How is a pizza joint like a website? More to the point, when it comes to building an affordable business website, what can a brick-and-mortar business teach a small business owner?

Downtown, next to a furniture shop with crystal chandeliers is a pizza place that's always swamped. The harried hostess can be cranky. The wait-staff bring plastic plates, and prehistoric Grateful Dead memorabilia line the walls. The pizza's good, not exceptional. Yet customers with and without dreadlocks are always milling around the entrance, anticipating an open table.

Starting as a small business four decades ago, this pizza joint remains a town favorite. And for a good reason. It knows what its customers want (pizza with organic ingredients), and it delivers (to the table). It knows that a few bricks in its walkway are loose, and that the turbo hand-dryer in the washroom could blow nail polish clean off. However, it can pile sun-dried tomato, garden-grown basil and fresh mozzarella on crisp garlic bread in the most mouth-watering combinations.

It knows what other successful small business owners know about setting a consistent tone and sticking with it. Keep this in mind when you build your business website. Merely listing your services isn't good enough. Your customers want to believe that by hiring you, they're going to get the best service available.

Your business website should communicate competence (good pizza), and satisfaction (you deliver). And bear in mind that it's okay to show some pizazz. Every small business has a personal style -- don't be afraid to show yours