It may be all very well recognising that your small to medium sized enterprise needs a website, but what about its content? What are the essential pages that may help to get your message across?
Although there may be no hard and fast rule, an experienced website design company, such as ourselves here at CSI Media, is likely to recommend the inclusion of at least the following 9 pages.
1. Home
Also known as the “landing page” this is just as it says – the first page at which any visitor to your site is likely to arrive.
The home page serves as your introduction to potential customers and, like all good introductions should be immediately appealing, but also leave the visitor wanting to know much more about the subject – wanting to read on.
2. Products
The title is self-explanatory and clearly plays a vital part in describing just what it is you are selling. Depending on the range, you might want to write more than one page to describe all of your products.
3. Services
Just like the product pages, those that describe the services you offer also need to be short, punchy and to the point.
Short does not mean leaving out any important information of course – just concisely described.
4. News
Your website needs to be dynamic and up to date. There is nothing worse than giving your visitors the impression that the site was built ages ago and you have more or less forgotten about it or put it all to one side since.
Pages describing latest events, developments and news about your business and its products and services, will help to get across the message that you are on the ball and thoroughly up to date with all the latest news.
5. Contact
It might seem an obvious point, but you clearly need to let your visitors know how to contact you, to place an order or to make further enquiries about the products and services you offer.
Contact might be online – through an online order form or enquiry – by telephone or by post or personal callers at your postal address.
6. About
Background about your business, when it was established and the people running it may help visitors to identify more closely with what you are all about.
This may be a useful page to describe what it is that makes your business tick – and what has made it do so successfully – although you might want to avoid overdoing the detailed history.
7. Privacy policy
You are likely to find that this page is rarely visited.
Nonetheless, it is important to reassure any visitor who is concerned about shopping online or even making enquiries which involve sharing a name, address, telephone number or email. The assurance should settle any fears that personal data such as this is not going to be shared will all and sundry.
8. FAQs
Try and put yourself in the shoes of your visitor and potential customer.
What are the questions that are most likely to be asked and how can your answers best illustrate exactly what your products and services do and why they might be needed.
9. What they say
Comments and praise from other satisfied customers may go a long way in persuading new customers to shop with you. Avoid overdoing things, however, and ensure that any glowing comments ring true and are not obviously set up or made up by you.