A website can be a large investment for any business but it’s important to get the website design right. It needs to be practical to use, have a quick loading speed and look aesthetically pleasing too. Having a website that is hard to navigate around will actually put customers off, which is why you should have specific pages for certain information. Here are five pages every business must have to retain existing customers and keep bringing in new ones too.
Homepage
This is the first page the majority of your customers will see, whether you’re a product or service business. It will make the first impression so you need to keep it as simple as possible. That’s why the design of your website is so important. It needs to be unique to your business, amplify what you do and be functional at the same time. It should tell them how you can help them with your service or make their life easier using your product.
What to include: Keep it short and simple. You need to include some brief text to show customers what it is that your business does so try to include any mission statements, logos or slogans. They should be instantly able to recognise what industry you’re in and what you’re selling. Whilst pictures should be included, they should be smaller in file size. The slower a website loads, the more likely a customer will click elsewhere.
About Page
Here’s where you can start adding more text. However, too much text in one block will put people off. Make sure to break up any text using various heading sizes and bullet points. Including a back story of the business (especially for small businesses) can help to attract new customers too. You can also do a profile on the owner and any team members to show the people behind the business. When it comes to small and medium-sized businesses, people buy from other people!
What to include: Firstly, include a short summary of what the business does. A great way to tell people the background of the business is to use a timeline feature. You can incorporate photos and text in a widget to make it more interactive, rather than on a static page. Next, include a biography of the owner/s and any employees. You can always expand on this and link to a separate page for each staff member.
Products or Services Pages
This will be one of the bulkier sections as it’s what people are coming to your website for. However, it will vary depending on your business type. Product businesses should set up an online shop here with lots of internal linking to product listings. You could categorise your products to make it easier to navigate around.
Service-based businesses will have less but possibly more detailed pages here. You can have a landing page that talks about what you do in general and then internal links to more detailed information on each service you provide.
What to include: Keep the main page brief and add in pages to each product or service offered. You want to keep the information brief on the landing page so customers can pick and choose the products or services most appropriate to them. Include photos of products here too so people have a general idea of what to look out for. Service businesses can include testimonials from previous clients and examples of their work too.
Blog/latest News Page
To be seen online more and to rank higher in Google, you need to implement a solid SEO strategy for your business. Whilst SEO can be a minefield and is best left to the experts, an easy way to start is by providing informative articles on your industry and adding lots of internal links into them. Articles can be anything from company news and product launches to top tips and product guides. It can also help to determine the tone of voice for your business, whether that’s chatty or informative (most fall somewhere in between).
What to include: Product businesses should base their content around what they sell. You will need to brainstorm some ideas for this before implementing it though. Think about what frequent questions you get asked about your products, any topical news in your industry or uses for your products. All of these ideas can be written about in long-form content on a blog or news section.
Service businesses can show their expertise in their blog section. Write about any relevant industry topics, expertise on the services you provide and business news, such as milestones and behind the scenes.
Contact Page
What good is a website if you have no idea how to contact them? At the least, you should include an email address and links to social media. Larger businesses will have an address book of contact details, including phone numbers and addresses of other offices and stores. If you get a large amount of queries on similar topics, you could add in a frequently asked questions section here to avoid having tons of emails on the same topic.
What to include: A contact form is a simple way to have all queries sent to one inbox. Most of them are pretty standard with name, contact details and query details taken at once. If you have a physical store or head office, include address details and a map. Also, include any contact numbers, including any specific departments, so customers can send questions to the correct person.
Here, you can also include any links to your social media accounts. You should have links to them in your header and footer of all pages too but you can’t have those links in too many places if you want to build your business!
These five pages are the bare minimum every business website should have. The larger your business becomes, the more pages you will add. To begin with, keep it simple and easy to navigate. For more information on having a website designed for you, head straight to our services page.
