A website has a basic anatomy. And while it’s not necessary that every site have every one of these parts, generally they’re a good skeleton with which to begin.
a home page
For Search Engine Optimization purposes, it’s a good idea to put your mission statement or a little blurb about what you do on the home page. Other than that, there really are no rules. I like to turn the home page into the ‘about us’ page on sites that lack a lot of in-depth content. It just makes sense sometimes.
about us/history/bios
You don’t have to have the ‘about us’ page of course. But the content is probably important to your audience, so put it somewhere. Who are you? Where do you come from? What is your experience and why should your audience care? Why is all this relevant to whatever you’re selling?
contact us
pretty self-explanatory. However, another space-saver and just plain smart idea is putting the contact information on every page. I like this idea because it prominently presents your contact info at all times during the visit. Which could be a very good thing for some businesses. You could choose to do this and still have a contact page as well.
products or services page
This is the meat of the site, and will vary for everyone in breadth and importance, so suffice to say, the sky is the limit here. But, if you have only one product or service, and that’s your main focus, you could certainly make this info your home page. This would drive traffic to that specific product or service immediately, allowing your company’s image to take the back seat to your product or service. Depending on the sales and marketing strategy, this might be a great idea.
site map
In my current research about SEO, I have discovered that a site map is a great tool to make sure that your site gets appropriately indexed by the search engines. Believe me, this is a necessity. Plus, it’s a good way-finding tool for your visitors, if they need it. But really, it’s important for the web crawlers, or so ‘they’ tell me.
errors page
an often over-looked page on any site is the error page that happens when a user mis-types a URL on your domain, or god forbid, a link is broken on your site. You’ll want to make sure the error pages are looking great too, and that your designer handles that stuff as par for the course.
terms and conditions and privacy policies
You may or may not need T&C or a privacy policy on your site. They are both legalese pages meant to protect you, and to inform the visitor what they should and should not expect from your site. But if you are selling anything, chances are you’ll need them. And so, they’ll need a page to live on. Usually this type of info is a small link somewhere at the bottom of the page.
partners, links, and client list
Because of the nature of the web and our ‘connected’ lifestyles, now our groups, associations, and relationships are becoming ever more important. Each relationship has the potential for sales and lead generation too, for our businesses. Because of that, you should leverage your partners and client base to expand your reach. That way, if someone performs a search for one of your clients, your site will come up in their search results. ( There are ways to maximize that potential, but that’s a topic for further discussion. ) Plus, having a list of your clients and partners adds credibility to your business profile, and helps to validate the quality of your work to the world at large.
news
a news feed is a good way to keep dynamic and fresh data on your site. This element doesn’t necessarily have to be its own page, it can be a module on another page. I include it here, because it’s something that can often get overlooked at the site-map stage which we’re discussing now.
blog
finally, I can’t say enough good things about blogs for small business owners. It’s worth the time and energy it takes to update, for the benefits it provides in terms of traffic to your site, and relevancy to your audience. Because of these factors, I think a blog is an essential tool, and a necessary page, on your site. Plan for it.