10 Essential Pages Your Site is Probably Missing
Building a website is harder than you might think; we’d all probably include the basics, such as a home page, ‘about us’ page and contact details, but beyond that you’d be forgiven for thinking all you need is your product catalogue, a description of your services or your portfolio.
In fact, there are plenty of other pages essential to the running of a good website, but which even some of the best webmasters forget to include.
Custom 404 Page
What is it? A page that displays a custom error message to visitors who enter an incorrect or ‘missing’ URL.
What do visitors to your site see if they arrive via an outdated link or a mistyped URL? If it’s a standard 404 ‘Page Not Found’ error, you could be missing an opportunity.
Give them instead a page with a welcome message, an apology, and a homepage link or search box, and there’s more chance of them staying to look for the content they were originally interested in.
Disclaimer
What is it? Information that outlines limitations to your legal liability and to usage of your site.
Not everybody will need a full legal disclaimer, but it can help you to look professional if you have at least some statement of the limitations of your site.
For instance, if you use images of products or of album covers and movie posters, your disclaimer might outline the reasons why, under copyright law, it is legal for you to do so without seeking the express permission of the copyright holder – an important point for any would-be professional blogger.
Privacy Policy
What is it? Information that describes how you will handle visitors’ data.
Do you collect data about your visitors? Do they need to log in, or provide their name and email address, in order to access any of your pages?
A Privacy Policy reassures them that you will not mishandle their details or sell them on to a third party, and is again one of the pages people look for as a hallmark of a professionally built website.
Cookies Policy
What is it? Explains the cookies used on your site, and asks for permission to use them.
Now mandatory in the EU, and still good practice elsewhere, a Cookies Policy page explains how and why you use cookies – small files placed on the visitor’s computer to store session information, personal preferences and other individual adjustments to your site.
‘Most Popular’ Page
What is it? A page that singles out your current most popular content.
Highlight your best-performing content with a ‘Most Popular’ page that links to your single most successful article, or a list of your most frequently viewed pages.
FAQs
What is it? A page containing Frequently Asked Questions and answers.
Cut down on your customer services admin by offering this go-to guide to your most frequently faced questions and problems.
Visitors to your site will be able to resolve some of their own concerns without the need to contact you directly, and it’s a great way to pick up on some problem-solving search traffic too.
Testimonials
What is it? A section of your website containing positive feedback from happy customers.
Word of mouth can be difficult to convey online, and while social networks can help, on your main website testimonials are still an important alternative, and a way to make sure visitors realise your brand has history, heritage, and a track record of happy customers.
Accessibility Settings
What is it? A section of your website that helps visitors who have accessibility issues to read your content.
Any web user with accessibility problems – such as vision impairments – will usually have software like screen readers installed to help them to compensate.
However, you can also help to cater for their specific needs by offering switchable CSS themes that introduce larger font sizes and high-contrast colour schemes to your pages, while ensuring you know how your content will look when the alternative CSS is applied.
Site Map
What is it? A page in any of several formats that gives a full list of content on your site, and where to find it.
A site map can help lost visitors to find the content they need, and is even more essential if, for any reason, it is not feasible to offer full site search that encompasses all of your pages.
It can also help with SEO efforts, however, as several of the main search engines welcome site map submissions as a way for them to find pages their automated search robots might have previously missed.
Advertise With Us
What is it? A page that offers visitors to your site the chance to place an advertisement on your pages.
Do you have advertisements on your site? If not, why not? And if so, are they as relevant as they might be?
A dedicated ‘Advertise With Us’ page lets you work with brands within your own target audience, build new partnerships, and potentially increase your advertising conversion rate dramatically, all of which could make selling ads in this way preferable to simply using an automated ad network to monetise your content.
This post was contributed by Datadial; certified lovers of blogs, web design, and online marketing.
