Every website is different and requires unique content, but there are a few pages that almost every website should have. Let’s take a look at 5 pages your website should most likely include — and the few exceptions of why it might not be necessary.
1. About
Who are you and why does your website exist? It’s important to supply your visitors with good answers to those questions, and that’s why most websites should have an About page. Use this page to tell about you or your company and some principles that are important to you. It’s also a great place to feature your team if you have one.
Exceptions: Fortune 500 companies and other really well-known organizations might not need an About page. If you think it’s safe to assume anyone who visits your site knows who you are and why you exist, you can skip this page.
Example: See our About page here.
2. Contact
How can people get in touch with you? If you’re running a business or just want communication with people who visit your website, a Contact page is very helpful. You can supply a variety of methods of contact on this page — email, phone, social media, etc. — but it’s a good idea to have a way for people to contact you. If you want people to contact you via email, you may want to have a contact form on our site instead of supplying your email address, as spammers can easily capture email addresses publicly posted online. Read more on protecting your email address with a contact form here.
Exceptions: If you’re running a small website for fun and you’re concerned that receiving communication from other people would be overwhelming, you can skip this page.
Example: See our Contact page here.
3. Subscribe
One of the best ways to consistently drive traffic to your website is with an email list. Use a lead generator, a dedicated subscribe page, or even a section on another page (or multiple pages) to capture email addresses.
Exceptions: If you don’t publish new content (like a blog) and don’t update your website very often, you may not have enough news to share to merit having an email list. An example of this is a “virtual business card” website that simply provides basic information, best used if you’re looking to provide more information on yourself to people you meet through in-person networking.
Example: See our Subscribe page here. We also have a more detailed page dedicated to our Latest Post Redirect plugin that offers a subscription box at the bottom, and we capture email addresses at the bottom of all of our WordPress tips as well.
4. Privacy Policy
The need for this page is a little different. If you collect data from people who visit your website — be it email addresses from subscribers or IP addresses from visitors — some countries require you to have a Privacy Policy on your website explaining what data you collect and what you do with it. This became a prominent issue in May 2018 when many companies updated their privacy policies to be compliant with Europe’s GDPR laws, and we shared tips on GDPR compliance at that time. WordPress also released tools to help with GDPR compliance in WordPress 4.9.6, and if your website is using WordPress 4.9.6 or later, you can use those tools to help you create your privacy policy.
Exceptions: If you do not collect any data from your visitors, you do not need a privacy policy, but it still wouldn’t hurt to have one so visitors know for sure.
Example: See our Privacy Policy here.
5. Home page
A home page seems like an obvious page to mention here, but a surprising number of our clients think more about the other pages on their site than they do the home page when they’re preparing to have us create a website. Your home page should make a good first impression on your visitors and capture their attention, so it’s important to give careful consideration to the content you include there. This is also equally true if you create additional landing pages that you’ll share on social media or by other means. You want to consider the first impression you make wherever your visitors land first, be it your home page or somewhere else.
Exceptions: Every website needs a home page. There aren’t really any exceptions for this one.
Example: See our home page here.
