One of the biggest concerns for most new website owners is to know the number of pages their websites should have. When you are dealing with professional website designs,…
One of the biggest concerns for most new website owners is to know the number of pages their websites should have. When you are dealing with professional website designs, this is not something to worry about at all. In fact, if you think a bit more carefully about the whole thing you will realize that this question is not needed in the first place. But again, there are certain questions that can’t be answered with a yes, or no, or with a specific number. This is one of those questions and you really have to understand things wisely to get the appropriate answer for this question.
Asking how many pages your website should have is like asking how many pages the book you are about to write should have. When you ask about the book, the first question to you would be “what is the book about?” Even if you name a particular topic, there is no hard and fast rule that a book on a certain topic should have certain number of pages. But you could always define a minimum when it comes to the number of web pages. In fact, a better way would be to clear the confusion between pages and tabs. Most people believe the number of tabs on top of the page is the number of pages.
Tabs are more like sections of your website, not pages. When you click on one tab, you could end up on a page with many other links to other pages. When it comes to tabs, you should keep tabs to a maximum of 7. This is because humans can best make a choice between 7 options. When you increase the number of options from 7, their focus becomes weak and they can get confused. The most common tabs that any basic website should have include:
- Home
- Products/Services
- Blog
- About Us
- Contact Us
You could have separate pages for products and services if you provide both. However, these are the basic tabs that most websites should and must have. Of course, underneath “products” or “services” there can be many other entries for the user to click on.
Now, another important thing that you need to understand well is having as many pages as you need and not feeling bad about it. Some website owners will try to avoid having a lot of pages maybe because they want to keep their website simple, but that’s not good strategy. When your website needs new categories and content, you need to create a landing page for that category. Furthermore, if your competitor’s website has 40 pages and you have 10 for selling the same products/services, your competitor has a higher chance of getting ranked on Google. This is because your competitor has more landing pages and more content pertaining to the same product/service.
If the nature of your business requires you to have several landing pages, you should not hesitate from doing that. Think about a website that sells gifts of multiple categories. They can easily have many pages (not tabs) such as:
- Home
- Gifts for Him
- