The most important pages on your website

In today’s digital day and age everyone could use a website. Your website acts as your virtual storefront and it doesn’t matter what your service, product or offering is, it is very important to have some form of digital presence for people to find your business.

Once you have chosen your domain name, maybe a content management system and set up the basics of your website, here’s which pages you should focus on next.

Top 4 essential pages you need on your website

Homepage

Let’s start with the most obvious and important one: your homepage. It’s usually the most visited page on your website and often the first page that welcomes your visitors. Your homepage should give users a great overview of your business and what you have to offer. Within seconds, you need to capture everyone’s attention and ideally make them want to scroll through your other pages and offerings.

The layout of your homepage can have a great impact on how people see your business, how well they remember your brand and whether they want to keep exploring your website – or even come back to it later. A homepage is also a place where users return to because it’s often the easiest way to navigate to more information. Since it’s usually the entry point for many online visitors, make sure your homepage has a great user experience and seamlessly leads to the right pages that the user is looking for. 

Tip: since your homepage is a hub that leads to all sorts of other content, it makes sense to build out other pages first and then come back to the homepage design.

Read more: How can you improve your Customer Experience? 

Contact us page

What good is a website if people can’t get in touch with you? Right after having a homepage, a contact page is absolut key for your business. Depending on the type of business you have, a contact form could be the easiest way for people to reach out to you and also for you to handle enquiries. When using contact forms it’s best to keep it as straightforward as possible. Meaning: only choose the most relevant contact form fields that you need the user to fill out and keep it as light as possible. No one wants to fill out long forms with their personal information if it’s not really relevant for the enquiry. Typically an email address, name and message field are enough for starters.

But there are also other ways you can set up a contact page, for example presenting your address, phone number or email address to give customers options on how to get in touch with your business. Whichever way you choose to design your contact page, make sure to link it up visibly on your website.

About us page

Truthfully, unlike a contact page or service page, your about page isn’t really a page that people can interact with much. However, having an about page can make a great difference. It’s been tested that users who gain more information about a business are more likely to convert into customers because they get some more personal insights.

If you put some effort into it, your about page can be the extra reason why people choose to interact with your business offering. Create content around your business background. Who are the people behind the screen? What’s the story behind your business? Do you have a mission or philosophy to share?

Introduce your company and what’s special about you. You can also describe your production processes, showcase milestones, explain your values, mention fun facts or add a video – make it unique to your business.

Read more: How to write an About us page SEO title in 9 steps

Service page or product category page

This depends on your type of business and what you have to offer, but whether it’s services or products, you definitely need to showcase them in more detail. Typically, customers don’t know about your business and want to know more before they decide to make a purchase. Here’s what you should include if possible: 

• Description

• Pricing

• Testimonials or reviews

• Images

• Call to Action (“Buy now” or “Sign up”)

People need to not only understand what you offer but also be able to picture what they get if they decide to go with your business offering. They want to know about the details and the value they get in return, so make sure you know your audience and present your services/products so there are no questions left unanswered. Think about it: making the user journey as intuitive as possible automatically leads to better conversion results.

Other web pages that are good to have on your website

Once you have your essential website pages set up, there are more types of pages you could benefit from having on your website.

Testimonial page

Let the people who already experienced your services or products speak on your behalf. With a testimonial page you can showcase how your customers interacted with your business, if they were happy with the purchase or simply gaining a general overview of your offering from a different perspective.

Another way to include your audience’s opinions could be to have a reviews section, for example on a detailed product page. But it could also be a component on one of your website pages like your homepage, where first-time visitors get to read about other people’s experiences within their own discovery journey.

Blog

Having a blog is a great way to push out new content about your business and industry. It’s also perfect to improve your search engine rankings if done right. To make the most out of your blog you will need a thorough SEO strategy that actually supports your website’s value and doesn’t just add more pages and data to it. There is no point having a blog for the sake of having one because it’s a lot of work to not only produce new content but also to maintain it. 

However, if you are willing to improve your website performance and are ready to invest in SEO long term, the outcomes are worth it big time. You will need the right team by your side, SEO experts and content writers that are in charge of researching the most valuable topics and can take your blog articles to the next level with a linking strategy, keyword audits and regular content upload. 

For example, one of our Honest Fox clients went from 10k in organic search visits per month to 50k after our team stepped in with their expertise – including gaining a 7x higher conversion rate too. Truly an investment that paid off!

FAQ

Do I need a privacy policy page?

Yes, a privacy policy lets your website visitors know how your business handles their personal data. Make sure you comply with the regulations as set out in your country where applicable (e.g. General Data Protection Regulation).

What is a sitemap?

A sitemap is an index of all your web pages. XML sitemaps are useful for SEO and search engine crawling, while HTML sitemaps can be used for users to find their way around larger websites.

Can I put a news article on my blog?

Generally speaking, you can add news articles to your blog if they are related to your own business. However, you might want to consider whether mixing up news and blog articles is the best way to present your content or if it makes more sense giving your news its own section.

As you can see, people often have more questions and seek answers about a specific topic before taking next steps. FAQ – or Frequently Asked Questions – are good to explain in further detail how your process works and to ensure customers have a solid understanding of your business offering before buying into it. 

First, you need to identify the most frequently asked questions, then you should answer them as clearly and truthfully as possible. Keep it brief but precise to avoid any misunderstandings. FAQs are best positioned towards the end of a web page just because it allows the user to understand the contents on their own first and to not overload them with extra information they might not need from the start.

Get help building your website

Your website should be as unique as your business to stand out from competitors and to stick with your target audience. There is lots to consider, develop, design and plan out to create a website that converts. Whether you need help with your branding, user journeys, content creation or technology setup and integrations, choosing a digital agency could be best to take off the workload and give you individual recommendations based on your business goals. 

Talk to us about your website and let us see how we can help you improve your digital platform.