Are you wondering what pages to put on your website? It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to update an existing website or create one from scratch. All websites need these critical pages.
Hey everyone, I’m Kelly, and today I’m going to talk you through the seven must-have pages for your website:
1. Homepage
The homepage is the most crucial page of your website and it’s generally the first page a visitor sees. An excellent homepage will keep them on your website for longer. It should be a summary of everything on your website and should have social proof to encourage visitors to buy from you or book your services.
2. About page.
This is the second most visited page on most websites. Your About page should identify your customers’ ambitions and challenges, and demonstrate how you can help them. Talking about yourself, the business owner, especially in the third person is a turn off for potential clients. They are interested in themselves and how you can help them solve their problems, not in how many awards you’ve got.
3. Services or Product page.
This page explains what you sell, whether it’s a physical product or a service, and it should have different sections for your various services or products. You should be talking about the specific benefits of working with you and explaining why the visitor should choose you over the competition.
4. Contact page.
If you want your visitors to get in touch, ask questions and connect with you, you need a contact page. It should have a contact form so it can send a message without going off your website into an email, as this may result in the visitor getting distracted and not coming back. If your business has a physical location, then it’s great to add in your address and possibly a map to help them. Driving or public transport instructions can be extremely useful, especially in cities where people might not be arriving by car.
5. Blog page.
Now, this is essential to your website as it’ll help visitors to find you and trust your expertise. People buy from people and a blog is a great way to let your customers know about you, about what you do, and to see behind the scenes. If you want to be known as the go-to expert in your industry, then you need a blog. I use my blog as a place to showcase my YouTube videos and WordPress tutorials.
6. Privacy Policy.
Now I know that privacy policies are not the most exciting of pages, but it is a requirement to have one on your website to be GDPR compliant. It doesn’t have to be pretty, but it should be specific on how your website is collecting data. If you don’t have a privacy policy that is linked on things like forms, or when you’re asking people to sign up to your newsletter, that could put the potential visitor off signing up.
7. Portfolio or Case Studies.
This is where you could show details of your previous work or case studies. I do love a case study, and I think they’re a great way to show the results you’ve achieved for other clients. Also, add any testimonials you may have on this page, in fact, scatter testimonials everywhere on your website.
Now that you know all the pages you need on your websites, here are a few tips to help you when you’re creating them:
- Don’t add too many pages. Fewer pages equal a simpler website, which equals happier visitors. Yes, you do need all of the pages I’ve mentioned, but please try to not add too many others. If you have too many pages your website is going to look cluttered and it will confuse the user, especially if you’ve got pages that do similar things or pages with just two lines of text on them. You want all your pages to be relevant and have plenty of content on there for your user. If you feel you have got too many, try to consolidate them. Perhaps one of the pages could be a feature of another page?
- Keep the names simple. It’s tempting to be creative or make page names appropriate to your specific business or industry, but you want them to be easily understood by all visitors. You need to ask yourself, would a visitor know what this means? Would a visitor from another country who perhaps doesn’t have English as their first language be able to understand what this means? For example, I saw someone once use the word, ‘My Musings’ for their blog, instead of just putting ‘blog’. I know blogs, are not very exciting or sexy but, people know what a blog is and they know what to expect. The navigation menu is not the place to be creative, as there’s just too much at risk. The simpler and more engaging your navigation is, the more time users will spend on your website.
I hope you now have a clear idea of the pages you need for your website.
