The Essential Pages for Your Website

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:12

Welcome to The Circle Sessions featuring The Circle of Experts. The Circle of Experts are Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs, Tonnisha English Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson from Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. Each week, one of The Circle of Experts joins me to talk about critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media monetization, and website design, and the implementation of all these together. Well, this week, Yasmine is here from The Circle Of Experts. Yasmine works alongside clients to design a website that's driven by strategy, looks amazing, and that you can actually use to grow your Podcast and then in turn, your business as well. Yasmine, thanks for joining me today.

Yasmine [: 00:00:54

Yeah. Thanks for having me again.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:55

There's a lot of stuff to put together for a a website, business website, podcast website, whatever it might be, you can have all sorts of things on that website indeed into almost like a blank piece of paper. And that's what we wanna talk about today is what pages should you have on your website. So let's start from the top. I mean, what type of website Do you have, I guess, initially, and and maybe kinda go off with those categories of how to kind of delineate, okay, I have this type of website, and this is what I should be doing?

Yasmine [: 00:01:27

Yeah. So, I mean, at the end of the day, it'll come down to your what type of website do you have and your goals. But in today's episode, I'm going to run through The pages for each of these different website types. So the first one is e commerce. I think we all know, I I shock way too much online. And that is basically you're selling a product. It can be digital. It can be a physical product.

Yasmine [: 00:01:50

You're selling it online. Service based Websites, this is somebody who offers something of a service. So for example, a cleaning company, I offer a service as a website designer, Accountants, that sort of thing. Content. I call it content. This is like your blogger. Right? So if you are a, person creating videos on YouTube, or you are an influencer, or you have some kind of content that you're creating, This is that type of website. You will typically want to create blogs to go along with any content like video that you're creating.

Yasmine [: 00:02:25

So I just call it a content website. Then you have your membership sites. And this is encompassing anything that is kind of closed off to anyone logging in. So you might not necessarily call it a membership, but if people are, Whether they're paying or not, if they're logging in somewhere and getting information, getting content, then I could I just call it a membership site. There might be other designers that have named them differently, but this is the way I have categorized them.

Brett Johnson [: 00:02:50

Mhmm. Can can those 4 kind of Co mingled together too and morph a little bit? I mean, because I I could hear a listener saying, wait a minute, I really don't classify my website Either of those 4, but kind of a combo of 1 and 3, you know, that sort of thing.

Yasmine [: 00:03:09

Yeah. Yeah. You can definitely so for example, but as myself, I am a website designer, so I will offer a service. But I could also offer a digital download of a Product maybe like a template, a theme. I can then also, be creating content. So, like, for example, with this episode, I could create a transcript, Create a blog article and create that content, and maybe have affiliate links to make money off of that content. And then I can create a membership site. Maybe we should create a membership site for the the circle of experts, but we can have that on that same site.

Yasmine [: 00:03:43

So the website can actually be all 4 of these If needed.

Brett Johnson [: 00:03:47

And you're just but you're trying to say is, one of those is the basis of it. It's gonna be either based ecommerce and everything else Kinda wraps around it. Our service base is wrapped, and everything else wraps or the other 2, or one thing wraps around it. That makes sense. I was just curious because I know They all seem to kind of work together, but it's like, if you pick 1, you truly are okay. You're a service based, but you may have the other nuances, but let's really focus on that service based idea.

Yasmine [: 00:04:12

It's rare to find a site that has all of these 4 implemented. Mhmm. It takes a lot on the back end to manage All of the content, the memberships, the services, all of that. So it's I've seen it done, but it's very rare. But usually, it's what's your superpower. So if your superpower your number one way of making money is through selling products, is e commerce, Then all of the other ones are somewhat supportive of that. Or if your number one goal is to get that recurring income from membership and create a community. Well, you could sell t shirts and mugs.

Yasmine [: 00:04:47

You could offer coaching maybe and create some blog articles, But your number one goal is to create that community so it would fall under the memberships.

Brett Johnson [: 00:04:56

Yeah. Well, that goes right into what you wanna talk about next is the goal of the site. You really depict that one, That's got to be the goal, and and the others may nuance it, but you gotta have a goal and pick 1 pick 1 you wanna do. Yeah.

