Deciding on what pages do you need on your website is an important factor you need to consider when designing a website.
There is a vast number of pages that your website could have – some are most definitely needed, some are good to have, others are options that you may need depending upon your particular business and some are handy to have as they serve a useful purpose.
When deciding on what web pages you need, it’s important to think about who will be visiting your site and what they need and or expect to find, and what you want your website to do.
In this article we have divided the types of webpages into different sections:
- Must-Have Pages You Need On Your Website
- Good To Have / Optional Pages To Consider For Your Website
Depending upon your particular business, a good to have page or optional page may in fact be a must have page.
Must-Have Web Pages You Need On Your Website
Home Page
Your homepage is most probably the first page your website visitors will see.
Not every visitor will see your homepage first, they make come into your website via an interesting website article or post, they may come in via a landing page from an online ad etc but most will see it first, and most will certainly visit your homepage.
Your homepage is most probably the most important page on your website, and has many jobs to do.
For new visitors it has to convey what your website is about, is it what they were looking for and can you be trusted?
It takes about 5-7 seconds for a visitor to decide this, so your homepage has to convey this quickly (slow loading websites will not help your cause here!).
Your homepage need a clear CTA (call to action) that is immediately obvious to the visitor.
About Page
Your about page is often the second most visited page on your website, after your homepage, that many businesses have.
This is a page that many designers ‘get wrong’ as such. An about page should not be about you – it should be about how you can and have helped others. Visitors to your website do not really care about you – they care about how you can help them – are you right for them. You may be a married qualified accountant with 2 children and a dog – but how can you help them?
Pricing Page
We believe that most websites should have a pricing page – or maybe having prices shown on your products/services pages.
Visitors to your website will be looking for information and how you can help them with their problem, many will be looking for prices – these should be easily found on your website. If you do not provide prices they will look elsewhere for prices – and you do not want them to do that do you?
You may not be able to provide the exact price for your services (you may be able to for a particular product) but you should be able to provide a tier of your services – a ballpark figure – or prices from etc.
Visitors expect to see prices and it lets you screen out people who cannot afford your services, and helps solidify you with the people who can and want to work with you.
FAQ (Frequently Asked questions) Page
An FAQ page allows you to provide answers to frequently asked questions – it provides your answers and solutions to questions and can relieve you of answering those support requests.
It also allows you to address objections/issues that potential customers sometimes raise. Think about the objection raised – then rephrase it as a question and provide your answer. Eg I can’t afford that at the moment – Do you have an easy payment option? – Yes – we realise that some people cannot afford to pay for this all in one go upfront, so you can spread the cost over 6 months with our easy payment plan.
You might want to change the tile from FAQ Page to Are We A Good Fit Page.
Testimonials / Reviews Page
Testimonials are great for building creditability and providing social proof.
Getting someone else saying you are great is much more effective that you saying you are great.
Ask previous clients questions and quote them as testimonials – try to include a photo of the person giving the testimonial and add in their company name/location to add more creditability.
Try to get at least 1 video review.
It is often good idea to add a couple of testimonials on important pages – ‘social proof’ provides trust and encourages buyers to buy.
Case Studies / Portfolio / Clients / Our Work Page
People visiting your website will want make sure that you can do what they want you to do.
Providing examples of the work you have done is a great way to convert visitors in to customers.
Name and explain what you did for the client and what the outcome was and how they benefited. If you can do it for them, you can do it for others – where do I sign up?
Contact / Book Consultation / Make Appointment Page
All roads lead to Rome – well all your website pages and content on those should lead to where you want your customer to go / what action do you want them to take.
Your contact page should prominently include your preferred method for customers to contact you – this might be via email or phone call.
However you should include all methods of how your potential customer can contact you – some will prefer to call you, some will send an email, some may even text, some will fill out a form, some may prefer you to call them back. Essentially you have to make it easy for your potential client to contact you.
You might want them to fill out a calendar app to book a date and time for you to call them – so they choose the date and time convenient to them (your calendar app will blank out the times you are not available to make the call).
