What Pages Does Your Website Need?
As your 24/7 sales machine, your website is your one-stop shop for everything your potential client could need, to make the decision as to whether to hire you… or not. Whether you’re working with a designer or making your own website, creating the essential pages of your website is the first step to any successful website. In this blog post we’re answering one of the biggest questions about building a website – what pages should a website have? These are the pages we believe your website needs as a minimum, and you can continue building on from there as your business grows.
How many pages can a website have?
The answer…as many as you like. Over recent years there’s been a trend towards ‘one-page’ websites. Introduced by the rise in mobile site usage, where users are used to scrolling continuously through a single page. However, if you want to optimise your website to be found by search engines, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to do so with just a single page.
Why? Well, for two main reasons. Firstly, Google loves to be able to categorise content. So if you’re trying to put all of the possible topics you talk about onto one single page, it won’t be able to tell what topic that page (and your business by extension) is an authority on. Secondly, having one single page limits the amount of words you can have to express your authority – without waffling on. Having multiple pages on your website allows you to go deep into the sub-topics of your expertise and plant breadcrumbs across your site for Google to find your best content to present in search results.
So how do you know what pages you need on your website? The best place to start is with a website strategy session. This will help you determine what key pages and main features your website needs to take it from good to great.
Essential pages to include on your website
While every website will be different, there are few key pages that we believe every website will need in order to inspire, educate and engage your audience. These are a great place to start, whether you plan on building your own website or hiring a professional designer to create your website for you. From here, you’ll need to determine if there are any additional pages that are specific to your industry or niche that will help make your website the go-to resource for your dream clients.
Your Homepage
Kind of obvious, right? You’re going to need somewhere for your new website visitor/potential client to land when they type in your www address. Your homepage is so much more than a landing page though – it’s a guide for your potential client, giving them a small taste of everything they can find beneath the layers of your website.
We like to think of the website homepage as a ‘choose your own adventure’, where you’ll share a little snippet of each of your main pages, allowing your audience to select which path they wish to take.
Of course, they can navigate directly to these pages from your main menu navigation bar, but including a small section on each page allows you to visually represent the content, as well as provide a small paragraph or two, for context.
If they’re there to explore more about working with you they’ll want to jump straight on over to your services pages, but maybe they’re not exactly sure who you are and how you can help them. In that case, they’ll want to get to know you and your message a little more through exploring your blog content or about page.
Your homepage is likely going to be the most-visited page of your website, so it’s important that you’re maximising the space on it to help promote both what you’re trying to achieve through your website, but also meeting your audience where they’re at – i.e. searching for help articles, looking for a step-by-step guide to help them solve a problem or hire someone just like you!
About Page
A huge part of connecting with your dream clients is sharing your story and how you’re here to serve them. That's where your About page comes in. But don’t be fooled – your about page is not all about you! It’s actually about your dream clients.
We know that sounds confusing, but let us break it down for you.
Your about page is a place where you can break down the beliefs your clients have about the work you do. Here you can help change mindset habits, share your core beliefs and tell them about the larger scale impact you’re working towards.
As Donald Miller says in ‘Building a Storybrand’:
“As a brand it’s important to define something your customer wants, because as soon as we define something our customer wants, we post a story question in the mind of the customer: Can this brand really help me get what I want?”
Services Pages
Your service page showcases how someone can work with you and details what their customer journey might look like. Whether you sell a leveraged program, such as an online course or membership, or are a service-based business selling consultations, treatments or workshops, a service page helps you educate your clients on the possibilities of working with you to achieve the transformation they’ve been searching for.
We don’t however want to see everything one could possibly know about your services on this page. If you offer multiple services, this page should become a landing page, where your website visitor can choose which service/s they want to dive deeper on. Then, from here they can get to know the service in more detail, with a designated sales page for that particular service.
Most of us don’t just offer one service to one specific type of person – no matter how much you’ve tried to niche down. There will always be nuances. So having a designated sales page for each type of service allows you to address who that service is best suited for and why. This helps your dream client determine for themselves if this is a good fit, before reaching out to work with you.
Blog Content
Here at The Brand Method, we’re big advocates for every website including a blog. Why? Because it can have such an impact on the number of people that are likely to see your site, and can help market your services while you sleep.
Your blog content not only gives your website visitors a chance to get to know you and dive deeper into your topic of expertise, it also helps Google to send more people your way – for free! Yep! Free.
