Today, I’m going to show you how to determine what pages you need on your website. This is the exact process I walk my clients through.
The pages you include on your website are critical for creating a user experience that ideal customers want. When you understand the journey your customer goes on, you increase the chances they will buy from you.
Unfortunately, most B2B service-based businesses don’t put much thought into this. Leaving their website to be a mess of random pages, costing them leads.
Don’t copy your competitors
Here is what I see most businesses do:
- Go to their competitors website and see what they have
- Pick a website they like and copy their pages
- Are in a rush to get the website live and neglect this altogether
Don’t do this!
Every website has different goals and what works for someone else might not work for you.
Instead, here’s how to determine what pages you need in 3 easy steps.
Step 1: Determine the goal of your website
To get the pages right, you have to think about your website as a whole.
If you view the website in isolation from your business, you are left with an inconsistent message. Inconsistency will hurt your brand in the long-run.
I always start by asking my client about their website’s goal:
- What do you want people to do when they get to your website?
- How are you nurturing people on your website?
These two questions form the basis for visitors primed to buy today and those that need to be nurtured.
Your website needs to handle BOTH cases.
Step 2: Build a sitemap
What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is a document that lists the pages and sections of your website. Here is an example.
The reason for doing this is to get a birds eye view of the content on your website. This process usually highlights missing pages/sections.
You can then use this as a test to see if it matches your two goals listed above.
- Is there a clear path for visitors ready to buy today?
- Is there a clear path for visitors to be nurtured?
You should be able to follow your sitemap and see clear, distinct paths.
Whether you create a sitemap like above or use a bullet points on a word doc, don’t skip this step.
Step 3: Example pages for service-based businesses
If you’re building your website from scratch, it can be hard to know where to start.
I want to provide some examples for a B2B website. Take these suggestions lightly, as your website goals should be the number one priority to determine the pages you need.
- Homepage. An obvious but important page to provide your visitor the foundation for the rest of the website. If you’re looking for the perfect homepage, grab my Website Funnel Framework where I dive into this in more depth.
- About. This is a good page to have if you are a bigger business. If you are a solopreneur or small business, you might not need an about page but can put the about section on the homepage.
- Services. This is a must if you want to promote and showcase the services you offer. If you want to break this down further, you can create single service pages for each of your offerings.
- Contact. For the visitor who is ready to buy now, you need to give them a clear place to reach out and get in touch. Make this easy for your visitors to find.
- Blog. A great place to establish your credibility and build trust with your ideal customer. One of the main goals of every website should be to build trust. A blog is a great way to do that.
Remember, these are a starting points. Your business goals and objectives should take priority here.
Some other pages are:
- Industry pages
- Resources
- News
- Partners
- Portfolio
Depending on the type of work you do, some of these might be applicable.
What’s next?
Once you have gone through these steps, you will now have a sitemap with pages and the reason for each.
Here are the steps again:
- Determine the goal for your website
- Build a sitemap to get a zoomed out perspective
- Use the page examples above to create your user journey
This is how you determine the right pages for your website.
I hope you found this issue helpful.
See you next week!
