Basic Pages For Your Website Part Two

RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS AND SERVICE PROVIDERS continued

As I told you in an earlier posting, the web hosting service you use, especially as a beginner is extremely important to your success. I personally use several different providers for my websites.

But a hosting service and domain registrar that I use most is 1an1.com. You will find a link to their website below. What makes them really special is that not only can you get a good package including domain with web hosting service, but their free down loadable manuals are extremely useful and well written. You can start with a basic package to get your first website up and running quickly and then add additional services as needed. I whole heartedly recommend them. In the interest of full disclosure, I do receive a commission from them, if you click on a link and make a purchase. But like everyone else, I need to earn money to help support my efforts on this blog.


As I said previously, it is important on this page to indicate which products and service providers you are recommending based on personal useage or general reputation or both. I have provided you with both types in this post and in my post immediately prior to this one.

LINKS PAGE

This is the page where you provide links to other websites that you find useful and that you believe your users will benefit from. They can be links to sites that provide information, or where your users may choose to click through for something of benefit to them, either free or to purchase. Always state the relevance of each link to your users. Spell it out for them, do not take anything for granted. But also be careful how you word things, because you never want your users to feel you are condescending. There is a big difference between stating information in a knowledgeable fashion that will help establish you as an expert(if that's applicable to your website) and being condescending.

ARTICLES PAGE

This is the page where you include articles that are relevant to what your website is doing. They can be articles written by you or other people. You want your users to keep coming back to your website and one of the best ways to do so, is to have a rich collection of articles that are relevant to your users and constantly being updated and up to date.

If an article's date is not current, be sure to explain why it is still relevant to your users. Some articles are truly timeless even in the Web 2.0 world.

So for example, if your website is designed to sell "widgets" you could have articles listing all the benefits of "widgets" , perhaps the history of "widgets" and how they evolved over time in to what they are today. You could also have articles from people who are recognized "widgets" experts.

INTERVIEWS PAGE

If this is relevant to your website, you can post interviews of experts in the field that your website is all about. These can be interviews done by you, or interviews of someone done by someone else for you, and you can also use video interviews. Search engines love content rich websites and video is a great way to boost the ranking of your website in the search engines. But search engines and search engine rankings are for another time and will require numerous posts.


PRODUCTS PAGE(S)


If you are using your website to sell products (or services) you may want to devote a page to each product or service you offer, and why your users should become your customers and buy the product or service from you. Your products page(s) should include clear and concise descriptions of each product or service, make sure to also use good pictures of each product. Depending on what the product is, you may want to take your own pictures or obtain them from the maker of the product. Any pictures you use, should be fairly and accurately depict the product or indicate that the picture is for illustrative purposes only.

In my next post, I will deal with "footers" which as you probably guessed are the links to pages that you place on the bottom of your home page.