Pages Needed On A Website
The number of pages needed for a website can vary significantly depending on several factors, such as the size of the business, the complexity of its offerings, and its overall goals. Small businesses with relatively simple products or services may only require a handful of pages, while larger corporations with diverse offerings and complex structures may necessitate dozens or even hundreds of pages.
According to what was research, we do realised nearly 73% of small businesses in Singapore has a website presence within a small little red dot. Indicating the importance of an online presence for businesses of all sizes. However, the website’s scope and pages required would greatly depend on business’s specific needs and objectives.
For small businesses, a typical website may include pages like the home page, about us, products or services, contact information, and a blog or news section. In contrast, larger corporations often require additional pages for various departments, locations, investor relations, careers, and extensive product catalogs or service offerings. The goal is to provide a comprehensive and user-friendly experience that caters to the target audience’s needs while effectively showcasing the business’s offerings. As pages are slowly input when your business grows and objective changes, thus our normal reccomendation on website pages needed would definitely vary from a startup website package that starts of with 3 pages sufficient to showcase your business offering up to 5 and even more on customize packages that require extensive website pages.
Simple Websites for Small Businesses
For small businesses, a simple website with essential pages is often sufficient. The core pages to include are:
Home Page: This serves as the front door to your website, providing an overview of your business, key offerings, and a clear call-to-action.
About Page: Here, you can share your company’s story, mission, values, and introduce your team, building trust and credibility with potential customers.
Services/Products Page: Clearly outline the services or products you offer, highlighting their features, benefits, and pricing (if applicable). This page should compel visitors to take action.
Contact Page: Make it easy for customers to reach out by providing multiple contact methods, such as a contact form, email address, phone number, and physical address (if relevant).
Blog (optional): A blog can be a valuable addition, allowing you to share industry insights, tips, and updates, positioning your business as a knowledgeable authority in your field which helps in building SEO content to help boost your ranking. We do not want to be flooding searchers with non relevant information on a homepage or services as the main objective would be to attract and convert these users on a short time frame as soon as possible.
These essential pages provide a solid foundation for a small business website, allowing you to showcase your offerings, build credibility, and facilitate customer interactions effectively.
Complex Websites for Large Corporations
For large corporations with diverse offerings and complex organizational structures, a website requires a more intricate design to accommodate a wide range of content and cater to various stakeholders. These websites often feature separate sections or microsites dedicated to specific products, services, investor relations, careers, and press releases.
One essential component is a comprehensive product or service catalog, providing detailed information, specifications, and pricing for the company’s offerings. This section may be further subdivided based on product lines or target markets. Additionally, a dedicated investor relations section is crucial for publicly traded companies, featuring financial reports, investor presentations, and shareholder information.
Large corporations also require a robust careers section to attract top talent, showcasing job opportunities, company culture, and employee benefits. A press room or newsroom is another common feature, housing press releases, media kits, and other resources for journalists and media professionals.
These websites may incorporate separate sections for different business units, geographic regions, or subsidiaries, each with its own tailored content and navigation structure. Effective information architecture and user experience design are paramount to ensure seamless navigation and content discoverability across these complex websites.
Defining Page Content
The process of determining what content should be included on each page is crucial for creating a user-friendly and effective website. It involves understanding user needs, aligning with business goals, and considering search engine optimization (SEO) best practices.
User needs should be the primary driving force behind content selection. Conduct user research, analyze website analytics, and gather feedback to identify the information and features that visitors are seeking. This user-centric approach ensures that the website provides value and meets the expectations of the target audience.
Business goals, such as promoting products or services, generating leads, or establishing thought leadership, should also guide content decisions. Each page should serve a specific purpose that aligns with these goals, whether it’s informational, transactional, or promotional in nature.
Additionally, SEO considerations play a significant role in defining page content. Keyword research and on-page optimization techniques, such as including relevant keywords in titles, headings, and body text, can improve a website’s visibility in search engine results. However, it’s essential to prioritize creating high-quality, valuable content for users over solely optimizing for search engines.
By balancing user needs, business goals, and SEO best practices, website owners can create a content strategy that delivers a seamless and engaging experience for visitors while achieving their desired objectives.
Showcasing Products and Services
Dedicated product and service pages are crucial for effectively showcasing a company’s offerings. These pages should be visually appealing and informative, with high-quality images, detailed descriptions, and prominent calls-to-action.
For product pages, it’s essential to use compelling headlines and descriptions that highlight the key features and benefits. Incorporate multiple high-resolution images from various angles, along with videos or interactive elements if applicable. Clearly display pricing information, available options or variations, and provide an easy way for customers to add the product to their cart or make a purchase.
Service pages should also have a strong headline that captures the essence of the service offered. Provide detailed information about the service, including its scope, deliverables, and any unique selling points. Use visuals such as icons, illustrations, or photographs to enhance the understanding of the service. Additionally, consider including customer testimonials or case studies to build trust and credibility.
Both product and service pages should have clear and prominent calls-to-action, encouraging visitors to take the desired action, whether it’s making a purchase, requesting a quote, or scheduling a consultation.
Optimum Number of Words on Pages
There is no definitive rule for the optimal number of pages a website should have. It largely depends on the purpose, scope, and complexity of the website. Having too few pages may limit your ability to comprehensively showcase your products, services, and company information. On the other hand, an excessive number of pages can lead to a cluttered and confusing user experience, making it difficult for visitors to find the information they need.
