Standard Pages and
Page Content
Hopefully by now you have a basic understanding of how to layout
a simple web site and we have spent some time focusing on the
home page, its’ basic layout and some of what should be
contained on it as well. We will continue to expand on that and
at the same time tie together other pages of your site as well
as page content.
As we discussed briefly last time, there are certain pages that
are considered standard pages that you should include on your
site. The reason they are thought of as standard is they contain
or should contain certain types of information that all users
would like to be able to find. If you compared it to a newspaper
you know that most newsprint contains similar layout. Obviously
there is the news and if you wanted to find out about jobs, you
could go to the help wanted section. You often look for the
editorials, for sale items and company information and how to
contact them. These are some of the more thought of items and it
is really not much different with a web site.
I suggest that as a minimum you include each of the following
pages in your site: About Us, Contact Us, Site Map and perhaps a
FAQ page. Let’s discuss each one and why it is important.
About Us Page – We are talking business web sites I presume so
our discussion is based on that. If you want a personal website,
frankly I don’t care what you do. An About Us page is just what
the title says. It tells your customers about your company and
perhaps you if you are the company.
Doing business on the Internet is difficult to say the least.
One of the most important things you need to work hard at is
winning the customers confidence in you. They want to feel
secure with you and one way to do that is to tell them about
your business. If you are a large business, you may not want to
be too personal. You would tell about the company history, the
structure of the company and probably who the upper management
staff is. For smaller businesses it needs to be a bit more
personal – but don’t include your dog Spot.
For Tom’s Custom Ball Caps, there are really only two employees
and myself who run embroidery machines and fill orders, so I am
a micro business. On my “About Us” page, I am going to include a
photo of myself. It doesn’t need to be big. Customers like to be
able to place a face with a name. This is a trust issue. People
feel that if you are not forthcoming about yourself and your
business, you are trying to hide something and they won’t trust
you. Some larger companies have the luxury of carrying consumer
confidence simply by their name. If I were the company Lids or
Just Hats, I might not need to worry too much about building
confidence.
Along with that picture, I am going to tell people about my
company, some history, especially if it is truly a unique story
and then maybe so other interesting tidbits. One bit of advice I
will give you is don’t spill your guts. Too much information can
be counter-productive and perhaps dangerous.
My about us page might read something like this: I began Tom’s
Custom Ball Caps in 1976. I began using only black ink screened
onto the front of my caps until one day I met Ted Williams on a
fly fishing trip on Kennebago Stream in Maine. He told me about
a new embroidery system that was now being introduced into the
industry. That was the beginning of a long relationship and I
supplied Ted with an endless supply of my custom ball caps.
That might be an interesting read for my customers and help them
to believe that I must be reputable and trustworthy. Keep it
short, sweet and interesting. Once you have put your About Us
page up check it often and keep it up to date.
Contact Us Page – Simple to do and extremely important as well.
The one thing I will tell you right up front, don’t hide this
information. Hiding this information is the quickest way to lose
trust. Your contact data shouldn’t be on the home page but the
link to that information must be easy to find.
What to include on your contact page? Company name and physical
address, mailing address, telephone numbers – including faxes,
departments, staff, etc. – email addresses – include any of your
relevant staff that you want receiving email. Supply the
customer with the best way for them to contact the right person
within your business. If you have an advertising department give
them the contact person’s name and email and telephone number.
If I land on a site that provides only an email that says, info@customballcaps.com
, I assume there is really only one or perhaps two contact
people.
Another thing to point out here. Many times web designers will
put their little logo and contact information at the bottom of
each page. They many times include something like this: for
questions or comments about this web site please contact the
webmaster at webmaster@customballcaps.com. If that is the only
means of contact available on your site, the webmaster will be
getting all the emails about your business, Make sure it is easy
for people to see that contacting the webmaster is different
than contacting the owner.
Site Map Page – This is an important page for two reasons. As
more and more people become savvy to Internet browsing, they are
more often looking for a site map when they land on a web site.
A site map is really a road map of your site and can save a
browser a lot of time. The second reason is for the search
engine robots. It seems that they like to find site maps and
crawl them because it too is a road map for them.
Let me expound on the latter a second. Robots crawl sites for
content. While crawling they discover links and they note those
links. Often times, if they discover a link to a new page or
another site, the robot will eventually go there to investigate.
This can work as an advantage to you.
Your site map should be a simple flow chart that lists your web
pages within your site. Whether you include every single one of
them, is up to you but as a minimum it needs to include all of
the pages on your main menu, and any secondary menus that you
include. Robots will find your site map and chances are if they
have missed any pages on your site to crawl, this will help them
find them.
FAQ Page – This is an optional page for you. I say optional
because it really depends upon the content of your site. If your
website is one that has many instructions on it for your
customers, you should have this page. Any site that has things
that require your customers to perform an act, like downloading
some of your free software, filling out order forms or anything
similar to that, a FAQ is necessary. It should contain a
sampling of questions and answers to problems that customers
often run into. This information can save you hours of time and
trouble. Often it is a simple thing the customer is doing wrong
and if they are thorough enough to go to the FAQ page, they
might find their answer.
Next time, we are going to get into page content and writing
text for web pages. Before I go, I’ll give you a couple pointers
about your design.
Anytime when you write text for your web pages, write in short
paragraphs and space between the paragraphs. This appears to be
easier and faster reading for your customers. If they see one
long paragraph that seems to ramble on and on, they won’t read
it. Be clear, concise and interesting.
Do you like free things? Well, most people do. You should
consider offering something free at your website. It is best if
you can do this with something that is relevant to your
business. Offering a buy one get one free sales gimmick is not
what I am referring to.
Let’s pick on Café DiCocoa for a second. I might consider
offering free recipes to my visitors. I wouldn’t give them the
recipe to my secret and successful items that I make a living
from, but there are hundreds of other recipes that would work
great. Recipes and cooking are big everywhere and this could
draw people to your site. Many people sit down at their
computers and type in “Free Recipes” or “Free Music” or anything
free. Give them what they want. You’ll gain their trust in time,
bring potential customers to your site and in time, increase
your business.
Always look at the big picture. Instead of thinking about what
you are giving away for nothing, think about what it will do for
you down the road. It could be something very simple but once
customers find out where they can go to get that information,
old habits die hard.
Let me give you an example of some of the things I give away at
my websites: Free mp3 music downloads, free web design tips,
free Internet marketing tips, free stories, free jokes, free
pictures, free e-cards that you can send to a friend, free email
accounts, free instant messenger, free New York Times best
selling book list, free country top twenty albums list and the
list can go on forever. You can be creative too. People love
freebies and you can use it to your advantage.
If you are a hotel, motel or something of the sort, offer free
travel tips, how to pack a suitcase, how to ship souvenirs home,
a free map or anything related. It doesn’t cost you anything –
just a little time. I think we have an architect participating
here as well. You could give a customer a free step by step
procedure that a client could use before making an appointment
to discuss design. This could save them lots of money and in the
long run make you lot’s of money.
Be creative. Offer your customers something nobody else does.
This will help you tremendously. Your web site is no place to
appear stingy and selfish. Because of the difficulty we all face
in Internet marketing and having an Internet business, we have
had to come up with ways to entice people. Part of my campaign
has been to better educate you so that all Internet business
presents itself as professional and a strong viable part of our
economy. The big picture tells me it will work. Looking at the
small picture of the moment makes me scratch my receding
hairline.
We are going to discuss this further next time when we talk
about web site content.
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