What pages do you absolutely need on your website? Here I have listed 7 important web pages your small business website should have, what you should include and what content each of those pages should contain.
I have listed the most common, yet important website pages your small business website should have. As every business is unique and needs something different, potential customers that visit your website have set of mental checklists at to what information they expect to find on your website. To help you determine what website pages to include, here is an outline of the most common pages that you should nearly always have:
This is the page most visitors will most likely land on first & it should tell a potential customer who you are and what your company does. The content on your homepage should be intriguing enough to grap the attention of your visitors within a few seconds. Your homepage needs to be well designed, load fast and present a professional image of your company. You have around 3 - 5 seconds to convince people stay on your website.
What should the Homepage include:
A short description of who you are and what you do, contact details, some brief information about your services and products, and perhaps some listed dot points on how you can help your potential customer or client. You could also dynamically add a teaser of latest news or blog posts to the home page as well.
When visitors want to learn a bit more about who the people or person is behind the business, the about page is a great opportunity to put a face and story to what you do. You don't want to be writing your life story here either! The about page is often one of the most visited page on any website, yet is the most neglected. This page should give a brief summary of who you are, your company history and what makes you stand out from your competitors.
What to include on the About page:
A summary of your company, including biographies and portrait images of your employees, or just yourself if you are a sole trader, any special achievements you received, and the ways you differ from others that provide the same services.
Here you can list details about the services you provide. Begin the page with a summary of your services before outlining them. If you have many services and their descriptions are quite lengthy, consider dividing them into sections or even seperate pages, and perhaps adding a link to a main services page, where people can learn more about a particular service.
What to include on the services page:
A summary of services provided, bullet points of services with short descriptions, links to learn more about specialised services (if you desire), the advantages of using your services, and how they are different and stand out from the services your competitors offer.
The FAQ page is your opportunity to answer the most frequent questions you are asked. The frequently asked questions (FAQ) page will tell everyone on one page what they need to know. This will save you time answering those same questions on an individual basis either by phone or email. Provide truthful answers for each one. Your answers should be a call to action, and persuade a potential customer to take the next step but steer away from saying what you don't do or at the very least provide an alternative or better way.
What to include on your FAQ's page:
The most common questions you are most frequently asked should be on this page. These questions should also remove any doubts a customer may have, in order to make them feel confident enough to hire you.
This is your chance to show off positive feedback and reviews your business has received. Where possible, include photos, local area and contact info of the person giving the feedback. This will add authenticity to each testimonial. Anyone can write a review, but those with photos of real people that can be validated and establishes trust. Of course any business is only going to put positive feeback from clients on their website, but the best reason to include a testimonials page is so people can see "how" you went about assisting a particular person.
What to include on your testimonials page:
A brief paragraph of positive feedback from customers, perhaps just two or three sentences. Include photos and contact info of the reviewer, preferably with a heading above each testimonial, to catch a customer’s eye. After a while you may have quite a few reviews, try and keep them diverse but representative of your atypical customer.
Your contact page is there to show potential customers different ways they can get in touch with you. It is also important to have your phone number, email address and physical business address on the footer or header throughout most of your website pages.
What to include on your contact page:
Your active social media accounts, your mailing address (avoid P.O boxes), phone and fax number, email, and even your business hours. A contact page form is a very popular way to allow a customer to contact you, more so than email because it has preset fields ready for them to fill out and hit send, but be careful that your form does not get too lengthy as this could put off a customer having to fill in too many fields.
A blog can be a website, in and of itself, or a section of a website, made up of topically organised articles. Blog posts are usually listed in reverse chronological order with the most recent blog post appearing first. If you have a small business website without a blog then you are seriously missing out on a great SEO opportunity! Think of your blog as your most affordable marketing tool. A blog gives your company a voice and builds authority, it creates a place where you can share expert advice and engage with your customers.
What to include in your blog posts:
First and foremost you need to know why you are starting a blog and who you are blogging for. - Is your target audience businesses like yours or for your clients? Next you need to map out what your blog should be about, i.e. what you should write about and the topics to cover. Think of how you write and the language you use, don’t be afraid to be conversational and casual in the way you write, in fact if you write from the perspective of experience and enquiry rather than trying to be an expert you will win over the reader every time. Quality out wins quantity. Studies suggest that articles with a higher word count (1500 - 3000) words and in-depth blog posts outperform shorter blog posts, when it comes to search engine optimisation and getting social media shares.
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