A business adds a division, takes on a new service or buys a smaller firm. The website gets a new page and carries on as before.
A few years later, someone lands on the homepage and sees two of the five things you do.
The other three are on the site somewhere. A first-time visitor has no reason to go looking for them.
In Summary
- A website planned around one service tends to hide the ones added later
- Visitors only look for what the homepage and main menu tell them you do
- Each part of the business needs its own route in and its own proof
- A separate website is sometimes right for a division, but less often than people think
How does a website end up hiding part of the business?
Website structure is usually planned around what the business does at the time. New services come later and go wherever there is room, often a dropdown or a footer link.
Nobody decides to hide them. Each addition makes sense on the day it goes in.
The trouble is that the homepage still tells the original story. A visitor reads it, works out what you do and leaves with half the picture. When did you last check that your homepage mentions everything you want to be hired for?
What does a visitor actually look for?
A visitor usually arrives with one need. They scan the homepage and the main menu for a sign that you can meet it. If they spot it, they click. If they don’t, they tend to assume you don’t offer it and go back to the search results.
Very few people open every dropdown to check. In practice, your homepage and main menu are the list of what you do. Anything buried deeper is close to invisible to someone new.
We looked at menu wording in Your Website Shouldn’t Need Instructions. This comes a step earlier: whether each part of the business is in the menu at all.
Should each division have its own section?
In most cases, yes. Any part of the business that wins its own work needs its own route in from the homepage, with a proper section behind it.
That section should answer what a buyer of that service wants to know. What do you do, and who for? Can they see examples? Who do they speak to?
A single services page that lists everything in one block does the opposite. It tells every visitor a little about everything and nobody enough to pick up the phone.
A simple test: for each division, can a stranger get from the homepage to a relevant project in two clicks?
Does your website show everything you do?
We build websites that give every part of a business its own place, and we’re happy to take a look at yours. Get in touch
Does your proof need splitting by division too?
Case studies and testimonials often end up in one shared list. A buyer interested in your maintenance work has to scroll past large new builds to find anything relevant, if they find it at all.
Put each piece of proof where it backs up the division it belongs to. A project can sit in more than one place if more than one team worked on it.
It’s worth asking which of your divisions has no case study on the site today. That gap is often where enquiries dry up.
When does a division need its own website?
Sometimes a separate site is right. It can make sense when a division sells to a very different kind of buyer, or trades under its own name.
It rarely makes sense just because a division feels overlooked. A second site costs more to build and keep up to date, and it has to earn its own place in search results from scratch.
Keeping everything on one site lets the group’s whole track record work for every division. If you do split, link the sites clearly so visitors can see the business behind them.
Where do you start?
Write down everything you want to be hired for. Then open your homepage as a stranger would and tick off what you can see without scrolling or clicking.
Anything missing from that list is work you’re unlikely to be asked for.
Next, check that each division has its own section with its own proof behind it. That short exercise usually shows whether you need a few new pages or a fresh look at how the whole site is organised.
If your business has grown faster than your website, we’d be happy to take a look.
About Lemongrass Media
Lemongrass Media is a boutique website design agency with offices in Milton Keynes, St Albans and Bedford. We design bespoke corporate websites that look great, work hard and deliver real results for your business.
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