Planning and Organizing Your Website Content
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Because a website is primarily visual, many business owners consider design to be the top priority, but it shouldn’t be. An attractive website may be eye-catching, but if your message doesn’t speak to the needs of your target market, it’s not going to help you reach your goals.
Instead of coming up with the perfect design, and then trying to craft a message that will fit, start by determining what content will enable potential clients to easily discover your areas of expertise and learn about your products and services.
Typical Website Pages
As a starting point, most websites include the following pages:
Home
As this is often the first page visitors see when they arrive on your site, your Home page or Welcome page should quickly inform them who you are, what you do, and most importantly, what’s in it for them.
About
This page gives background information about you and/or your business, letting potential clients know why they should purchase your products or services. It may include such details as company history, credentials, certifications, media appearances, and bios for the business owner and other team members. For more details, read Creating an About Page that Clicks.
Services (and/or Products)
Most people use the Internet to research their options before they even contact a service provider or supplier. Make the most of this opportunity by clearly describing each service or product you offer, including the benefits they provide.
Additional Pages
If this is your first website for a new business, the above pages may be all you need to start with. You can always add more pages as your business grows.
Other common pages include:
- Blog
- Contact
- Testimonials
- Portfolio / Before & After Photos
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Media
- Resources
After you’ve outlined your website content, consider the best ways to guide visitors through the site so they can easily find the information that they need – and that you most want them to see.
Whether your site has five pages or 50, make sure that each one leads naturally to the next. Remember, your potential clients won’t always know what the next step is, so it’s your website’s job to show them the way.
Sketching out a website “map” is a great way to visualize the flow of traffic from one page to the next. Here’s an example of what this might look like:
- Home: Links to your opt-in offer, your discovery session schedule, and your products page.
- Blog: Individual posts link to your opt-in offer or an appropriate sales page, as well as related blog posts and other useful resources.
- Work With Me: Links to your contact form and your individual service pages.
- Products: Links to individual product pages.
- About Me: Link to “Work With Me”
- Contact: Links to product pages.
Benefits of Planning and Organizing Your Content
A well-organized website will:
- provide a much better user experience;
- make it more likely that visitors will do what you want;
- help web crawlers access and index all of your content, improving your search engine performance.
If you’re a visual thinker, Milanote is a really good app for organizing your ideas. They even have a website content plan template to help you map out your pages and plan the text and images for each.
Food for Thought
- Do visitors instantly know what you do and who you work with?
- Can they easily find the information they need on your website?
- Does each page have a clear Call to Action, guiding visitors to the next step?
For help creating your website content, request a copy of my Content Planner today.
Janet Barclay
I eliminate stress for my clients by hosting, monitoring, and maintaining their WordPress sites so they don’t have to worry about security, downtime or performance issues. When I’m away from my desk, I enjoy reading, photography, cooking, watching movies, drinking tea, and spending time with my family.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my website. I’ve even started sketching out some updates to the simple pages I originally put in place, especially my services. I like the idea of linking my “about me” page to a “work with me” button. I know I can do better, I just need more time to work on it! When client work slows down, this is at the top of my list.
Way to go, Seana! Have you downloaded a copy of 5 Things Every Professional Organizer Can Fix on Their Website in the Next Week to Attract More Clients?
I love the suggestion about sketching out a website “map.” I like to use a large markerboard and actually draw out the process. It’s so important to step back and see how your potential customers will go through your website before signing a form and contacting you. It’s a good idea to do it at least once a year after it is established. While going through the steps, ask yourself, “what would the prospective client do next?” until you reach the form page. Thanks for sharing.
Great plan, Sabrina, and an excellent tip to review your sitemap every year. Often once a site is set up, people add pages here and there without thinking about the overall flow.
I recently went through this process with Janet. It was long overdue. The site map helped me to visualize how my new site should be arranged and what someone would be looking for where. Very helpful.
You did a great job, Janet! I love how you streamlined so much information into a few pages.
It’s been a while since I’ve updated my sites, but I remember when I did it initially that the process was very much like what you’ve described. I like the idea of leading the viewers to the next steps because they might not know what to do next. As always, you gave me some valuable ideas to consider.
It’s such a worthwhile process. So many people treat their web pages as standalone documents, without any guidance to additional information other than the main menu.
I love your suggestions for “basics” — the pages you should have whether you’re creating your first site or your 5th iteration of it. That “website map” can really help visitors find what they want and can keep them on your site a bit longer because it will be easy to navigate.
I especially love the FAQ page. It’s one of the most helpful pages on a website and can be a quick, easy way to get some answers before you set up a discovery call.
A “Start Here” page can also help a lot because it tells us exactly where to begin. No confusion there, right? =)
Start Here pages are the best! I should really think about those more.