Business Website Pages
A business website is responsible for both promoting a business online as well as attracting potential new customers, so the content that business website carries is pretty important if we’re going to take full advantage of digital marketing.
The pages that a website has will separate that content by category, subject matter, and audience, and even purpose.
Knowing what pages your business website should have, and why, can go a long way toward helping you create a more effective online presence for your business that is more deliberate, more organized, more structured, that better utilizes the three silos of content we’ve touched on in a previous blog post, and ultimately give you more and better content to present to not only your potential customers but also to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, which scan websites for relevant content to index and sort.
The more structured your website pages are, the better, and the more successful your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and marketing attempts are likely to be.
So let’s dive into what pages a business website should ideally have.
Website Pages Form a Whole
While our discussion for this blog post centers around the pages of a website, it’s important to bear in mind that the pages themselves must always be a part of the larger whole that is the business website.
What this means in broad terms is that many of these website pages should include what are called internal links and external links.
The reasons for this are that first pages with internal and external links tend to fare better in Google search results. These pages are indexed or “crawled” more often.
Internal links are those links that connect to other website pages, (such as a Services page linking to pages going into greater depth in specific types of services you provide).
Meanwhile, external links are links that connect outwardly to sites containing relevant industry research, local information, or other information that you would ordinarily want your ideal customers to know about, or what you’d use as reference sources basically.
The Home page of your business website will by its very nature connect to other pages of the company website (internal links) where you’d discuss services your business provides or types of services, or features of your business, the business’ mission statement, senior staff or founders, its payment gateway or eCommerce section, its blog, specific blog posts, or other pertinent information, so as you add website pages, these internal links will need to be updated.
(This is why I’m a big advocate for having all the website content already prepared in advance of actually going live, if at all possible, since it makes the developer’s job that much easier and time efficient).
More About the Website Home Pages and Its Linked Pages
Now that we know the importance of the website’s home page, let’s delve into some of other core pages a business website should display and the reasoning behind each one, knowing that just as your Home page should connect to many of these pages, these pages as well should often connect back to the Home page (or other internal links).
The Home page should feature a website menu linking to (at least) these pages, that of course can be renamed or used for different purposes depending on business priorities. In general terms, these pages are most traditional since most businesses, whether for-profit or non-profit, will have similar goals and intents.
The Home page should link internally (again, in most cases and at the very least) to an About page, a Contact page, a Store or Payment page, a Blog page, and a Services page. These pages will then in turn link to other pages under those primary categories.
The About Page
Starting at the most common type of website page there is, is About, which is a website page typically providing in-depth detailed information about the business. Whether this website is for a single entrepreneur or a company with many staff members, this page should explain just who makes up the business, what their main purposes are, their offerings, types of offerings, reason for being (other than just to make money, which is a given), perhaps show a mission statement or link to a Company Mission page, and in a nutshell summarize what makes the business of interest to their ideal customer base.
A solopreneur would want to showcase relevant professional experience, types of clients they’ve worked with and helped, discuss in what ways they helped businesses, benefits of working with them, and touch on what makes them tick, a level of authenticity, if you will.
This is often where “story” content marketing is often utilized, where the website content pushes forth a “narrative” structure where the business owner explains to the reader why they’re the best choice for them and why they’re unique and provide more specialized offerings.
From the About page you may want to link internally to a Company Mission page, Annual Reports, a Staff page with a special section (or separate sub-page for Senior Staff). That About page may also mention to the second most common (yet probably even more important page), which is….
The Contact Page
The Contact page should have a secure and spam-protected contact form so you can receive emails from interested parties, but not attract spam messages that waste time screening and subsequently blocking and deleting.
Now, while it’s true that many new small business websites will display their email addresses publicly, that’s not a practice I usually endorse, since it very easily lets you accrue more spam messages and subscribes than you’d want. A contact form lets you provide a way for others to reach you, while not publicly displaying your email address.
Needless to say, that email address should feature your domain name (the “dot com” website address) to reflect professionalism, and not be something like “[email protected].” Obviously this trait of having an unprofessional-looking email address representing a supposedly-legitimate business is all too common. However, having a serious email address that is unique, that reminds the customer of your actual website and business, that affords you enhanced security and control, is just better…and it is almost always free with paid hosting so there’s no reaosn not to do this. I remember talking to a therapist whose email address was something like “juicydelicious@hotmail” and it should go without saying that a) she didn’t attract too many clients, b) she had no idea why nobody wanted to hire her, and c) nobody wanted to work with her, either.
