Writing for the web means writing in short, simple language to make your website easy to read and scan.

Ideally, this means each of your web pages should be 300 words maximum. Regardless of page length, your pages should have short paragraphs, bullets and headings for readability.

Keeping the above points in mind, here’s what content to include on the following four web pages that makeup most small business websites:

Home Page

Visitors to your website will usually see this page first, so it’s important that they quickly “get” what your website and business is about or they may quickly leave it.

Your home page should ideally have 3 to 4 paragraphs, each two to three sentences long.  The paragraphs on your home page should cover:

1. What your business specializes in.
2. How you help your clients (i.e. the benefit statement: state the problem and how you solve it).
3. Your hours of operation, address and phone number.
4. (Optional) a guarantee for your clients.

Contact Us Page

Your Contact Us Page is where, if people prefer, can contact you by email. It should have an online form rather your email address link to prevent robots from spamming your email.

Find Us Page

Your Find Us Page should have a map of your location, a picture of your storefront, directions to your business and hours of operation. These “location indicators” help optimize your website for people in your area searching for your business on Google, Bing or Yahoo, etc.

About Us Page

This page should also ideally have 2 to 3 paragraphs, each two to three sentences long.  Each sentence should answer in the third person (e.g.  “Jones Plumbing opened in…”   “We…”, etc.):

1. History of your business.
2. Why you started it.
3. Unique fact about your business (e.g. number served, years of experience, etc.).
4. A picture of your business team or owner.

Other Pages

Other pages you might consider adding to your website include:

• How-it-works page
• Product or services page (A list of your products or services along with each product or service’s main client benefit (e.g. “Product X will help you…”) and image.
• Samples or portfolio page
• FAQ (the 300 word page maximum does not apply here)
• Security/Privacy Policy
• Success Stories Page (description of the  problem; how you solved it and the benefit your client now enjoys as a result)
• Testimonial (ideally have 3 each with a picture of  the client for credibility)
• Bio (3 paragraphs, 2 to 3 sentences each covering years of experience, achievements, memberships, education, hobbies or family info, etc.)
• Blog (blog posts should generally be between 350 to 500 words long)

Pictures

Your web pages should also include pictures of your business. Show pictures of you & your staff, products/services, views of your store, events, etc. builds potential customers’ trust in your business.

Final Thoughts

Finally, add an easy-to find-contact information on every page and a call to action on each page where appropriate (i.e. contact us, get your quote, sign up for…, etc.). Don’t forget to check for spelling and readability and get someone to read your pages as well. We find it also helps to edit your web pages over several days as your mind will unconsciously come up with better wording between edits.