Yasmine [: 00:05:09

Yes. Yes. So I would say, Max, have 2 goals for your site. The number 1 goal, if even if just just have 1 at least. One goal for your site Is possibly to sell a product. And then the secondary goal would never really trump the first one. So if the number one goal is sell a product, What is the supporting goal? Let's say I am a user, I heard about your e commerce business, I'm coming in, I'm looking for 2 toys. My goal is to buy that product, but I'm not really sure yet.

Yasmine [: 00:05:40

So what would my secondary goal as a user be? And that could be signing up for the email list, maybe Reading an article, listening to the podcast episode, that secondary goal will still help boost my trust in you in order to obtain Goal number 1, which is what your goal is, is sell a product. And then you want to ensure that your structure is organized for these goals. So before and we've we've gone over this in a couple of different episodes, but you want to map out your pages in a hierarchy as you're building before you build out your site. And realize that certain pages can come in later or they can be in the footer. They don't necessarily have to be front and center or at the very top of the navigation on a site. They and they don't have to be built all out. For example, FAQ pages are really great for a site, but they don't have to be built when you first launch.

Brett Johnson [: 00:06:33

When you mentioned, you know, having 2 goals, selling product and then sign up people for an email list, your 2 examples. What comes to mind is all these different options of different things you could do on a website. I I you can overwhelm people with different things to do, and they just get too confused. Correct?

Yasmine [: 00:06:53

Yeah. You can yes. I've gone to sites where I have no idea what what your Jam is, like, what is your number one thing? What is your superpower? So you want to ensure and you can definitely have for example, I have articles on my site. I have I do this podcast. I have a lot of things going on. But my number one goal is to get you as a client. And so When you go to my site, yes, you will see the blog the blog articles, but you will be linked to the Contact page, the final call to action on the blog post will likely be something like contact us to get you a sparkling new website, something of the sort. So Although you decided, as a site visitor, to visit my site and then read the article instead of contacting me because you're not sure yet, and For something like a website, you want to be sure that you are getting someone that you trust, then those blog article support goal 1.

Yasmine [: 00:07:49

So You can have a lot of things. You can have a blog article, you can have podcast going on, you can have tons going on on your site. But keep in mind that all of these are basically propping up and supporting goal number 1.

Brett Johnson [: 00:08:02

Right. So your next point, I liken to every car has A steering wheel, wheels, exhaust, I mean, the the basics. So all sites have to have, what you mentioned here, 5 things. And I I I'd have to agree. If you look at a website differently now from this episode, you're gonna find these 5 things. Yeah.

Yasmine [: 00:08:25

As I was writing these lists, there was a lot of them that just kept coming up for all of these different the 4 different types of websites that we talked about. So the homepage, obviously, you're going to have a homepage. And this is the main page that your domain will link to. So for example, for myself, it's roblessdesigns.com. That's The homepage. You'll want to have an about page, and this is about your organization, about your leadership, Ship about your business, your mission statement, so just an about page. FAQs are becoming really popular, And although you this is one of those pages that can come later. But even if you sell a product to a service Or you are providing content or memberships, people will have questions.

Yasmine [: 00:09:10

And so an FAQ page will help Them navigate and get those questions answered, those common questions in an easier way than having to browse through the entire site. Testimonial pages can also come in later if you're just launching and don't have testimonials. But this page is basically your social proof. If someone leaves you a review on Google, Copy it and put it into your testimonial page. If someone says something really cool about you in a Facebook group, take a screenshot and put it in your testimonial page. Because this is just a place where you can it's almost like a gallery of all the cool things people have said about you. And honestly, whenever you're having a bad day as a As an entrepreneur, as one of those the horrible Mondays, and you're wondering if you should go back to your job, the testimonial page will save you. Just go back and look at all of the awesome things people have said about you, and you're like, oh, yeah.

Yasmine [: 00:09:59

That this is why I do it. The contact page, obviously, you wanna be contacted. I've seen some sites Long ago, thankfully, but I've seen some that didn't have any way for me to contact people. There was no contact page. And so how can I Sign up for a service, ask how much it costs, sign up for a call if there is no way to contact you? And then an email Sign up email is once people get on your site, if they do not buy from you, you need to get them onto your email list. It is like gold. So you want to have a page dedicated for the email sign up. So for example, if you are offering 10% off plus free shipping on your 1st order.