If your business has a physical brick-and-mortar location, multiple locations, warehouses, or similar locations, an interactive map showing different locations would be relevant, especially as many consumers will use that interactive website map to actually find and visit the nearest location to them. Some interactive maps have different locations featured with attractive push pin icons or other features, with some showing satellite imagery, but a general interactive map below a contact form is most common.
Phone numbers are important to local businesses usually more than national or global enterprises, so toward that end having a clickable phone number at the top of the main website menu, usually above the menu page that is stylistically distinguishable is what’s most often done in terms of website design.
The eCommerce Page
Most small business websites, unfortunately do not take advantage of eCommerce, for whatever reason, which places them at a strategic disadvantage from larger competitors who will use that feature.
You’d want an eCommerce, Payments, Store, or Donations page for your business website for the most obvious reason possible – to make it as easy as possible for customers and even potential customers to pay for services, book private events, rent rooms or whatever you offer, pay for online consultations, pay for classes, pay for downloads, sign up for online courses, or whatever else you can conceive of or offer. Whether you operate a salon, restaurant, accounting practice, law firm, HVAC company, plumbing business, automotive shop, tattoo business, or any other type of business, you need money to function, so you can easily set up eCommerce to process payments securely so you can take payments online 24/7 for the services you provide or goods you sell.
There’ simply no reason not to charge for services or goods, and no reason not to let your customers pay you through your company website.
Keep in mind with the website eCommerce page you can also offer free downloads, paid downloads (ebooks, whitepaper reports, checklists, courses) as well as paid ones, along with special limited time or holiday promotions. In this page you can (and should) link internally to other website pages to boost your SEO, and to also provide direction to your other relevant pages such as the Contact page to reach out for more information, or the About page to learn more about the business.
The Blog Page
The website blog page, just as it is for this website, is a page where the business customer or potential customer, can learn more about the types of services you provide, the offers you have, and also learn about the services you provide, how you provide them, and across the board you can and should use blog posts to inform and educate your audience.
After all, the more informed they are about the services you provide and the inherent value in working with you, the better.
A restaurant could blog about healthy ingredients, safe dining in a post COVID-19 world, cooking procedures, recipes, spices, how the restaurant maintains proper staffing and training processes for the guest, could link to a special interactive menu section, could link to a eCommerce page where customers could purchase special sauces or other items, place orders for pick-up or delivery, book private reservations, sign up for online cooking demonstrations or classes, pay for ecourses, and so on.
Apply these same examples to your own type of business and you’ll find plenty of ways to use blog posts to inform your audience, entertain, and guide.
The more often you blog, the more regularly, the more you can also cross-promote your blog posts through different social media marketing channels, collect them into a book, offer to discuss specific blog posts for podcasts, repurpose into videos or even a series of brief videos, and collect in a whitepaper report. The choice is always yours to use or not to use as you see fit.
The Services Page
The Services Page is probably as common and as important as the About Page, Contact Page, and Blog Page, since this page permits you to showcase and explain the types of services you provide, why, the depth or limitations of the services, discuss refund polices, service cancellations, and other information that’s vital to offering your services while informing the public.
You can also here link to other internal pages, posts that mention specific services, and special deals from here as well.
This page should highlight not only what you offer but also how your offerings are unique from larger competitors from broad to specific, linking perhaps to a Portfolio sub-page if applicable to what you offer, maybe a Testimonials page to build credibility with your audience, maybe to a category of blog posts, maybe to your company Mission Statement.
Conclusion
In summation, it’s important for a professional online representation of a business to establish credibility in the eyes of sophisticated consumers who want and expect to be able to learn more about your business through your website and to differentiate it from spam sites, phishing sites, and less sophisticated competitors who either don’t know to create valuable content or don’t know how.
Displaying some of the most commonly-accepted website pages for your business website is one rock-solid way to let your audience know you value their time and want to provide them with content they are most likely to want, need, and be willing to return for.