Posted on June 6th, 2010Whether the service you’re building is for yourself, an entrepreneur, a sole proprietor, a small business, or a nonprofit organization the rest of your content must be geared toward attracting new customers and promoting the business. Therefore, make sure you provide enough information about the business, organization, entity, or person and all the materials, talents, skills, products, and/or services available, plus other things you can think of to positively impact business and benefit the visitors.
Developing a good awareness of the site’s offline and online competition can greatly help you in making conclusions about what information should be added on your site. For example, if you’re building a site for a children’s art program, the web site should probably include enough information to help parents agree to enroll their kids as students, such as program details and benefits, photographs of the smiling children and facilities, parent and student testimonials, and maybe a price list. If an offline competitor offers new students free tote bags, it is a good thing if your client’s art school gives students free balloons and T-shirts that include the program Web address and logo.
Due to the dynamic nature of the Internet, this list isn’t meant to be comprehensive; instead, you can use it as a terminus a quo for brainstorming about a specific content needed for each site.
About Us
It is a page of company-related information; it should explain the company to the visitors and cover the company’s mission statements. Additionally, this section should include a corporate philosophy statement and history, a directory of top employees with short biographies of the management team, and information about career opportunity and internship program.
Biography
Just like the About Us section, a biography page often has historical and other interesting tidbits of information about the blog owner, proprietor, sole artist, educator, or business owner. It should provide details to stimulate interest in specific products, skills, work, and services, being discussed on the site. This could also be a great place to include curriculum vitae or résumé.
Products/Services Info
All products and services presented on a site should have a detailed description. If your business is service oriented, explain how the business works, how long the company has been operating and who needs your service. If your company sells products, they should be organized into ordered categories and subcategories, for example Computer>Notebook>Sony Vaio.
Other than a description for all main categories, every individual product should have its own description, for example any information that would be interesting or important to purchasers, such as dimensions, size, color, weight, ingredients, materials, nutritional facts, care instructions, technical specs, warranty information and country of manufacture. If possible, also try to offer customer/client testimonials.
Remember that for all copyrighted materials you intend to use, for example illustrations, and photographs -you need to have permission to use it. It may mean paying royalty fees for any rights-managed work, getting written permissions for nonrights-managed works, and otherwise securing the right to use contents created by another entity or person.
Press Information and News
This area of the site usually contains latest newsletters or press releases, articles about the industry or business, and any media coverage. It should also include details about upcoming programs, exhibitions and trade shows, collections and gifts, relevant technology, current research and development, a historical corporate schedule, a media library or image gallery, and a listing of literary references.
Podcasts and video
With the advent of video sharing service, such as YouTube, inserting video into a site would never be easier. With video clips, you can promote services, sell products, showcase ideas, offer information and news, and even provide tutorials and training to interested visitors. YouTube allows you to embed their video to all kinds of Internet platforms, such as forums, blog posts and websites, but, if you’re looking for something more serious, you might choose podcasting. It is a way of sending any combination of video, images, and audio media to subscribers through syndicated downloads via Web feeds to computers and smartphones like Blackberries and iPhones.
Portfolio
When a site belongs to a designer, artist, or other creative professionals, this section displays the online version of a portfolio, for example, descriptions of previous works, photos, a curriculum vitae or résumé, sound files, video clips (MP3s), and other forms of media files. It is fast becoming a good way to market services to the global audience, generate leads, and share industry information and news with the public.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Most visitors have questions – plenty of questions – and they need answers. In addition, by having frequently asked questions and relevant answers on your site, people can usually find what they need to know without having to send an e-mail or make a phone call – a big advantage in our fast-paced society. Most FAQ pages include information about products and services, how to contact the site, how to customize membership accounts or site preferences, how to get more information, how to access customer service, and how to use the site. If you don’t know what to include in the FAQs page, start reviewing questions often asked by visitors and find the best answers. When a pattern starts to emerge, add them to your FAQs section.
Site Search
Though not always necessary, providing a way for searching a whole site’s content with specific keywords will improve its stickiness (the chance of a site to make people stay a little longer). The most widely used free search utility is Google Site Search. Whatever E-commerce software method you decide to use, you need to take extra care to make sure that visitors’ information is secure and safe during the transaction process. If a site processes credit card payments (instead of using an external service like PayPal), it’ll need to have a merchant account and also purchase a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) digital security certificate. The host provider may help you in both licensing SSL certification and setting up a merchant account.
Customer Service
Any web site that plans to offer products and services should have a place for people to know how to reach customer service personnel, including how to contact them, ask questions, and solve problems. You shouldn’t think of this page as a liability but instead as a chance to serve your visitors well. Check other successful sites to gather ideas on a good way to set up this invaluable section of your site. Think about having separate sections for privacy issues, ordering information, managing shipping, dealing with defective or damaged items, and maintaining account information.
The easier you allow people to get answers, the better their experience on your web site, the more positive the customer satisfaction.
Site Credits
Although this by no means should be included on your site, why not mention all people involved on your site development or business operation? If the site is yours, you should add it on your site, perhaps somewhere in the footer area, otherwise, ask the client for permission to add this section. Links inside the Site Credit may go directly to the developer or participant site; or show an internal page to give detailed explanations.
RSS Feeds
Websites that include blogs should consider using syndication with a few RSS feed formats, to automatically notify subscribed readers (by news readers, Web portal, and e-mail) of new information and posts. There are a few good RSS feed services, for example FeedBurner.com. Read Our Article on Increasing RSS Subscribers here.