Unlike social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, your blog content can have a very long shelf-life. An article you wrote 12+ months ago can continue to find you new potential customers years into the future.
Blogging isn’t as scary as you might think – and while you could pour all your efforts into recording a reel that gets you a few hundred views from people who aren’t necessarily your dream clients, blogging, with an SEO strategy, in place targets your dream clients specifically.
Learn more about blogging for your website in these blog posts:
What should I blog about? How to never run out of blog post ideas
How to write blog titles for SEO: 7 Smart tips
How to write a blog post that wow’s your dream clients – every time!
Contact Page
A contact page is so much more than a simple enquiry form. Most people visit your contact page when they need an answer to a question – so why not see if you can help them right then and there. Here are some things we think should be on every contact page:
Your business address and contact details – we love using Squarespace’s Google map integration here too if your business has a public address.
An enquiry form that gets their message delivered to your inbox
A ‘Quick Links’ section – making it easy to navigate to all the main pages of your site.
A link to book a call/book an appointment if this is a service you offer.
Plus you can add these features for bonus extras:
A FAQ’s section – start by brainstorming some questions you’ll likely receive and then add to this overtime as your enquiries come through.
Your social links or Instagram feed – let your audience connect with you on their favourite platforms too.
Your newsletter opt-in – your contact page is a great place to offer your opt-in freebie, as the people visiting this page are usually highly interested in working with you, so getting them on your email list is crucial.
Opt-in Landing Page (& Thank You Page!)
One of the best ways to convert your website visitors into long-term clients is to get them onto your email list. Although we suggest having a sign-up opportunity on every page of your website – whether it be a dedicated banner on your homepage, or embedded into your footer – we also suggest creating a landing page that promotes your opt-in and nothing else.
This page can become useful in sending people directly to where they can get their hands on your opt-in from places such as your Instagram ‘link in bio’, if you’re a guest on a podcast, or from a paid social ad.
Want to earn extra bonus points?
Don’t let the journey end there for your new subscriber. And absolutely don’t direct them over to their inbox to find your freebie – they’re likely to get lost in the to-do list that is waiting for them there.
Instead, keep the conversation going. Deliver your freebie on a ‘thank you’ page, which is the page that loads once they’ve completed your opt-in form. You can include links to your favourite blog posts on the topic of your freebie, add a link to book in with you, or share the best services for them that relate to the topic your opt-in gift solves.
404 Page
What’s a 404 page you ask? Well it’s a very well-visited page. It’s probably the number one overlooked page on your website, but in contrast, is probably visited a whole lot more than you might think.
A 404 page is what gets shown when someone visits a page on your site, but the content they’re trying to find is not available. Here’s a few reasons why a 404 page might show up:
You’ve previously linked a page into a blog post or other page of your site, but changed the URL of the page you were linking to.
Someone types the URL into their web browser, but doesn’t quite get it right.
You’ve deleted the page i.e. that content no longer exists.
While we’d love to prevent this from happening (and you can use this handy tool to check any broken links on your site, which will result in the 404 page showing), it’s likely to happen to all of us at some point. But all is not lost – you can use your 404 page to help your website visitor find the information they were looking for, or perhaps something even cooler.
Want to maximise the impact of your 404 page? Here’s some hot tips:
Include links to some of your most popular pages. We’d suggest your home, about and blog at a minimum.
You could add a couple of top blog posts.
Make sure your opt-in is visible somewhere on the page
Keep it light-hearted to ease the frustration!
Include a search bar, just in-case what they’re looking for is a little more unique!
Legal Pages
As we live in an age where almost anybody can create their own website, publish content and even charge people’s credit cards, it’s important that when creating your website you consider the legalities of what is required of you.
We know, we know – there’s much funner things to talk about when it comes to designing your website. But if you’re building your own website, you need to ensure that you’ve got all your boxes ticked for the most important legal pages. Looking for an easy way to make sure you’re ticking the right legal boxes for your website? We love these easy-to-edit templates created by Foundd legal.
As you can see, the number of pages a website can have is only limited by your creativity and business needs. From the homepage to the blog page and everything in between, website pages provide potential customers with information they need to make decisions about your product or service.
Once you’ve created these essential pages for your website, you can fill out your website for optimal customer experience - it doesn't just have to be solely static content!
Ready to create your website with all these must-have pages? Book in for a 1:1 website planning session with us, where we’ll create your individual website map, or check out our ready-made Squarespace website templates here.