Yasmine [: 00:10:40

Have that on its own page, so that you can send traffic directly to that page, and not Say to people, hey. Go on to my home page, but then look for that 1 section that has a sign up form, and then you can sign up for the stuff because people are gonna get distracted, and they're not going to sign up for your email.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:55

The one thing I've noticed podcasters not providing, whether it's a website or not, is the contact information. I don't get it. It's amazing that let's say the podcast even doesn't accept guests, which is fine. It's but it's a solo or, you know, we don't do guests with this podcast as well, But we still wanna have contact information so we can get feedback, if nothing else, or an idea for a future Podcast, episode for content. It it it is amazing. I I can't stress enough. That contact information is so important, Whether it's a built in email that's right there on the website, or you're putting your your Gmail account on the website, whatever the case might be, Allow your listeners, allow those viewers of the website to be able to contact you. Just do it because you're gonna be missing out On some valuable intel about what you do.

Yasmine [: 00:11:47

Yeah. Contact page, I would say if you are focusing in on podcasting And you are taking, guests. You will want to have a page perhaps about and this, I guess, is specific to the content, side of the Content websites. Mhmm. But you'll want to have a page that is specific for those guests. So that, a, when you get The alert in your inbox that somebody filled out that form, it'll say something like a guest inquiry. But then it'll also ask specific questions. And that way, you can make a decision.

Yasmine [: 00:12:19

Does this sound like a person I want to have as a guest on my site? You can also have incorporate into the contact page A link to a calendar where they can hop on a a quick 15 minute call to see if you even are the right fit. If people are asking, For example, if they want to prom you to promote their product, and you want to get create some sort of affiliate thing going on, make some money off of your podcast, some advertisements, You want to have probably an an a form or a way to con for them to contact you, and that way, you can ask specific questions pertaining to what their needs are.

Brett Johnson [: 00:12:53

Right. Let's go into the the content businesses, what what pages they should include on that style, That that focus of of a pod or of a, website.

Yasmine [: 00:13:05

Yeah. So all of the above, obviously, but then you'll want to think about a press page. And what a press page is is a page where there's a couple of different ways you could do it. One page will have a very a short snippet of the business, And then a downloadable zip file where I can get, for example, from a business and I wanna feature you, it'll have a headshot, maybe a logo, And a little bio in a Word document. Other press pages will also offer will not offer the downloadable item, but they will have the headshots there. They'll say, well, the owner of this business can speak about this and this and this at your events, and then it'll have a form. And for specifically for the people looking to write an article about you, they fill out that form and they can then Book a call with you, you can get more information from them, and it's just a really great way of showcasing that you're A really professional speaker, and that you're creating content that's useful. So that's what a press page is.

Yasmine [: 00:14:07

You would have an overall blog page, so obviously, you're creating content. Let's say, you are a podcaster, and this is your focus, you're creating all of this valuable content about your niche, Then you're going to have a regular you don't have to call it a blog, but it's basically a blog archive page. It general overall, it it'll showcase every single episode in, order of the dates that it was published. And then you can have category pages. And so this will be something like For me, let's say I was doing websites as my overall, I could have e commerce service based content and product based, Whatever categories I want, and then people can filter through those. And these on WordPress can be in almost any other website platform can be easily created. There's no need to do a lot of coding or anything to create these. And you'll also want to have a search functionality or a search page, And then a page with your affiliate links.

Yasmine [: 00:15:02

So if you're in the business of creating content, you're probably going to want to get ads. So hence the the Press page. But also, Want to make money off of affiliate links, and sometimes it's really great to just have a page that has all of your links. So if you, for example, are an affiliate Affiliates of Amazon or Bluehost or any of the other ones out there, Dubsado, then you want to have those links available. And depending on your market, you'll want to title it, for example, my top 10 small business tools, have the disclaimer of that they are affiliate affiliate links, And then have that page ready to go.

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:40

Alright. Product businesses, I I now know why you said You don't wanna really wanna mingle too many things together because you have a long list. So be prepared listener. But these are important pieces to have in addition to the The main ones we talked about initially, but let's talk about that that product business website.

Yasmine [: 00:16:00

Yeah. So it's a pretty long list, so I will kind of Skim through it and stop at ones that might need more explaining. But again, if you guys have questions, because it is a pretty long list. Let me know. Reach out to us And I will go into more detail. But I there's the press page again. The category overview, and again, this is just like that blog page that we talked about. It's the overall Category.

