Before you start designing and making the copy for your website, you want to know what you should have on your website. If you’re just getting started, you should start with the basics. Here are the 5 most important pages you should have on your website.

Wait! I also want to mention this isn’t for someone who’s creating a one-page website. This is for someone who’s trying to build an empire. You want to create a blog, store your YouTube videos, create a podcast, sell services or products, etc. You’re planning on growing in the future. If that’s not you, you can just create a landing page.

Ok, back to the important information.

The 5 most important pages you should have on your website

01 Where am I?

First and foremost, you need a home page. This is the most important page on your site. Why? Because if your audience lands on your page through your blog post, video post, Pinterest, or wherever they clicked on your link in this infinite world of the web, they’ll head to your home page if they liked what they saw from the page they landed on.

Your homepage should have the most important information about your website on it. If you’re stuck on what to put on it, then here are some questions that will help you.

• Who am I helping with this website?
• What’s this website about?
• What do I want my audience to know me for?
• How do I let my audience know that they’re in the right place?
• What do I want my audience to do next?

My homepage is called ‘Start Here’. The title is not great for SEO, but I want to make it easy for people to know where to start if they’re new to my website. On my homepage, you know that my name is Paigon (not Natasha Lane), and I help vloggers and entrepreneurs elevate their video content through design and editing so they stand out online and become THE authority in their field.

With this statement, you know that this website is for vloggers and entrepreneurs who create videos. Not only that, but they’re serious about creating videos because they want to become THE authority in their field. You also know that I do it through design and editing. Not into video or design? Then you’re in the wrong place. If you are, then welcome, take all the information I have and grow your empire with me!

If you don’t tell them what the site is about and who it’s for, then you’re confusing the people who land on your website. They just want to know that they’re in the right place. Once they know, they’ll keep coming back for more.

02 About page

I did a whole post on the feature you should have on your about page, click here to check it out. You know what happens when you assume, right! I’m going to take the risk. If you have a website, I assume that you’re doing it for profit. I mean, it cost money to have a website, so you at least want to make enough to maintain it.

There’s just one thing that you need to know if you’re a small business or doing it all alone, and that’s people buy from other people. This is your biggest weapon and that’s why your about page is so important. On this page you should answer these questions:

• Who are you?
• What do you do?
• Why should I buy from you?
• What’s so awesome about you?
• How can you help your audience?

You don’t have to put your whole life story on your about page if you’re a private person. Just make sure you answer the most relevant questions that your audience is interested in. Read More “The 5 most important pages you should have on your website”

Am I ready for a web designer? If you’re wondering if you should hire a web designer, there are a lot of things to consider. If you’re doing things on a whim because everyone has a website, just know there are things web designers have to consider before they even start designing your site. In this post, I’m going to cover everything you need to prepare before you hire a web designer. If you don’t have this stuff ready, then it could put your website launch on hold.

Everything you need to prepare before you hire a web designer

It’s mine!

I want to hope that you’re not starting a business on a whim, but you probably don’t want to hear that from me right now. Before you start a website, you should already have a foundation for your business. Here is a list of questions that you should have an answer to before you start your web design project.

• Do you have a business name?
• Can you tell me who your target audience is?
• Do you have a host and domain ready for your website?

Once you’ve cleared this first level, then it’s on to the next.

Have your copy ready

Now it’s time to think about the copy (aka the words and what/how you want to convey them) for your website. You can hire someone to do this for you or you can do it yourself. I write the copy myself for my website, but if I had to do it all over again or if I get a chance to rebuild my website, I would definitely hire someone to do it for me. I find writing copywriting very time-consuming. Not only that, but I’m sure a copywriter would do a way better job than I’m doing.

If you’re going the DIY route, then I suggest doing everything in a Google Doc. You can create a separate document for each page. Here’s a list of pages that you will need on your website:

• Home
• About
• Contact
• Services
• Each individual service
• Products
• Each individual product
• FAQ

Once you have all the copy written for your pages, then organize them into a folder.  When you hire a web designer, you can just share the folder with them.

Read More “Am I ready for a Web Designer?”

I notice that some people who design websites, don’t really know how to create websites, but focus on choosing a theme from Squarespace or WordPress. I don’t personally have a problem with this because they are actually offering a service. They are designing a website for clients. People put all this emphasis on not being able to develop a website when there are some developers who have no design ability. You need a good design to attract clients. 

Well, I actually have a background creating websites and I’m a designer. I was in the Front End Development program at San Diego Continuing Education (but I didn’t get to finish the last few weeks because I had to move back to Houston). To me, creating websites from scratch using HTML and CSS is fun and easy. Even though I love creating websites from scratch, here’s why I use WordPress to design client websites.

Sidenote: If you live in San Diego, CA., and want to take classes for FREE, check out their website here. I loved the IMCP program (Interactive Media Certificate Program, I think they changed the name) and the Front End Web Development program (FEWD). If you can’t take part in their certificate programs because they are too long (the IMCP program is 9 months long and 25 hours a week), they also have short classes too. I’ve taken WordPress classes, classes on Social Media, Typography, and so on. Almost everything is free, so take advantage of the classes! I wish they offered free schools in Texas.

Reasons why I use WordPress to design client websites:

01. It’s convenient for small businesses.

As a small business, you don’t have time to worry about learning HTML and CSS, so what do you do if you need to create a web page or blog post? After I design the website and upload it to the host, everything is up to the client (unless they pay a retainer fee, then I maintain everything for them). WordPress makes it easy to create a new page and blog post. No coding necessary.

Is Natasha Lane Design Co. a WordPress site?

Even if you know how to code a web page, creating one from scratch every time you need a new page is a hassle. Did you know that Natasha Lane Design Co. was originally made with HTML, CSS, and Javascript? I made Natasha Lane myself and I routed the blog to my WordPress blog. Read More “Why I use WordPress to design client websites”