Having a professional and informative website for your company is essential nowadays. For many prospective customers, it forms their first impression of you and your business. It also needs to answer all the questions they might have, or at least offer them a route to find those answers. So which pages do you need on your small business website?
Some pages, such as the homepage and contact information are obvious candidates, but there are a few other essential website pages that you might not have thought about. Here are some suggestions and tips for when you are deciding what information to include on your site.
Homepage
What is it?
The homepage is the front page of your small business website. It’s like the window display that you use to entice people in. It tells them who you are, gives them the details of what you do and tempts them to explore the site further.
What Does it Need to Include?
You need a strong, clear explanation of what you do. It might also feature a bullet point list of your main products or services and a reason for the reader to find out more information about what you are selling.
Looks are certainly important with a homepage. It has to capture people’s attention and give a thoroughly professional impression. Make sure the design is as good as it can be and that the menus and links are as easy to navigate as possible because that is the way you convert visitors into customers
About Us
What is it?
An About Us page helps to humanise your company. It lets people learn about your story and is usually one of the most popular pages on a small business website. This is less about selling your product and more about creating a bond between the user and your company.
What Does it Need to Include?
Include information on the background to your business, as well as details of your ethos, goals and what makes you different from your competitors. You want to encourage a connection with the viewer, so photos or videos of your team and office will help.
Note down awards that you have won and any great press that you have courted. However, don’t overload the reader with too much information in one chunk. Make use of headings and information boxes to keep it visually interesting.
Contact Us Page
What is it?
Quite simply, the Contact Us page is one of the essential website pages because, once you’ve captured the user’s attention, they need to be able to get in touch to seal the deal! You have to make it as easy as possible for customers to communicate with you, as that could affect their decision over which company to work with.
What Does it Need to Include?
Unsurprisingly, you should add all of your contact details here. These include your physical address, your phone number, fax number, social media accounts and email address. You might choose to include a contact box rather than display your email if you want to avoid spam. Some companies display their email address as a jpeg image in addition to the contact box because occasionally website visitors prefer to email directly rather than through a form.
If you encourage customers to visit your physical location, it is handy to embed a Google Map showing where you are. Directions using major roads and other transport options also help people find you.
Products/Services Page
What is it?
This is a page listing what it is you have for sale. Whether you offer products, services or both, you need a section on your small business site to concentrate on exactly what it is you want people to buy.
What Does it Need to Include?
You should include short, tempting descriptions of your products and services that encourage people to click through to their dedicated pages. Images are essential for helping people visualise what they are buying and the descriptions should be organised logically and in a neat manner. A search facility is useful if you have a lot of products or services to sell.
This is also a chance to pitch exactly why the customer should buy from you rather than from a competitor.
Testimonials
What is it?
Testimonials are reviews from previous clients expressing how happy they were with your company. This is an essential page for a small business website as it fosters trust from a potential customer. If they can see that others have received a good service, they will be confident that they will too.
What Does it Need to Include?
Each testimonial should be a couple of sentences long and contain information about what the author liked about your work. The more detail about the author the better in terms of trust. You might ask them to supply a name, business name, website address and even a photograph to back up their kind words.
FAQs
What is it?
FAQs are Frequently Asked Questions and can be used to clear up any queries customers have. This has two benefits; firstly it saves your team time replying to emails about the same thing all the time and, secondly, the more information users have at their fingertips, the more confident they feel in making a purchase.
What Does it Need to Include?
If you constantly hear the same questions about your business or products, these are the srts of things that need to be covered in the FAQs. Similarly, take a look into the analytics for searches on your site. If people are looking for details that don’t already appear on your small business website, add them into your FAQs.
Blog
What is it?
A blog is a series of posts you make that range from news about your business to helpful guides (like this) and details of products. It is more informal than a static page on a business website and provides fresh content to your site, which the search engines like to see.
What Does it Need to Include?
A blog is your opportunity to entice more users to your site, so plan your content around that. You might want to write something that will be shared around social media or that will be picked up by search engines for keywords that relate to your target audience.
Other Pages for a Small Business Website
You will also need to include a Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions page to let your users know where they stand legally when interacting with your business. A Sitemap helps visitors find their way around your website too. You might also add in a News section that is separate from your blog, especially if you think you will update it regularly.
If you want to advertise openings at your business then a separate Job Vacancy page is a good idea, and an Events page is worthwhile if you run functions, seminars or similar. Companies that offer appointments can even produce a page that handles this for customers who want to book themselves in out of hours or who prefer not to phone.
Decided on the Essential Pages for Your Small Business Website?
Once you’ve decided which pages you want, take a look at our Web Development packages that ensure you get a beautiful, responsive website for your business
