere online. For most service businesses it is the most valuable kind of SEO.
What is a Google Business Profile, and do I need one?
A Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows your business on Google Maps and in the box of business details that appears in search: name, address, hours, phone, reviews, photos and a link to your website. Any business that serves customers locally should have one, including businesses that work at customers' locations rather than from a storefront. It is free, takes an hour to set up properly, and is the biggest single factor in appearing in local map results.
What is the difference between SEO and Google Ads?
SEO earns a place in Google's unpaid results by making your site the best answer for a search; it takes months to build and keeps working when you stop paying for the work. Google Ads buys a place at the top of the results, labelled 'Sponsored', for each click; it starts immediately and stops the moment the budget does. Most businesses do best with ads for immediate leads while SEO builds, then shift budget as the organic traffic grows.
What is a meta description?
A meta description is a short summary of a page, written in the page's code, that search engines may show as the grey text under the blue link in results. It is not a ranking factor, but a clear one wins more clicks. Keep it to roughly 150 to 160 characters, make it specific to the page, and include what the visitor gets. Google rewrites descriptions it finds unhelpful, which is common when the text does not match what the person searched for.
What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is a file, usually at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml, that lists the pages of a website so search engines can find them all and see when each last changed. It does not improve rankings by itself, but it helps Google discover new and updated pages quickly, which matters for new sites, large sites and sites whose pages are not all linked from the menu. You submit it once in Google Search Console and the platform keeps it current.
What is schema markup (structured data)?
Schema markup, also called structured data, is a block of code added to a page that labels its content in a vocabulary search engines understand: this is a business, here is its address and opening hours; this is an article, written by this person on this date; this is a question and this is its answer. It lets Google and AI systems read facts about the page with certainty instead of guessing, and it can earn richer results such as star ratings, FAQs and breadcrumbs under your listing.
What is a 301 redirect?
A 301 redirect is a permanent forwarding instruction from one web address to another. When someone, or Google, requests the old address, the server replies 'this has moved permanently' and sends them to the new one. It is how you change a page's URL, merge two pages or move to a new domain without losing the visitors, bookmarks and search rankings the old address had. Google passes the ranking signals of the old page to the new one.
What does a 404 error mean?
A 404 error means the server was reached but has no page at the address requested: the page was deleted, renamed or never existed, or the link pointing to it has a typo. A few 404s are normal on any site. Many of them, especially on pages that used to have traffic, mean broken links or a redesign done without redirects, and they cost you visitors and rankings. The fix is a 301 redirect to the right page, or fixing the link that points there.
What is Google Analytics, and do I need it?
Google Analytics is a free tool that records how people use your website: how many visit, where they came from (search, ads, social, referrals), which pages they read, and what they do, such as submitting a form or calling. The current version is Google Analytics 4. Most businesses should have it or an equivalent, because without it you cannot tell whether the website or any marketing is working. It does require a privacy policy and, in some jurisdictions, consent.
Maintenance and security
What is website maintenance, and what does it include?
Website maintenance is the ongoing work that keeps a live site secure, fast and working: updating the software (WordPress core, plugins, themes, or a store's apps), taking and testing backups, monitoring uptime and security, fixing things that break, checking forms and links, keeping speed up, and making small content changes. It is done weekly or monthly, usually under a monthly plan, and it is what separates a site that lasts five years from one that gets hacked or quietly breaks.
How often should I update my website?
Software updates (WordPress, plugins, themes, store apps) should be applied weekly, or within a few days when a security patch is released. Content should be reviewed at least quarterly so prices, hours, services and team details stay true, and added to whenever you have something useful to say. A design refresh is typically worth considering every three to five years, or sooner if the site stops working well on phones or no longer reflects the business.
How often should I back up my website?
Back up at least daily if the site changes often or takes orders, and at least weekly for a site that rarely changes, plus a manual backup before every software update or major change. Backups should be automatic, stored somewhere other than the web server (cloud storage or the backup service's own servers), kept for at least 30 days, and tested by actually restoring one now and then. A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a plan.
How do I know if my website has been hacked?
Common signs are a browser or Google warning ('This site may be hacked' or a red 'Deceptive site ahead' screen), visitors being redirected to other sites, unfamiliar pages or spam text appearing in Google results for your domain, admin users you did not create, emails from your host about malware or suspended service, a sudden drop in traffic, or the site becoming slow or showing errors. Google Search Console's Security Issues report and a malware scan confirm it.
What is a staging site?
A staging site is a private copy of your live website, on a hidden address, where updates, new features and design changes are tested before they are applied to the real site. If a plugin update breaks the layout or a new feature misbehaves, it breaks on staging and visitors never see it. Most managed WordPress hosts provide one-click staging; on other platforms a developer sets it up. For a site that earns leads or takes orders, it is standard practice.
What is a website audit?
A website audit is a structured review of a site that reports what is wrong and what to fix, usually across five areas: technical health (indexing, speed, mobile, broken links, security), on-page SEO (titles, descriptions, headings, content, structured data), user experience and conversion (can visitors find and do what they came for), accessibility, and content accuracy. It ends in a prioritized list, not a score. Businesses commission one before a redesign, when results stall, or when taking over a site someone else built.
Payments and legal
How do online payments work on a website?
A website takes payments through a payment processor such as Stripe, Shopify Payments, Square or PayPal. The customer enters card details into a secure form provided by the processor, the processor checks with the card network and the bank in a second or two, and the approved money lands in your business bank account a few days later, minus a fee of roughly 2.5 to 3 per cent plus about 30 cents per transaction in Canada. Your website never stores the card number.
Do I need a privacy policy on my website in Canada?
In practice, yes. Canada's federal privacy law (PIPEDA) requires businesses that collect personal information in the course of commercial activity, which includes a contact form, analytics or an online store, to be open about what they collect and why, and a published privacy policy is how that is done. Quebec's Law 25 explicitly requires a policy on the website. Google Analytics, Google Ads and payment processors also require one in their terms. This is general information, not legal advice.
Does my website need to be accessible in Ontario?
If your organization has 50 or more employees in Ontario, or is in the public sector, yes: under the AODA your public website and its content must meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA, and you must file accessibility compliance reports. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees are not required to meet the WCAG standard under the AODA, but the Ontario Human Rights Code still obliges every business to accommodate customers with disabilities, and an accessible site is better for every visitor and for search. This is general information, not legal advice.
Need more than a quick answer?
The plain-English guides go deeper on platforms, hiring, domains and SEO, and the website cost page explains exactly what moves the price of a build.