By now, you know quite a bit about the website you’re building.

You know what your business does, who your customers are, what you want visitors to know, and what you want them to do when they reach your website.

Now we’re going to turn that information into pages.

Before you start clicking Add New Page in WordPress, take a few minutes to decide what pages your website actually needs. You probably need fewer than you think.

Go back to the worksheet you completed in Step 2 — Before You Build.

Look at what you wrote about your business, your customers, and what you want visitors to do.

Those answers should help determine your pages.

Start With the Basics

Most small-business websites can start with four basic pages:

Home

Your homepage introduces your business and helps visitors quickly figure out:

• Who you are
• What you do
• Where you are
• Who you serve
• What they should do next

We’ll build this page separately because your homepage has a bigger job than the other pages.

About

This is where you tell people about the business and the people behind it.

You don’t need to write your autobiography.

Tell visitors enough to understand who they’re doing business with, how the business got started, your experience, and anything that helps establish trust.

Services or Products

What do you actually sell or do?

Depending on your business, this might be one page listing everything you offer, or several pages covering individual services.

Joe’s Auto Repair might eventually have pages for:

• Brake Repair
• Oil Changes
• Air Conditioning Repair
• Engine Repair

But Joe doesn’t have to create four separate service pages just because he can.

Start with what makes sense.

Contact

Make it easy for someone to reach you.

Your Contact page might include your:

• Phone number
• Email address
• Business address
• Hours
• Contact form
• Map or directions

Not every business needs every one of those.

What Other Pages Does YOUR Business Need?

This is where your website stops being a generic website and starts becoming your business website.

A restaurant might need a Menu page.

A hair salon might need Services and Pricing.

A contractor might need a Gallery.

A nonprofit might need Donate and Volunteer pages.

A bed-and-breakfast might need Rooms and Reservations.

A business that gets the same questions over and over might need an FAQ.

Don’t Create Pages Just to Fill a Menu

There is no rule that says a business website needs seven pages.

If your website needs four pages, build four good pages.

You can always add another one later.

A small website that clearly answers a customer’s questions is much more useful than a large website filled with pages that don’t really say anything.

Keep Your Customer in Mind

For every page you’re considering, ask yourself:

Why would one of my customers visit this page?

If you have a good answer, the page probably belongs.

If the answer is:

Because websites are supposed to have one.

Maybe it doesn’t.

Make Your Page List

Before moving on, write down the pages you’re going to start with.

My website will have:

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

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Don’t worry if you change this later.

You probably will.

Websites grow and change along with businesses.

For now, we’re simply making the blueprint.

Next, we’re going to create these pages in WordPress — but we’re not going to worry about making them pretty yet.