We’re pretty obsessed about building beautiful, strategic websites… and sharing resources to make sure that you’re website is amazing! We’ve compiled this super important list to keep on hand of all of the pages that you’re website needs to include in order to be effective, sincere, and accessible for all users.

Are you ready for this list?

These are your website’s ‘must haves’. Read through this list of important things to include on your website, and keep going – if you’d like a bonus tip!

Homepage

You’re probably thinking, “Duh, this is the main page on a website needs”. Let’s start off by saying that a homepage should be clean, concise, and offer an incredible user experience. By the time your dream client scrolls to the bottom of your homepage, you should have clearly answered their essential who, what, and why questions about your creative business and provided clear and easy access to further information.

Consider this your one shot to wow your dream client with stunning, optimized visual imagery, amazing copy that tells your incredible story, and an obvious call to action to learn more about your offerings.

About Page

Another obvious duh, for some, though your about page needs to not be about YOU. Instead, this page needs to be about your dream client and how you will solve their problems with your freakin’ amazing solutions. Let your current and future clients learn all about you as a person, your company as a whole with its values, its work, and who your company serves. The design, written content, and visual or video elements together all tell an important story about who you are and why you do it.

Privacy Policy

A privacy policy is a document that explains how an organization handles any customer, client or employee information gathered in its operations. Most websites make their privacy policies available to site visitors. This is a super important document that informs all users what you plan on doing with their information, cookies, emails, etc. You can keep this page in your footer menu on your website. Another reason its important to keep public is to ensure that you are ethically running generic advertising campaigns, re-targeting advertising campaigns and email campaigns.

Terms & Conditions

This isn’t a legal requirement, though it is a smart thing to include. A terms and conditions page may not be required by law, but it’s still a smart thing to include. These pages can limit your liability should a customer take you to court, as well as protect your rights to the content contained on your website.

If you’re ever facing a legal dispute, a court will look at your website terms to determine the contractual terms between you and the customer—and, depending on how your website terms and conditions are written, it could provide legal protection against the dispute. When creating this page, you’ll want to approach it with the goal of having such information hold up in court. We suggest start checking with a template and have an official set of eyes look over this.

Contact Page

You don’t necessarily need to include your email, phone number, or exact business mailing address. You do need to include a clear way for your dream client to contact you though! We definitely recommend that you avoid any spam emails and bots by limiting how much information you put on this page.

You can include an embedded contact form or a booking link to your calendar booking link. Don’t make this page difficult to find and add it into your main menu as well as your footer menu.

Bonus Points If You Have…

A Land Acknowledgement

We have got you covered if you click here, to learn all about how to get started with creating a land acknowledgement. The act of performing a land acknowledgement is a very basic and fundamental step towards reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and settlers.

However, they go much deeper than just acknowledging whose land you’re on. To truly understand the importance of a land acknowledgement, you need to look at the historical traumas that have plagued Indigenous peoples and what lasting effects they have today.

We recommend even going a step further by showcasing how your business supports Indigenous Peoples and reconciliation. You can include this heart centered work on this landing page or as a swipe-able carousel on your homepage or about page. Another great spot is on your website’s footer!

An Accessibility Statement

Are you wondering, “What is this?” Well, let’s begin with this example from the White House. We often reference the W3C, Web Accessibility Consortium for resources and further information. This statement is incredibly important, and meant to be more than just a statement. Show your users that you care about accessibility, and about them! Share an example or two with this information by showcasing your accessible content types, as well as demonstrate your creative business’s commitment to accessibility and to social responsibility.

Don’t forget! An accessibility statement should be easy to find. Link this from several places, such as your website’s footer, help menu, site map, about page and other important areas to help your dream client find this.

Thanks for reading!

We absolutely love all things website design here at Unicorn Marketing Co.

Check out our other resourceful blog posts to learn more about website design and development, such as why a mobile view is so important or how to start writing a land acknowledgement.

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