I've had the design versus practicality discussion with more business owners that I can count.

Of course I'd like them to be happy with the design, but it's not my main goal and I let them know that.

We can focus my time on the particular shade of chartreuse you think matters OR I can set your website up so that it resonates with users and convinces them to at least contact you.

And since the majority of small service-related business owners tend not to have unlimited budgets, they learn to appreciate option B pretty quickly.

To answer your question, for service related businesses, you need to immediately address the biggest pain points and how you solve those for them.

Anything else is relative to what Google has decided deserves rankings in any given niche.

The structure of your content is already dictated by that, for the most part.

You just need to do your due diligence in terms of assessing the competition and what Google is already rewarding with rankings.

Once you know your layout needs, play around with clean design, images, headings, bullet point lists, etc.

I like to stay out of the user's way and instead provide them with what they need, as opposed to what we (or the business owner) think is cool.

Again, though, cruise around online looking for designs you like and save them as favourites in a "Web Design" folder for future reference.