Yasmine [: 00:16:22

What for example, if you're selling clothing, it's when I click on tops, it's going to show me all of the tops. The specific top Page. So for example, if I click on if I hover over tops and then I say, you know what? I want a really dressy blouse, and I click in that category, That's what it's going to show me. A product page is a specific product. Search and listing results. The login or create account page. A mini cart, a cart page. A lot of these again, I just want to emphasize, a lot of these are built in.

Yasmine [: 00:16:52

So for example, if you're on Shopify, this will come with Pretty much any theme that you end up choosing. A login or a guest checkout. Okay. So now the Shipping page. Shipping is the information on how can I return this? When will I get my product? That's the shipping page. Obviously, a payment page. Check out review page, when you can review what all is in your cart. Order confirmation, orders or order history page, An individual order view, profile, our account settings.

Yasmine [: 00:17:23

So if I can log in, create an account, can I edit my settings on there? Payment settings, addresses. So if you do have for example, if you do sell products online, but you have a a few different brick and mortar, You want to make sure that you're at you have a page where all of your locations are. And an email and SMS sign up, this is similar to what I about before email as gold. Make sure you have a page specific for that. Returns in returns are a page again, specific to how do I return this, And what is the easiest way for me as a user to get that information. And then a store locator or find us page. So store late locator is, if for example, you do not necessarily have brick and mortar, but you sell within other locations. Give me a little map or a place where I can go in and say, okay.

Yasmine [: 00:18:11

You sell at the East Market. You sell at North Market. All of these locations. That way, I can go find your product if I don't want to wait for it to be shipped.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:21

Right. Memberships are similar to selling product. You still have that you're capturing information. And and capturing is the wrong term, really, but it's You're you're there is information that's needed to be mem remembered because you have members.

Yasmine [: 00:18:36

Yeah. So you have, I would say, your login page A welcome page. So the login, obviously, self explanatory, I log in. If I'm logging in for the 1st time, I just signed up, set my payment. Usually, I love to create a welcome page and this is just saying, you can have a video on there, you can have FAQs, it's basically a nice little thank you page that will only come up once I have logged in the 1st time. After that, I would go to the dashboard page. And so every time I would log in, the dashboard page comes up, and that's another one you get to create. And this one is like a summary of your membership.

Yasmine [: 00:19:12

You can have things Like links to resources, your latest event. You could have a a lot of different things on there. So it's like a dashboard. Then the profile editing. So again, just like the product website, you want to make sure that I can go in and edit my email, so I can make sure that it stay in the know. I can go in and edit my login, my credit card details. So usually, the profile editing and the credit card editing pages are different. Sometimes they're all in 1 page.

Yasmine [: 00:19:42

Then there's some member FAQs. And the reason I say there's member FAQs, and I mentioned earlier, regular FAQs, It's because as a member, I've already paid you money, possibly. I've created a login, a profile, and now, I have a question. And so these would be these answers would be more specific to someone who's already in the membership. For example, You know, how do I edit my credit card, or how do I sign up for the event, or my Zoom link is not working? How How do I fix this? And so you want to make sure that the members themselves have their own FAQs. And then the member content pages, and these can be as many as you need. So it I've Seen some membership sites where there are tons of hidden member content pages, whether they are a yoga instructor creating a membership Who is, has different pages and different flows and and downloadable items, or you could just have 1 page and that could just be your dashboard. So just keep in mind what sort of content you'll be offering, and and how that will work with your members.

Yasmine [: 00:20:47

And then obviously, a sign up page, So that peep you can direct people if they message you and say, hey, how do I sign up for your membership? You say, here's the page, instead of kind of giving them Your your overall domain. So if I said go to roblastscience.com/signup, then that would be your sign up link, versus go to roblastscience.com, and then scroll down a little bit, and then there will be a little sign up form, and you can use that. It's a little bit easier to just say, hey. Go to my domain .com and Slash sign up.

Brett Johnson [: 00:21:14

Right. And finally, taking a look at service based businesses. Your first one, I I guess I never thought about how important it is to mention about the team. That's that really about the page is really strong for this type of website.

