Building a website is a daunting process. One of the trickiest parts is content: people often go to write the content for the site and end up staring at a blank page, uncertain what will help or hurt their business.
Websites come in all different shapes and sizes, making it tricky to know what exactly will work for your business. Our advice? Start by breaking it into chunks, and think about the essentials first. Build out a site map with the absolute must-haves. For most websites, the following are no-brainers:
- A Home page. You’ve seen a million of these. This is where visitors will first land on your site. This page should probably be light on content, as it’s where you’ll introduce yourself and give the visitor a feel for your business. Don’t overwhelm them with too much information, but let them make it easy to find more. Have some eye-catching, attention grabbing headers and copy. From here, your customers can seek out aspects or parts of your business that they’re most interested in.
- An About Us page. Another essential on most websites, this page allows customers to get a sense of who you are and what’s important to your business. This is where you can include a mission statement, some history about your company, or a discussion of your company values. You can introduce and describe your team members on this page if you’d like, or you can include that on a separate page.
- A Contact Us/Location page. This is another important page where visitors can easily figure out where to find you as well as how to locate you. Contact forms are popular for visitors to easily send feedback, questions, or comments.
From there, it varies extensively depending upon the business. Scope out some competitors websites and see what they include or leave out. Is there anything on their site that you feel would work or not work for your business?
Some common page types are Customer Testimonials/Reviews, a Blog (where you can regularly publish new, fresh content), Products/Services, Process, Industries Served, or Resources (where you can list valuable resources for visitors).
Other important elements:
- Calls to action (CTAs). If you want to convert hits into leads, you need to have CTAs on most or all of your pages telling customers to call, buy, set-up appointments, or somehow pursue your products or services. It plants the idea in their head, which leads to results.
- Share functions. Where appropriate, pages and blog posts should have a share function so that visitors can easily share the content on social media. By having a large button for sharing available, customers will be invited to share a page they like, creating even more visibility for your site.
- Contact forms. We mentioned this earlier, but contact forms and options on more pages increases the likelihood that a visitor will actually contact you.
- A site map. If your site has a large number of pages, a site map makes it easy for customers to navigate your site and find what they’re looking for. A must if you have more than 15 or 20 pages.
Still uncertain about what type of content you should have on your website? Our content experts have all the answers you need, so give us a call today!
PGN Agency has an extensive track record of bringing our clients returns on their marketing and advertising campaigns. If you would like to learn how PGN can come up with creative marketing solutions to drive YOUR business’s growth, feel free to contact us directly at 248-414-6860. One of our friendly team members will help assess your needs, and put together a game plan for success!