Privacy Policy Page
Due to data protection regulations becoming more stringent (GDPR Regs), a privacy policy is a must-have page on your website.
It needs to outline what data you collect from visitors to your site such as email addresses and how you will use it, share it and store it and who the data controller is. It’s also important to let site users know how they can obtain a copy of all the data that your website collects from them and how much it costs to get this information.
Terms And Conditions Page
A Terms and Conditions page is a similarly important page as the Privacy page. It will explain the rules that visitors must abide by when using your website. It should outline your website functions and the rules and guidelines underlying its use. It should set out which country’s law governs the agreement, an intellectual property disclosure or copyright laws in place and a clause explaining that you are not responsible for the content on external pages that you might link out to.
A Custom 404 Error Page
A 404 page is what your user sees when they try to reach a non-existent page on your website. This may happen if they’ve clicked a broken link, the page has been deleted, or they’ve mistyped a URL.
Your webserver will return a standard 404 page, but it might not be attractive or helpful to your visitor.
A custom 404 page can be branded with your site and helps people find the information they’re looking for, and also provides other helpful content that encourages people to explore your site further and stay on your site – you want people to stay on your site, don’t you?
Good To Have / Optional Pages
Services Pages
Have separate pages for each of the services that you offer.
Service Area Pages
If you provide your services in different areas or towns, have a separate page for each area you serve.
Products Pages
Have separate pages for each of the products that you offer – or group similar products together on separate pages.
Blog or Latest News Page
Having a blog allows you to expand the number of pages on your website, and can help you to rank for more keywords.
Media Information Page
A media or press page makes it easier for the media to get information about your business so they can write about you. Make it easy for them to do so.
Sitemap Page
An HTML sitemap page guides your visitors to where they want to go. It’s where your visitors will go if they do not find what they are looking for in your menus.
Sitemaps contain a clickable list of all the web pages on your website.
It allows you to group together web pages that are related to each other and gives visitors a visible structure to your website.
Search Results Page
Having a search function on your website is a good idea, particularly for larger websites, where visitors can type in and search for what they are looking for – help visitors find what they are looking for.
Jobs Or Careers Page
Looking to expand or fill job positions or bring on some trainees, have a jobs page.
Events Page
If you runs events, you need to tell people about them so they can book up.
Advertising Information Page
If you are selling advertising on your website, let people know how to do this here.
Lead Magnet Opt-in Page
If you trying to expand your email list to market directly, you need an email opt-in page to sign people up to get your stuff.
Affiliate Link Disclosure Page
If your are earning affiliate commissions from selling products (affiliate marketing), you have to disclose this to your web site
Resources / Articles Pages
Providing useful resources and articles for your website visitors (content marketing) is a great way to get more sales – have an index page listing all this useful information that your potential clients might like.
Photo Gallery
A picture paints a thousand words – showing people what you do is great for making sales.
E-Commerce Store Page
If you are selling lots of products you may well need an e-commerce store page(s).
Guarantee / Return / Refund Page
Providing a guarantee with your products and services can increase your sales.
Survey Page
Find out what you need to know by asking your webpage visitors.
Links Page
Share helpful links that you have found – maybe to your other websites :).
Special Deals And Promotions Page
Everyone loves are bargain – gather your special offers here.
Staff Bios
‘People buy from people‘ – let your visitors get to know about you and your staff here – do not put a link in your main menu to this page – maybe have it in the footer area – such pages take potential customers off the road to buy!
Mission Statement / Vision Pages
Such pages are great for communicating your values and brand to customers – we like this and this is why you should like us too! But like staff bios they can distract customers from the buying road!
Community Or Charity Page
Show how you support the community around you. But like staff bios they can distract customers from the buying road!
Summary
We hope this helps in deciding what pages you need on your website and the huge range of options that you can also have.
Every website is different, and what suits one business will not be suitable for another, click on the button below to get help choosing the right web pages for your website.
