If you build it, they will come—right?
Wrong. At least when it comes to websites, that is. No matter how amazing you think your online home may be, if your ideal customers aren’t impressed, then you’ve just got a pretty site that doesn’t make sales.
And I’m sure that’s not what you had in mind when you launched your business and published your website.
Whether you’re hiring a professional or taking the DIY website design route, you need to know the essentials for building a website that will attract your ideal customers, stop their fingers from scrolling and get them happily buying your products and services.
And that’s exactly what I’m going to cover in this four-part series on the essential pages your website needs so you can grow your business.
We’ll start today with an overview of the three most critical website pages you need; then, over the next three weeks, I’ll do a deeper dive into each of these pages so you can walk away with a strategy to improve your website right away.
Ready? Let’s go.
Home Page
Think of your Home page like a handshake—it’s your chance to introduce your business to your website visitors. And like any introduction, you want to make a great first impression so your visitors will want to learn more.
Your Home page shouldn’t be a place where you dump everything there is to say about your business; rather, it’s your chance to draw people in so they’ll want to hang around your site for a while, do some exploring, and eventually grab one of your awesome offers.
When people land on your website, you have only a matter of seconds to grab their attention, so that means you’ve gotta cut to the chase—fast. Tell people what they want to know without any fluff or beating around the bush.
And what do people want to know? For starters, what does your business do? How can you solve their problem or meet their needs?
If your Home page doesn’t answer those questions directly and succinctly, visitors will lose interest and move on.
I’m going to break this down in more detail in Part 2 of this series, so if your Home page needs help, be sure to catch the next post.
About Page
One of the biggest misconceptions about the About page is that it’s just like a bio. It isn’t.
Why not?
Because a bio is all about you, and that’s not what your visitors are interested in reading when they come to your website. They want to read about themselves. And the problem with writing an About page that’s too focused on you is that your visitors won’t find the answer to the most critical question lurking in their minds, which is, “What’s in this for me?”
Now, I’m not saying that your About page isn’t an opportunity to tell people who you are. You’re going to do that, but the key is to do it in a way that tells your visitors how everything you’re sharing about yourself is relevant to how you can serve them.
In Part 3 of this series, I’ll delve into this more and give you some pointers on how to improve your About page, so be sure to stay tuned and subscribe to my email list so you can get new blog post notifications.
Products or Services Page
This might seem like a given, but surprisingly, I see many websites that are missing this critical page. If you provide services like publishing, coaching, personal styling or personal training, then you need to devote at least one page on your website to detailed descriptions of the services you offer.
And you also need to make it easy for potential customers to purchase those services from you. If people have to do too much clicking around to figure out how to work with you, chances are, they’ll give up and move on to someone else’s website.
And if you sell goods, you need a website with a products page or shop, pronto. It’s time for you to stop relying on your social media DMs to sell your stuff.
What's wrong with selling exclusively through social media, you ask? First, you don’t own your social accounts, so anything can happen at any time that can stifle your sales. Whether it’s an outage, a shadowban, or whatever, you don’t want to be beholden to social platforms to make sales.
And second, not everyone is into social media; some people don’t trust it, and others think you look unprofessional if that’s the only way they can purchase from you.
Your website, on the other hand, belongs to you.
You own it, and you control it, which means you can customize it and make it look amazingly professional.
And the best part is this: your online shop can be automated to make sales for you 24/7.
That means you don’t have to check your social accounts constantly at all hours of the day and night to interact with customers trying to place orders. And that, my friends, is how you generate more sales for your business and create more freedom for yourself.
Conclusion
I’ve got lots more to share on all three of these essential website pages, so stay tuned for the next few weeks so you can read each part of this series. Next week, I’ll dive deeper into the Home page, and the following week we’ll explore the About page. Finally, we’ll take a look at the Products and Services pages.
If you want to be the first to get my new blog posts, make sure you subscribe today.
And if you’ve got a website that you know needs help right away, head on over to my Website Audit service. You’ll get my feedback on your entire website and an action plan so you can quickly make improvements without spending tons of money or endless hours trying to figure it out on your own.
by Jennifer Westbrook | JenWestWriting