Industry benchmarks and user experience considerations can provide guidance in striking the right balance. According to content creation websites, a typical website might have or estimates to have a various of word count:
1,000 to 1,500 words for blog posts
3,000+ words for pillar pages (comprehensive guides)
300 to 800 words for city or local pages
400 to 1,000 words for landing pages
However, these are just general guidelines, and the optimal number of pages will ultimately depend on your specific business needs, industry, and target audience. It’s crucial to strike a balance between providing comprehensive information and maintaining a user-friendly, easy-to-navigate structure.
Navigation and Site Structure
A well-structured website with intuitive navigation is crucial for providing an optimal user experience and ensuring search engine crawlability. Effective site hierarchy and navigation help users easily find the information they need, reducing frustration and increasing engagement.
Clear and descriptive navigation labels are essential for guiding users through the site’s content hierarchy. Avoid format-based labels (e.g., “PDFs,” “Videos”) and prioritize content-focused labels that accurately represent the information on each page。
Navigation menus should be visually prominent and consistent across the site, with separation between primary and secondary navigation elements. Calls-to-action can be incorporated into the header, but buttons should be reserved for actions, not navigation。
A well-organized site structure not only enhances the user experience but also improves search engine crawlability, allowing search engines to better understand and index the site’s content. By prioritizing a logical site hierarchy and intuitive navigation, businesses can ensure their online presence is accessible, user-friendly, and optimized for success.
Content Hierarchy and Prioritization
Effective website design and content organization should prioritize the most valuable and relevant information for the target audience. This ensures that users can easily find what they need without being overwhelmed or distracted by less critical content.
One proven approach is feature prioritization, a systematic process for evaluating and ranking features or content based on predefined criteria such as business impact, user value, and implementation effort. Prioritization frameworks like the MoSCoW method can help teams categorize requirements as “Must Have,” “Should Have,” “Could Have,” or “Won’t Have” to guide development and content planning.
Prioritizing content can also involve analyzing user behavior data, search engine rankings, and SEO best practices to understand what information resonates most with the target audience. High-priority content should be prominently featured and easily accessible through clear navigation and information architecture.
Dynamic and Static Pages
Dynamic and static pages refer to the way web content is generated and delivered to users. Static pages are pre-built HTML files that remain the same for every visitor, while dynamic pages are generated on-the-fly based on user input, database queries, or other server-side processing.
Static pages are well-suited for websites with relatively unchanging content, such as brochure sites, portfolios, or simple informational pages. They are generally faster to load, easier to cache, and require less server resources. However, they lack interactivity and personalization, and updating content requires manually editing the HTML files.
Dynamic pages, on the other hand, are ideal for websites that require frequent content updates, user interactions, or personalized experiences. Examples include e-commerce sites, social media platforms, and content management systems (CMS). Dynamic pages can display user-specific content, process form submissions, and integrate with databases or APIs. However, they typically require more server resources and may have slower load times compared to static pages.
When deciding between static or dynamic pages, consider the website’s goals and content requirements. Static pages are a good choice for small, informational websites with minimal updates, while dynamic pages are better suited for complex, interactive websites that require frequent content changes and user interactions. Many websites employ a combination of static and dynamic pages, leveraging the strengths of each approach. For example, a blog might use static pages for the homepage and article listings, while individual article pages are dynamically generated from a content management system.
Responsive and Mobile-Friendly Design
In today’s multi-device landscape, where users access websites from various devices like smartphones, tablets, and desktops, responsive and mobile-friendly design is crucial. According to Smashing Magazine, one of the principles of effective web design is to “design for the latest, greatest, and least capable” devices. This means optimizing page layouts and content for different screen sizes and resolutions.
To achieve a responsive and mobile-friendly design, consider the following tips:
Implement a responsive grid system that adapts to different screen sizes
Prioritize content and ensure it’s easily readable on smaller screens
Use touch-friendly navigation and interactive elements
Optimize images and media for faster loading times on mobile devices
Test your website across multiple devices and browsers for consistent user experience
By embracing responsive and mobile-friendly design, you can provide a seamless and enjoyable experience for all users, regardless of the device they’re using to access your website.
Why Website Structure Matters When Deciding on Pages
Your website isn’t just a digital brochure—it’s your best salesperson. A well-structured site helps to build credibility and trust, a simple SME website can consist of 3 big pillars such as home page, services and contact us. These are sufficient to attract and convert ongoing searchers to firstly showcase your business and product you offering and allowing them to enquire further if required.
As for a larger organization, 3 pages might not be sufficient as you have different sub brands and category which you would like to concentrate on. These would need to be better portray and not being lumped together as it affects the main blocks of SEO concepts. You would want to look into splitting it into further pages to better quantify your information and provide a complete solution. However, depending on your strategy, business model may scale to fit your requirements depending on how you would love it to be segregated to help support SEO building and creation.
Pro Tip On Deciding Amount of Pages
As we walk through a various of different consideration on building a website depending if you’re a SME or MNC. These strategies varies but a rule of thumb, look into what your business offer, curate a set of wireframe or sitemap into the pages required. For example, a digital marketing agency provides different services from website design and development to SEO and SEM services. Thus, if you are looking at a lower scale you may include all your services within a single page. If you would to plan in detail, you may segregate these services for example under a website design and development. There are other services within the umbrella such as website maintenance, website CMS, website conversion. These are some services you may include within a website design and development umbrella. Thus, depending on the budget and your requirements, we can scale accordingly depending on your wireframe or sitemap set up to better get a holistic picture into the amount of pages you should require.
As a start we would always reccomend a 3 pages which is sufficient to convert users as we speak on a short about us and what you provide in a homepage, and further dive into the different type of services you would be offering and lastly to convert these user through a contact form. A standard approach of 3 pages to be able to retain and convert searchers easily.