Ok, great. You’ve built your new website and your theme makes it look like you had a European coder slave away for 3 months to get it finished before you launched. Now comes the fun part: filling it with content. But what content do you include? What pages should go on your site and what should you leave off?
Should you have 10 different ‘about’ pages and ignore the pesky ‘contact page’? What about a ‘terms and conditions’? What about a specifically designed homepage? There’s so much you can do, what do you choose?
Luckily, here’s your answer. These are the 6 kinds of pages every new website needs:
Type 1: Homepage
Every website needs a homepage. It needs somewhere your visitors can go to get a feel of what your website is about and find out how to complete the one thing you want them to.
Yes, you read that right. Your homepage isn’t just to show off how many articles you’ve written or how sexy your design skills are, it’s purpose is to make it as simple as possible to complete the one action you want them to.
- If you want your readers to scroll through as many articles as possible (typically done on a site that makes money from advertising), design the homepage to give them the easiest access to all the new and different articles on your site
- If you want your readers to submit their contact details, design the homepage to demonstrate why they should contact you and make it as easy as possible for them to do it.
- If you want your readers to download your free ebook, design your homepage to help them discover your ebook, understand why they need it, and make it as easy as possible for them to do it
Design your homepage so that as many of your visitors as possible take the action you want them to.
Type 2: Contact Page
There are some visitors who might want to take the action you want them to, but have a few questions before they do. In order give them the opportunity to ask those questions and get back to taking the action you want them to, you need a contact page.
If you don’t have one, they might never get the simple answers they need and then never take the action you want them to.
A contact page is also great for building relationships with potential customers and getting feedback on how you could improve your site; because every question asked is something not clearly articulated on your site and you can use them as a way to improve your content.
So make sure you include a contact form on your new website.
Type 3: About Page
There are some people who’re just willing to trust you and take the actions you want them to, but there are others who need to know more about you before they’re willing to take action. To help satisfy their curiosity, write an ‘About’ page.
It doesn’t have to be the most flowery prose or high-intensity sales pitch, it just needs to be an open and honest(ish) story about who you are. It’s not supposed to wow the world; it’s to allow people to build a connection with you. So tell your story (or the story of the avatar you’ve created for your site) and build a connection.
Type 4: Keyword-Targeted Posts
Alright, now you’ve got your foundation pages up, it’s time to start working on the fun stuff: driving traffic to your site.
If you’re going to have visitors from the search engine search results, you need to write articles on topics people are searching for answers to — pretty obvious. So once you have your homepage, contact page, and about page, it’s time to start working on these articles.
You’ll typically add these as blog posts (though can sometimes be created as pages) and are written around topics where people are searching for non-purchase related information. For example:
- How to tie a tie
- How to knit a blanket
- Best restaurants in Brighton
To find the most appropriate keywords for your site, you’ll need to do keyword research (in the same way you did to find your profitable niche), but instead of checking the search volume and competition for one keyword, you need to search for search volume and competition for search terms related to the niche you chose.
If you’re unsure what someone in your niche would be searching for, there’s a complete breakdown of the keyword research process in our article writing program. You can read more of the details and get access here: How to write professional-level articles that would make journalists jealous
Type 5: Socially-Targeted Pages
There are some article topics and titles that have punch and intrigue, yet aren’t suited at all for search results. Things like:
- Your Business Development Plan is Destroying your Entrepreneurial Dream
- Running a Remote Business from Thailand: 14 Things You Need to Know
- Why you will never become a Man
They’re titles that have very little to no search volume and realistically won’t bring any search traffic to your site. But just because they won’t bring any search traffic to your site, doesn’t mean they’re not valuable. There are some styles of articles that work better on Social Media and have the ability to drive thousands of visitors to your website.
For example: Are you a Boy or a Man drove 24,000 visitors to my site in 24 hours; all through social media.
Adding a mix of these into your keyword-targeted articles will help you diversify your traffic sources and maintain profitability regardless of search engine algorithm updates.
Type 6: Sales pages / Landing pages
The final kind of article that all new websites need is sales pages/landing pages. These are pages specifically designed to convert visitors into customers/leads/whatever way you’re making cash.
These pages are typically either created to target search terms with commercial intent (‘Cheap Beats Headphones’) or as pages on your website where your visitors who arrive through other sources are directed to (though internal linking and advertising).
The main difference between how these pages and normal blog posts are written is that these pages contain far more elements designed to get your visitor to convert. These can include:
- Testimonials
- Guarantees
- Multiple calls-to-action
- Statistics
- Product samples
- Reviews
- Social Proof
- Scarcity
- Reduced exit points from the page (sidebar, footer, menu, etc…)
These sales pages are the ones that will be making you cash and so you need to make sure you include them on your site.
TL;DR
The six pages you need on your site are:
- Homepage
- Contact Page
- About Page
- Search-term optimized articles
- Social-optimised articles
- Sales pages
These 6 pages will allow you to build a profitable and lifestyle-sustaining website.