What content do you need on your business website?

Your business website should answer the following questions:

• What do you do?
• Who do you serve?
• Where are you located / what is your service area?
• What services or products do you offer?
• What is it like to work with you?
• Why do you do what you do?
• How can someone work with you?
• What's unique about your business vs. others in your industry?

What pages do you need on your website?

Homepage

Your homepage should (at least) answer:

• What do you do?
• Who do you serve?

Think about breaking it down like this:

• Introduce your business: share your mission statement and/or tagline. Engage them so they want to keep scrolling or interacting.
• Establish Trust / Connection: elaborate on why you do what you do and/or share your perspective / what makes you unique. This can lead them to your About page.
• Offers / Process: This is where to answer what services or products do you offer? Keep it big picture here and link to your Services page where they can learn more.
• Social Proof: Testimonials and/or client logos. Testimonials help to answer what you're like to work with. 93% of consumers trust brands with genuine reviews. 96% of people read good and bad reviews before buying. (Source: WebAIM)
• Work Samples: If relevant, share some work samples and link to your Portfolio.
• Nurture: Share something useful for your visitors. Link to blog, resources, freebie, etc.
• CTA: Call to action — usually get in touch in some way.

It doesn't have to be in this order! This is a guideline. Also if you have a brick and mortar location, you may want to include your location on the homepage, even if it's just ensuring it's included in your footer.

Services

Here's where to get into detail about what you offer, your process, and what it's like to work with you.

Do you offer one service? Consider this a sales page. Do you offer a suite of services?

Does it make sense for visitors to be able to book directly through your services page?

How can they work with you?

About

This is where you can get in depth about why you do what you do and who you are. Team members, bios, your history, your values, frequently asked questions — what feels relevant to your customers / clients?

Portfolio

Share select work you've done, case studies, or other samples of your work.

Blog

Useful for driving traffic, nurturing your audience. This can be a resource library, a vertical, or a more traditional blog.

Contact

If you have a location: where are you located?

Form: What info do you want from them? What's the button text? When they submit, what message do they see?

Tips for writing copy

For good SEO, write your copy in outline format. Each page should have one H1 that gets to the point of that page. The copy should follow outline hierarchy, e.g.

• H1
• H2
  • H3
    • p
  • H3
    • p
• H2
  • p
• ...

Break down each page into sections. This makes it easy to skim!

61% of users say that if they don't find what they're looking for within about five seconds, they'll go to another site. (Source: Forbes.)

Make sure there's a clear call to action for each page. There can be CTAs in each section, but try to drive each page to one primary action you want the visitor to take.

Images — what do you need where?

Do you need brand photos? (e.g. headshot, team portraits, product photos, etc.) Photos are incredibly useful, be that portraits, cohesive stock, or full custom brand photography. But if you're a small business or service provider just starting out, you may want to grow a bit more before investing in photography.

If you're a practitioner or solo service provider, having at least one photo that shows your face is beneficial — usually on the about, home, and/or contact page. It creates a closer connection to your site visitor. A professional photographer will not only give you great lighting, but should also help you relax so you can get a great shot. On a budget? You can opt for a service like Shoott (which has photographers all across the country) or ask a friend to take one using whoever's phone has a nicer camera.

If you're setting up an eCommerce site, product photography is one of the most important things you can invest in. Compelling product images can take a website from meh to incredible and high-converting.

Remember to keep track of photo credits! You can check with your individual photographers for specifics, but it's good as a general practice to insure they're credited at least once on your website.

What now?

Getting all of this together may feel overwhelming, but once you're through it, you're ready to work with a web designer! Not to mention, there are many talented business consultants and coaches, copywriters, photographers, and studios that can help you with all of this.