Yasmine [: 00:21:30

Yeah. So service based websites can some not always, but sometimes after going through all of the product pages and membership pages, They can be a little bit of a smaller site. But sometimes it can be I don't know. Under the hood, it can always be a different story. But the about the team page is really great to it just adds a little bit of humanity to everything. So I know that there there are Tons and tons of website and marketing agencies out there, but I have gotten clients because I show photos of myself, and I show photos even on Instagram. I show photos of myself and my junior designer. You know, we are a team here at Rebel Designs, and we're real humans.

Yasmine [: 00:22:10

And so we're not just putting in some stock photos, and people like the chisme. Right? They like to see who's behind the scenes. They like to be in the know. And they like to feel like there's a human behind the screen. And so adding an about the team page is really essential. Even if it's just, for example, yourself, Your wife or partner and a cup of coffee because you both drink really a lot of coffee. Just that can give so much. It's just a a window into your personality for the the website and for the business.

Yasmine [: 00:22:44

And then add a services general page. So this, What this means is, it's almost like you're just a menu. Right? It's a menu of all of your services with clickable links to the specific service, Especially if you have a service that is your moneymaker. So the way this would look like on a site is I would click on this general services page. I would read through and say, oh, you know what? The 1 on 1 coaching sounds a lot better than the group coaching. And in your world, it might actually be the best one, because you might make more money. So I click on that, and then I get this whole beautiful sales page about your 1 on 1 coaching. You that way, you can also link to people Directly.

Yasmine [: 00:23:25

So if I said to you, hey, Brett. I'm really interested in your 1 on in working with you 1 on 1. You would not want to give me a link that Kind of showcases, you know, your 1 on 1, but also group, but also this other thing. And then I say, you know what? It might be cheaper for me to just Do the group thing instead of the 1 on 1. And unless that is your goal, to to build up that group, It's just confusing for the user, and instead, I'm already a hot lead. You can just send me to that very specific service that I asked for, And I can go in, find out more information, and sign up.

Brett Johnson [: 00:24:02

Exactly. And, you know, number 8, legal pages. I I I guess we don't realize how important it is to have some type of wording for these 4 different areas.

Yasmine [: 00:24:16

Yeah. So legal pages, I'll run through them. The I'm not a lawyer. Brett's not a lawyer. I'll run through them, and, and you can ask your lawyer what your what your what their thoughts are. But the privacy policy is the one that I always ask people to get, just because it's the one that It seems to be the most the number 1. The one that I understand the most in terms of all these legalese. But every site that I run across, it usually does have a privacy policy.

Yasmine [: 00:24:44

And basically, per my understanding, again, I am not a lawyer, but a privacy policy says, hey, we are looking at this type of information on our site. For example, We're we're tracking cookies. We're using Google Analytics. We're doing this. We will likely use it in this way. So we're collecting emails and we will likely Email you, but we won't sell your information. Whatever it is that you are doing with your website or how you're tracking information, that's the privacy policy. The rest of it, again, I'm not a lawyer, but terms and conditions seem to be one that is typically used by my clients.

Yasmine [: 00:25:18

Accessibility policy Is one where you're sort in in my verbiage, you're stating that, hey, no website is completely accessible, but we're doing our best. And if you patch anything, please email us at this place, and or contact us in this method so that we can get this corrected. It's basically saying that you are attempting to be accessible, and then the website terms of use. Again, a lawyer can probably decipher all of these a little bit better than I can.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:46

Alright. So most of those in the legal pages really depend on possibly what type of business website you're building. Yeah. So it makes sense in regards to how you formulate it because now again with chatGTP, we can put in write a privacy policy for me, But it's a start, but you also have to think in terms of what does your website do, and what do you want it

Yasmine [: 00:26:07

to do?

Brett Johnson [: 00:26:08

Right. Exactly. Good. Well, if anybody has any questions about any of these things you talked about today or in in any previous episode, how can they get ahold of you?

Yasmine [: 00:26:18

Yeah. They can go contact me. They can find out more information at RoblesDesigns.com. You can contact me there. You can also catch me on Instagram @RoblesDesignStudio and message me. I am more than happy to answer your questions. And if you are looking for a download, go to RoblesDesigns.com/checklist, and that is a PDF that you can download and review your current site, review your future site and see if you have all the things that you need to build a really good foundation.

Brett Johnson [: 00:26:47

Cool. And if you wanted to contact me, you can Get on my calendar at mypodcastguy.com. Thanks for listening to the Circle Sessions.