Whilst all websites are unique there are some things that they have in common or rather they should have namely standard content pages, whilst some may not be relevant to your organisation the vast majority of websites should have at least 8 of the below pages or types of pages on their website.
There are 2 main reasons why these pages are required firstly they are required by law or are advisable to have to show your visitors you are conscious of how you use their data or how you will deal with their interactions on your website and secondly to gain better traction with the search engines to raise the profile of your website.
Why not check if your current website has the below pages.
This is one of the most important pages on your website it is not only potentially the first impression someone will have when visiting your website of your company it is also the landing page where they can start searching and clicking around to see what you do.
Homepages should normally include a short snappy description about the services and products you offer with small snippets about how you can help, it should also offer links to your best selling products and services and possible a testimonial or 2 so people know you mean business.
If someone visits your about us page they are looking to find out more about you and your business, in some cases this can be the most frequently visited pages on your website.
About us pages typically include a more detailed description about the services and products offered then a homepage but it can also include things like employee profiles, special achievements and standards that you adhere to.
This is a great place to mention your USP’s and to separate you from your competitors. One thing to remember is this page is wordy… in other words make sure you place some well chosen key words and phrases to ensure people find when searching online.
Whilst your headers and footers will be littered with phone numbers, email addresses and your address having a page focused on every method how a customer can contact you will give them no excuse but to contact you.
Other things that can be included on this page include Maps of your locations, a contact form, full mailing address, fax number and directions to your sites.
FAQs or Frequently Asked Questions pages are fantastic in that they give your customer all the answers to the top 10-15 questions you frequently get asked.
What’s more people often search google with a question meaning if you are answering a similarly worded question you are bound to get more hits for people entering your site via the FAQ page.
Whilst this page is important we usually recommend to limit the number of questions you answer to 15 as this means your customers are more likely to see a question they would like answering as opposed to a list of 50 questions which may take 10 minutes to read and lets face it no one spends 10 minutes on one web page unless it is exactly what they are looking for.
If your company has no products or services well it is hard to imagine why you would have a website, it is essential that all or if not your most important products and services have their own page(s) this means having easy to understand descriptions of every thing you do.
For E-Commerce sites product pages are often (72+% of the time) the first page people will see of your website if they are coming in from a search engine, the more products you add the higher the chances are someone will find a product on your website that they are looking to purchase via a search engine.
For services you need to let people know what each service entails, bulleted lists of what you do and the advantages can work great in conveying this. Also always ensure anything that positively separates you from similar companies should be added to these services as this can really help convince potential customers you are the company for them.
If your company has no products or services well it is hard to imagine why you would have a website, it is essential that all or if not your most important products and services have their own page(s) this means having easy to understand descriptions of every thing you do.
For E-Commerce sites product pages are often (72+% of the time) the first page people will see of your website if they are coming in from a search engine, the more products you add the higher the chances are someone will find a product on your website that they are looking to purchase via a search engine.
For services you need to let people know what each service entails, bulleted lists of what you do and the advantages can work great in conveying this. Also always ensure anything that positively separates you from similar companies should be added to these services as this can really help convince potential customers you are the company for them.
Blogging is one of the biggest phenomenons on the internet and has been proven one of the most effective ways of growing your websites content with minimal development effort.
Whilst a blog is more a collection of pages as opposed to a single page it offers great flexibility to allow you to post topical content about your industry, in short it expands on the products and services that your company offer giving you more chances to add key word phrases in to the articles published,
If implemented correctly this offers great natural SEO boost and give you the chance to link these articles to related services and product pages which in turn offers another way for your customers to find the page that will generate a sale.
Whilst this page may not get read very often as it is well boring it is a vital page to have, any website for any organisation is required to let its customers know how their personal data will be used and how it is collected.
It should also let them know who and how to contact you in order to get a copy of all the data you have about them, following the new GDPR law which essentially extend on the previous Data Protection act it may be that your privacy policy needs updating.
Whilst not a legal requirement this page is seen as a vital to most companies to instruct site visitors regarding how they may use your website and any material published on it.
In short normally you would mention the legal body/country where the website is published, induce a copy rite notice saying all materials belong to you and cannot be used elsewhere with out first seeking permission, and that any third party resources are provided as is and that you have no liability for their content.
Having a sitemap page is not as common these days however it can be used to help boost SEO and also give you a list of all pages on your website.
A sitemap is normally a text list of every page name on your website which then links to that page, whilst people do not visit these pages they do offer SEO benefit as it ensures that there is at least one link going to each page on your website increasing the chances of each page being indexed by search engines and other crawlers/bots..
As mentioned every website is different and some types of page may not be relevant for every website however your contents popularity is ultimately driven by its content more content gives more pages on your website to index which essentially increases the chances of Google, Yahoo or Bing finding your website with different search terms.
If you are dealing with customer information for any reason on your website you are required by law (GDOR, Data Protection Act) to let people know how, when and why you are storing their information whilst no one will probably ever read this unless they have a grievance it is essential that this information is somewhere on your website, also Google likes to know where your privay statement is as this offers a level of trust which can boost your SEO score slightly on your website.
At AME WebTech we work toward ensuring each website has sufficient scope to include all these pages and supporting content, we believe websites should grow over time to attract new customers and giving our customers the ability to expand their websites needing little or no support.
