Are you finally ready to build a website for your business or personal brand? Congrats! This is a big step toward owning your own little corner of the Internet. But before you get carried away picking fonts, obsessing over the perfect shade of blue, and accidentally deleting everything at 2 a.m. (yes, it happens), there’s one big question to answer: “What pages should I include in my website?”
Spoiler: It’s not as simple as throwing up a welcome page and calling it a day. Let’s break it down!
First Things First: Set Your Goals
The best way to ensure your website design is cohesive and effective is to determine your goals before you start building. Without a clear purpose or mission statement, the quality of your website will suffer and you may not attract the audience you want. Start by jotting down your answers to these questions:
- What is the purpose of your website? Are you selling products or services, providing a professional portfolio, or attracting new customers?
- Who is your target audience? What age range, interests, and behaviors do they have?
- How will you measure success? Will it be through website traffic, conversions, or engagement?
Once you start organizing your thoughts into clear objectives, you can plan your website with purpose and direction.
Don’t Start Without Clear Branding Guidelines
This is a common and easily made mistake, especially if you’re new to web design. Don’t design your website before you have a brand! You don’t want to spend hours and hours creating a website just to realize you want to go a completely different direction later.
Instead, define your brand’s colors, fonts, messaging, taglines, and overall aesthetic at the very beginning. Your website will benefit immensely from having consistent branding throughout—trust us, your future self will thank you.
Follow Web-Design Principles for a User-Friendly Design
The last thing to consider before you can truly know what pages you should include in your website is user experience. You don’t want users to visit your website and immediately leave because it’s confusing, cluttered, or unprofessional. Follow these principles to keep your audience hooked and happy:
- Choose Simplicity Over Complexity: Use a clean and simple design with visual rhetoric principles. If you implement too many fancy elements or a million different colors, users won’t stay long enough to appreciate them.
- Think of the User Experience at Every Touchpoint: Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. How would you want to navigate through the website? What information or features are most important to them? Use this perspective to guide your design choices.
- Consider What Action You Need Your User to Take: Which page do you want to drive users to—your e-commerce product page? Your CTA (call-to-action) page? Your service pages? Make sure your design makes it easy for users to find and take action on the page you want them to.
What Pages Should I Include In My Website?
Now you’re fully prepared to answer the final question: “What pages should I include in my website?” Every website will have some unique pages based on the company’s goals and target audience, but there are a few essentials you should definitely include.
Home Page
This is the one non-negotiable page for any website. It’s also the first impression of your website, so make it count! Anyone visiting this page should immediately understand your brand, the problems you solve, and your offerings. Don’t forget to add clear CTA buttons to guide users to your other web pages.
About Us Page
This page is dedicated to the human side of your business. Do you want to seem credible and trustworthy, or relatable and quirky? The About Us page can include the history of your company, introduce your team members, and share your mission statement or values. You’ll be surprised by how many users stop here along their journey on your website.
CTA Page
Call-to-action pages are what drive conversions. If your goal is to sell, this is the final page to lead your audience. Make it easy for your users to take the next step and cut out unnecessary content. This page typically has a contact form, a checkout page, or a booking system.
Product/Service Pages
If you’re selling products or services, don’t list them all on one page! You’ll lose marketing opportunities for search engine optimization (SEO) and targeted landing pages. Instead, create a dedicated page for each product or service you offer. Include high-quality images or videos, detailed descriptions, pricing information, and customer reviews.
Industry & Location Pages (If Applicable)
Many specialized companies highlight their expertise with industry and location-specific pages. If your business falls into this category, they’re definitely worth considering! Optimized pages can help you rank higher in search engine results and attract relevant customers. However, they’re not necessary right away and can always be added later down the road.
What Is Lemonade Stand’s Web Copywriting Service?
Luckily, you don’t have to spend hours agonizing over the perfect website pages. You can work with a team of experienced copywriters at Lemonade Stand to create professional and effective web content!
We specialize in building conversion-ready websites that look stunning and drive results. Plus, with a dedicated content writer on your team, we ensure your mission and voice shine through engaging, SEO-optimized copy that connects with your audience and drives success.
Hand the Hard Work to Lemonade Stand
We’re here to help you create a website you’ll love! When you book a consultation with Lemonade Stand, we’ll help you answer the question, “What pages should I include in my website?” Our awesome web design team will get to know your brand, suggest the best web page options, and even give your web copy a boost with our expert SEO techniques. Let’s chat and get things rolling!
