Comments on: The Three Pages That Every Site Should Have

By: What Does a Web Site Have to Have? | HTMLCenter Web Development Blog

What Does a Web Site Have to Have? | HTMLCenter Web Development Blog — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:26:17 +0000

[...] of Web site development at higher education institutions, made a post a few weeks ago about the three pages that every Web site needs. He claims that every Web site (whether it’s a corporate site, a college Web site or just a [...]

By: wilhb81

wilhb81 — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:06:56 +0000

I have already have the “About Page” and “Sitemap Page”, but not with the “Contact Page”. As I afraid that some readers will bombard my mailbox, by sending endless spam mails from time to time…

By: Dnepropetrovskij Intim

Dnepropetrovskij Intim — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:37:54 +0000

And of course such pages:
1) TOP articles (in order to make your site sticky)
2) Links (in order to make some money)

Good stuff!

By: Small Business Marketing

Small Business Marketing — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:50:15 +0000

I’d agree that those 3 pages are essential. The About Page is also far too often overlooked in that it usually just contains general text rather than specific information and photos about the company which help to build your trust.

I’d also say that most sites should have both a Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions, especially if you’re advertising via Google AdWords as these pages are becoming increasingly critical to ensure that you receive a high quality score.

By: Chicago Injury Lawyer

Chicago Injury Lawyer — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:46:11 +0000

I feel that the SEO value of a sitemap is more than enough reason to have one. Also, from time to time, I actually use sitemaps to navigate sites. I feel about pages may not be necessary if your landing page adequately describes your products or services, however, it is a valuable page to elaborate. I completely agree with you about going to forms instead of a straight email link. Not only will the forms benefit the visitors, you can also collect valuable data about your visitors in order to best suit their needs.

By: Shawn Lindsey

Shawn Lindsey — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:00:50 +0000

Thanks for this. This is actually a very very nice blog post, because we are a web development company and we always, always, always stress the importance of the About US and the Contact Page. That is something that we require each of our clients to have.

Nice post, because this really helps new business and people with new websites understand the importance of these pages and why they should include them on their pages and what impact it has for them.

By: Kyle James

Kyle James — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:53:17 +0000

John,
Honestly I don’t care where they are in navigation, a lot of sites successfully put them in the footer, I just want to be able to get to any of those pages quickly from the homepage and ideally have them available on every page. Footer is a great place for sitemap where Contact and About are important enough to warrant in header. Of course it really depends on the type of site and the brand awareness that you have. If your CNN then you don’t have to explain yourself and Contact and About can live in the footer also, which they do.

By: john

john — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:20:33 +0000

I don’t necessarily disagree about requiring their existence, but what about (er…) “About” and “Contact” in the navigation? Or do both of these fall under “General Info”?

By: Jess K.

Jess K. — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:49:01 +0000

I truly believe in the site map! Its a tough sell here and I’m still backing it and its nice to read the comments here for even more ammo and discussion points.

By: editor

editor — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:15:18 +0000

Proofreading is also helpful. An article, like the one above, or any content posted on a website should be carefully reviewed for grammar and spelling mistakes. Nothing says “I’m not really a writer” like not knowing the difference between your and you’re, there and their, etc.

Further, a great design can never, IMHO, make up for bad content. For me, a website loses major creditibility when it has bad spelling and grammar.

By: Kyle James

Kyle James — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:12:28 +0000

Using the example of a college are you going to put your “about” information on the homepage or use that space to recruit students? No the about page tells information like history of the school, mission statement, fast facts, etc. With any website your homepage is kind of like your storefront, where you are selling your most important services/products and what is hot is getting promoted. If they want to find more information about you and your site there needs to be a location for that.

Doesn’t mean that your selling point isn’t about you… it’s just not the whole story.

By: Kyle James

Kyle James — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:08:35 +0000

So let me ask you this Rachel… you don’t keep up your site architecture? Seems like a front facing place to keep it like a sitemap would reduce confusing and help to make sure that it’s as simple as it can be without sacrificing organization and structure. Bottom line if your doing information architecture then you have a sitemap… if you have a sitemap then post it. If you don’t have any sort organization to information architecture to your site then you need to do it in such a format that it’s easy enough for an end user to figure out and it needs to be in a sitemap format. Does this sitemap have to include every single page, heck not a college website is WAY to large for that, but it needs a defined directory structure and when you create new content a place to put it with some sort of reason.

By: Kyle James

Kyle James — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:03:53 +0000

touche

By: Todd

Todd — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:04:59 +0000

It’s also good to review your About page every now and then. Like when you get a cool job in Boston and are no longer the Webmaster at Wofford College.

By: OtherWebGuy

OtherWebGuy — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:25:06 +0000

I have to disagree with you, Rachel. I think that the site map is vitally important for many reasons.

I also think your reasoning is a bit flawed. Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean we should ignore it. Breadcrumb trails can be extremely difficult to keep up with, too, but I think they are another necessary element in this day and age – especially for college and university sites.

If your SEO has been successful, every page of your site should be indexed. Therefore, there is a potential for visitors to land on just about any page on your site. If you don’t give them some indication how to go up or down one level once they’ve landed, you’ll lose a lot of them.

Besides, I know you guys must be using a Web content management system for your Web site. Any CMS worth its salt should be capable of generating a site map and breadcrumb trails dynamically, so it shouldn’t be any real extra work.

Thanks for the post, Kyle. It’s good to see you still posting things over here. I agree with you about each of these “required” pages (and, am proud to say that our Web site features each). Of course, I’m always looking for ideas on how to improve our site, so I’ll be interested to see if anyone posts ideas about required pages.

Also, thanks for the link to edustyle. I had not seen that site before. It seems to be a pretty good resource.