Your website is at the heart of your online presence. It reflects your personality, showcases your services and is a way to highlight what makes you unique. There are several pages that you must include on a website. And equally paramount these must be kept updated. By including them and keeping your website fresh makes a great first impression and maximises your Google ranking.
Make sure you periodically review and refresh your website. If you don’t have the time to do this, it is something I can help you with.
Below I have provided a list of the main pages and things you must include on your website.
On every page
To make the most of every page on your website be sure to include:
- recent testimonials
- at least one clear call to action
- relevant visual content
- optimised words specific to the purpose of the post.
Create a branded guideline so that you create a consistent and recognisable look across the whole website. For example, use your logo, decide on the colour and text font you will use or what style of images and graphics you will use.
Test your website to make sure the information is clear and visible (on both a computer and mobile) and that any clickable elements or links work and direct to the correct page.
Homepage
This is of course an obvious one as well as being one of the most important. You have just seconds to get and keep someone’s attention. Be sure to include the following:
- A clear message that summarises your offer and speaks directly to your ideal client.
- Take your audience on a story showing them you understand their problems and how you solve them.
- Several calls to actions to your main and additional offerings.
- A subscriber option to sign up to your email list or download your “opt-in” freebie if you are using email marketing.
- Clear navigation to your blog or free resources using summaries.
- Links to your social media profiles.
- An obvious way to contact you.
About
For many people this is their most highly ranked page, so definitely one to take some time designing and writing. People buy from people so make it personable and show empathy. Try including the following:
- Photo(s) of you.
- Background information and your ‘why’.
- How you like to connect and work with clients.
- Infographic or timeline of your business history and milestones.
Services
It’s typically best practice if you have a separate page for each service you offer. Outline the features, benefits & outcomes for using that service. You need to provide an answer to why someone should buy your service.
If you have a new offer or have made changes to a current service, make sure you get that information straight onto your website.
Testimonials & Case Studies
I’ve already mentioned it’s good to have testimonials and social proof sprinkled throughout your website. But also create a dedicated page where you showcase your testimonials.
Case studies are an excellent way to go into detail about how you provided a real solution to a problem and provided an excellent outcome for a client.
Blog & Resources
Blog posts, articles and other free resources provide a number of benefits. It shows you as an authority in your speciality, it allows your audience to get to know you more, it keeps people on your website for longer, provides much-needed SEO juice to boost your rankings and provides plenty of content for your social media.
There are so many different topics you can blog about including evergreen content, how-tos, list posts, resources, case studies, comparison/review posts, interviews, opinion posts, round-up posts, survey/poll results. Mix up posts between information, education and entertainment.
Break up the blog text with relevant images and graphics.
As with any marketing content, use a calendar to plan what and when you will post and post consistently.
FAQs
This is a great page to include if you receive numerous questions via email or social media messages about the same topics. It is really helpful to keep your FAQs up to date, regularly adding new questions so you can direct people here and save time answering the same questions.
Contact Us
Include a few options as potential clients will have a preferred method to contact you. Including a simple contact form on the contact page is also a good way to track leads, especially is you connect it to your CRM (customer record management) platform.
SEO
I’m not going to go in-depth about the minefield that is SEO (search engine optimisation)! I know many people can feel a bit stressed when SEO is mentioned, however, they are some simple things you can do on your website to help with this:
- If you are using WordPress install the Yoast plugin which gives you tips and helps you set up SEO on every page.
- Choose a keyword or keywords that sum up what your post is about and be sure to use them in the first paragraph, in the title, in the meta description, 2 or 3 times in the body of the text, in the alt text of any images (good practice to include at least one) and in the post headings.
- Add internal links to any related posts and pages.
- Regularly share your blog posts and pages on social media.
Sign up to receive emails/newsletters or downloading a freebie
I’ve written before about how important it is to use email marketing, so if you aren’t I encourage you to begin (my post about how to set it up your email subscriber list will be a good starting point).
Make sure you include plenty of options on your website to allow people to subscribe such as header or footer bars, pop up boxes, in-text subscriber boxes or a link to a landing page. Use an attention-grabbing title or eye-catching image to encourage people to sign up.
So do you have all these pages and things included on your website? If you do, fantastic, but do you also keep them updated? Remember if you’ve changed your services or messaging add those new details to the website. If you need some help adding any of these pages to your website or keeping them up to date, book a call with me and we can discuss your requirements.
