“Content is King”
Content is the most important thing on your website. Period.
You can have the prettiest, smoothest, fastest website on the internet, but if your content isn’t up to snuff, even the best design and fanciest tech won’t be able to save it. That’s not to say that tech and design aren’t important, but your customers go to your website to easily access information, not to marvel at a really well-animated navigation menu. On top of all of this, search engines prioritize good content, so making sure that what is on your website is beneficial and high quality can help your SEO rankings as well.
To help you figure out what should be on your website, I’m going to go over some general guidelines for where information is normally found on the most common individual pages. The easiest way to start is to figure out what pages you want and fill them in one by one. As I’ve talked about before, Biller Designs’ client onboarding process includes a shared Google Document called a Content Plan for just this purpose; to get everyone organized and keep the information up to date and correct.
Home
This is your virtual first impression. You want your colors, fonts, and general visual style to be cohesive and recognizable throughout the whole website and the first time visitors see that style is on your homepage. Some things that can help achieve this are:
Business Logo – This is who you are. Make sure it’s front and center.
Tagline – A few words to sum up what you do or who you serve
Branding Identity – This is that visual style I was talking about. I’m going to talk more about it next week, so stay tuned!
“Above the Fold” Information – This is a term adapted from newspapers to refer to what you see on your screen before you scroll. You want to make sure that you have your best stuff “above the fold” and that it is arranged in such a way to encourage visitors to scroll and see more. Making that happen is more of a designer thing, but it’s good for you to think about when you’re writing content for any particular page.
About
Like I have talked about before, this is where you can help your customer get to know you and your business a little more personally. If you love dogs or are passionate about a local nonprofit, this is a great place for that kind of information. This page is also where you introduce your customers to the good folks behind the scenes on your team.
Mission/Purpose – This can sometimes be its own page, but if it’s short, this is a good place for it.
Your Whole Team – Depending on how many team members you have, sometimes this is just a section of photos, names, and titles with links to their individual pages. If you have a small team, you could potentially just do a short profile of each person on this page alone. It really depends on how many total pages you want on your site. Either way, this is where your bio goes.
Products/Services
This type of page is really dependant on your business model. If you sell products (virtual or physical) and also offer services, it can be more streamlined to have them on two separate pages. Here are some examples of Products or Services content:
If you are an e-commerce business, this is where your store is.
If you are a restaurant, this is your menu.
If you are a salon, this is where your prices and services are listed and described.
Contact
This page is where your potential customers find out when and how to reach you. That is really important! It is best to have several ways to get in touch, such as email, phone, or even a form to fill out to make it super easy.
This is also the place to have information about your business hours, and the addresses of physical business locations.
Be sure and have all of your social media here, too. That said, your social media needs to be (tastefully) all over the website- in the footer, sidebar, etc.- to encourage customer engagement.
Having a beautiful website is great. It fosters trust in you and ups the professionalism factor significantly. But to get the full benefits of a beautiful website, you need to have high quality, accurate information about you and your business. That’s what will keep customers interested and buying from you!
-CB
