3 March 2010
The following are standard practice in a normal business website, both for a brochure and e-commerce/e-business website. They are the foundation that the other pages and features, like buying online, are built on.

Home Page

This is the first page that a customer usually comes to. It acts as an introduction to the rest of the website, sets the theme and tone, provides clear links to the most important information you wish to convey and should be updated on a regular basis (see Content Management Systems)

The home page (or index page) is the most important page on your website as it must be initially appealing to your potential customers. More often than not visitors to a website judge whether they stay (and therefore buy) or leave by their impression of the home page.

Examples of home page content:
- Introduction to your company, products/services
- Special Offers
- Photographs of products/services i.e. one picture can convey what you sell immediately (a picture is worth a thousand words)
- Latest news items
- Links within the home page content to the rest of your website

TIP! This is also the first page a search engine visits so ensure there is enough written text for e.g. Google to examine and keep it up to date

Contact Us

The contact page is vital as the whole point of the website is for the customer to communicate to you the seller whether they wish to purchase online or offline.

Include:
- Telephone and fax numbers
- Mobile (optional)
- Address
- Email address(es)
- Contact form

The contact form enables you to ask the questions you need to know from your customers including extra questions like how they found the website or what specific items they are enquiring about.

TIP! Include your telephone and email on every page on your site in the template

Products/Services
At least one page on the products/services you provide. This page may increase to dozens of pages depending on what you sell but the main page should outline a structure for customers to view exactly what it is you do.

TIP! Don’t overcrowd any page. If you sell three types of product that require lots of pictures and text then have three separate pages with the main products/services page linking easily to each page

About Us

A profile of your company. This section does not have to be too long but should instil a sense of trust in your business especially if the customer wants to buy online. You may wish to show some case studies or examples of previous work.

If your offline business is well established then state this on your website. This is your chance to advertise your strengths to potential customers!

Latest News

The second page that should be updated on a frequent basis is the news page. It can be in the form of simple paragraphs of information or be more in-depth on e.g. industry news, new contracts won, press releases, updates to the website.

A news feed may also be implemented. This relatively new technology allows you to include latest news headlines from another source directly on your website. The official title is a RSS Feed and is usually provided free e.g. www.outdoorcapital.co.uk

Also a Web Log (or Blog) can be used if you plan to add latest news information on an ongoing basis. It acts like an online diary and is extremely popular eg www.bbchalets.co.uk .

TIP! You can possibly reduce your costs by populating content yourself using Content Management Software