This is a question that I hear frequently from business owners because often, it is one of the factors that determines how much a new website costs.
The answer is not completely black and white, and it depends a lot on what types of services you offer as well as how much information you want to present about each individual in your company.
A Simple Blueprint
There is a set of pages that make sense for almost any small business website. These pages present an overview of your business, the services you offer, your team, and how people can contact us. They are:
1) Homepage
2) Services page
3) About Us
4) Contact Us
5) Site Map
6) Privacy Policy
A Site Map is usually automatically generated by the website content management system, and the Privacy Policy is standard language about collecting contact info using forms, periodically contacting those who submit their info, and not sharing that contact info with third parties.
At minimum, a well-organized small business website will contain these six pages. You or your inbound marketing consultant will be on the hook to produce content for the Homepage, Services page, and About Us page that is well written for online reading, optimized for visibility on the search engines, and provides your visitors with a clear call to action.
Creating More Pages
Two reasons why you would want to add more pages from the beginning are if you wanted to provide more information about your services and more information about your team members.
For example, a 3 person dental practice may want to have these additional pages:
Services
- Prevention and Gum Care
- Dental Restoration
- Cosmetic Dentistry
- Sleep Apnea Treatment
Our Team
- Dentist 1
- Dentist 2
- Dentist 3
People and search engines love context and relevancy. The more specific a page can be, the better, because you can use headlines, images, and bullets to convey the main points to people, and your page will be considered more relevant by the search engines for the content on the page.
While most small businesses can start planning their website content from the same blueprint, if your business warrants additional pages to describe your services and team, be sure to include additional pages to provide visitors and search engines the proper context.
