The most important things to include on your website
As you plan your company or personal website - you may well be asking yourself 'What are the most important things to include on my website'. You are probably looking for a checklist from an authoritative source so... At Build14Me we have been scouring the internet to help us put together this list of the most important things to include in your website.
Our first stop was Web Design Enterprise: http://www.webdesignenterprise.com/most-important-pages-to-include-on-your-website-article-14.html which included some excellent suggestions in answer to a questions they say they are asked every day, namely ‘how many pages may their website have and how to structure it’.
Their recommendations are:
- Home Page (Index Page)
- Products/Services
- Contact Us
- About Us
- Pricing
They also suggest that these features are included:
- Search My Website Feature
- Blog
- Events Calendar
- Testimonials/Product Reviews/Before & After
- Newsletters
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Guarantee
- Site Map
Each of the Web Design Enterprise suggestions have supporting thoughts and comments about each page – do check out their article if you would like more information
Vince Barnes writer of 'Web Site Content, What to do' : http://www.htmlgoodies.com/introduction/intro/article.php/3473611/Web-Site-Content-What-to-Include.htm
Believes that ‘Information is the key’. He says:
"A website is to inform, When it comes to effectively informing somebody about something there is a tried and true formula: Who? What? When? Where? Why? The five Ws. This old formula will work just as well for a website as it does for anything else. Lets take a closer look as we compare the application of this thought process thats really what this formula is all about to the website for a small business and to a family website."(sic)
Vince then talks in more detail about his ‘five W’s’ and gives some useful thoughts that may help you define what you are trying to achieve with your website. Vince’s tone is chatty and informal but there are some really solid concepts behind his thinking.
Wired Impact also has some good ideas about what content a ‘Nonprofit website should include’ and whilst these ideas may not all be relevant – we think it is worth a read. http://wiredimpact.com/blog/4-pages-your-nonprofit-website-should-include/
They suggest including:
- Impact pages – that show the impact you are having on the community. As the article suggests these do not have to be called ‘Impact pages’ they just need to be clearly identified so visitors can find them.
- Individual Staff Pages – to help show your organisation’s personal side, to help connect with staff and to help with SEO
- Financials Page – whilst this may not apply to your website, for non-profit organisations showcasing your financials can help build trust between you and your visitors.
- How to Help Page – for non-profit organisations it is important to show how visitors can get involved with and support your organisation. Whist this may not be directly relevant to your website the model of showing people how they can make the most of your organisation is a sensible one. For example at build14me we always say to people ‘the more you do and therefore the less we have to do – the less it costs….’ but more about that in a future blog!
If your concern is more about what you should put on your homepage a Moz blog by Rand Fishkin (https://moz.com/community/users/63) . The blog video could be an extremely useful way to spend the next 12 minutes of your life. He talks about the ‘old way of doing things with homepages and the new ways of doing them.’
We loved Fishkin’s insights into how, as Google has got more sophisticated at reading your whole site and not just your homepage there is the opportunity to be more specific and succinct on your home page rather than it try to cover all the bases. The home page now can afford to be more ‘visual-centric’ to help people find what they are looking for more quickly. His other and perhaps more exciting idea is that we used to concern ourselves with trying to engage with all the different audiences visiting our site and his perspective is that ‘Now, people use search engines to find those different things around your brand and then navigate directly to them.’
To find out more about how to make your home page more effective – watch the video, read the transcript (which has been supplied by https://www.speechpad.com/)
https://moz.com/blog/what-should-i-put-on-the-homepage-whiteboard-friday
There are loads of tips on the internet to help you decide what are the most important things to go on your website, we have selected a small sample here – we hope it helps you.
