SEO Blog

Even the smallest websites designed for the most basic of purposes need a few standard pages. Of course if you’re a large ecommerce site, you’ll have products, categories, sub-categories, buyers guides, FAQs and all-sorts. These are of course vital in this context.

But at the heart of any website their needs to be a core trio of pages. These are there to provide visitors with information, create link fodder and give you an opportunity to gain search engine rankings. Whilst many take them for granted, some still don’t give them the respect they deserve.

So let’s have a look at this website triumvirate:

About Us

How many sites have you been on where there isn’t an About Us page? It’s inexcusable. I’m a visitor, I like what you have to offer but I want to find out a little more about the company before I actually commit to making a purchase. Immediately I’m looking for an About Us tab in the navigation.  If I don’t find one, do I just trust you or do I decide to go and take my business elsewhere?

Even if you don’t think there’s anything all that interesting to say about your business, just having a page with a little information can help build trust and authority. People like to know they are dealing with a reputable company, run by humans with a history of some kind.

This page should be optimised for secondary keywords, perhaps with a local slant. For example if your homepage is targeting ‘toy store’, you might now want to go for ‘London toy store’ to provide another landing page. You can optimise for this term then and get yourself a decent additional ranking.

Contact Us

You might include your phone number on the homepage, but you can’t rely on all visitors finding this. When consumers want to enquire further many naturally seek out a Contact Us page. Perhaps they’d rather send an email or just find out where you’re based.

Providing a dedicated page with all your contact details ensures that nobody will leave without being able to track you down. It doesn’t matter if that information is already contained within your footer (good for SEO), just build the page – there’s no real excuse not to, unless you really do have something to hide.

This page should also be optimised for local phrases. You’ll have the immediate advantage of already having your address contained on the page, therefore providing substantial context. However, just a short introductory paragraph can help you to properly optimise it for your targeted terms. Don’t go too crazy of course, you still need to get your vital information across. If you do want to add extra content, driving instructions, local train services and other useful details can help you do this.

Homepage

Probably the most elementary thing that I’ve shared on here, but yes, your website needs a homepage. It needs to be distinguishable and usable, a place that welcomes in most visitors and allows them to get to the pages they need quickly.

It is your primary landing page and therefore needs to be optimised for your top keywords. It’ll have more links than all other pages and subsequently have the highest page strength. Avoid, where possible, the temptation to have a splash page. These can be off-putting and give visitors a reason to leave without really seeing what you have to offer.

Your homepage should be reachable from every other page through a single click. Whether that’s through a logo in the page header or a link in the side navigation (maybe both), it’s vital that people can get back and start again. Having a showy, flash-filled (flash can’t be read by search engines either by the way) homepage will slow down your site and just add unnecessary confusion.

Keep your content on topic and ensure it reflects the site as a whole. Visitors will thank you for it and search engines should reward you.