Planning and Organizing Your Website Content

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:

1. provide a much better user experience;
2. make it more likely that visitors will do what you want;
3. 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 simplifies WordPress website ownership for women with service businesses by hosting, monitoring, and maintaining their sites so they can focus on what they do best.

Is your website getting the results you need? Should you be considering a change in strategy?

Download Janet's free e-book, 5 Things Every Small Business Owner Can Fix on Their Website in the Next Week to Attract More Clients.

?Originally published on Janet's Blog.?