The Company Website Crash Course

For a small to medium sized business, initiating a Website can be one of the toughest jobs you'll face.

This collection of how-tos is designed to provide basic knowledge in site structure, content organization, the selection of keywords, and writing page descriptions. Used as a basis for further learning, it'll help you establish a strong foundation for your company's Website.

How To Structure Your Website

Unsure of how to structure your information and visualize what their Websites should contain? For most small to medium-sized businesses, there are two types of content sections you'll need to think about.

• Common sections: those elements you see on most commercial Websites.
• Company-specific sections: those sections that are unique to your business. They may be sub-sections of the above.

Common Sections

These will contain general information about your company. It will be up to you to decide which sub-elements should be included, of course, but consider:

About us
You'll see this on almost every commercial Website, both large and small. People like to know who they're doing business with, and this is your opportunity to tell them. Your information might fit on a single page, or stretch to several. Elements you might include are:

• Who we are
• Company history
• Company profile
• Mission statement
• Contact us

Contact Us
It may seem obvious, but many sites either don't provide adequate contact information, or they forget it entirely! You should include as many different ways for customers to contact you as possible. Common elements for a 'Contact Us' page are:

• telephone and fax numbers
• email addresses
• email forms
• physical address
• a 'We Are Here' map
• emergency contact details

Products and Services
Most companies will want to include information about their products or services on the index page (the front or home page), but it's important to also dedicate a separate section of your site to your products. This will help your customers find your products and services easily, and allow them to research and assess your offering quickly.

Company-Specific Sections

The best way to go about creating company specific sections for your site is to follow the same general structure as above, creating logical subsections for each section.

The first page of a subsection should contain general information on the subject, as well as links to more detailed information if your visitor requires it. For example, a second hand car site may have an accident and repair section that contains the following sub-sections:

• Paintwork repairs
• Body repairs
• Insurance assessments
• Accident and Repair FAQs

Take a logical approach to the organization of your site, group related material, and always offer general information first, followed by optional, more detailed information for your users.