What Content Should Be On My Web Site

First Steps

The first steps is to brainstorm every aspect of your business that you’d like to talk about to your visitors. Get out a sheet of paper and begin writing a list of each product/service you provide. See how much you can elaborate on each of them. This will help you determine whether you should have one page to describe your entire service list, or whether you want to talk more about your services and have one page for each service or product.

Also consider these common web site elements:

• company information
• company history
• contact page
• staff information
• press releases
• company news
• industry affiliations
• awards
• partners
• legal information

• privacy policy
• terms of use

That list can definitely be added to, and not each of the above items would necessarily apply to your web site, so take a look at each item and see which ones you should incorporate into your web site.

Competition

Take a look at your competition’s web sites. Go to a search engine and type in some words that describe your business and/or products/services. Take a look at each web site that ranks on the first page and look at what they have included for content. If these sites are ranking well for your targetted terms, then take a look at what they have for content and maybe use some of the same elements they have used.

Site Navigation

The next step, once you’ve decided what content will be on your web site, is to organize your content into relevant categories. Common categories are:

• Company or Corporate
• Services
• Products
• Press
• Contact

Go through your list of items from your brainstorming session and competitive research and place each item in one of your above categories. You may have more or less top level categories than listed above. Continue this process until you have your site navigation in place. Consider Net Shift Media’s site navigation:

• Home
• Company
• Services

• Web Site Development
• Web Application Development
• Internet Marketing
• Multimedia
• Web Hosting
• Consulting

This document will also act as an overall site map for the site. Use this when working on each page within your web site.

Content Creation

For each item on your list, write a quick 1-2 sentence description of what the page is about, some common customer questions about that page, and why you want it on your web site. If you can’t think of why it should be on your web site, then remove it from the list. Then using that description, create an outline of your page content with a bulletted list.

Once you have created your list, you can start writing the content. As you’re writing, refer back to your outline and description and make sure you’ve covered what you wanted to on the page, and answered any questions that your customer may have about that content on your web site. You now have your web content and META descriptions created for each page on your web site.

Putting the Site Together

Now that you have your content ready, you’re ready for your designer to start the design of your site. That’s right, now the designer should begin. It is best to give your designer the most information possible about your company, and web site before he/she starts the design process. This resouce not only acts as the content for the site, but also shows the designer whether you’re site will be content-heavy, or light, and will also allow the designer to get creative from reading your content and come up with creative ways of designing your layout.

Your Home Page

Your home page should act as a portal to your company, and the rest of your web site. It’s the entrance (most often) for your users, and should direct them throughout the rest of the web site. Most often, your home page will include a quick introduction to your company and it’s products and/or services, as well as a couple news items which will be updated regularly, and some links to the most significant areas of your web site.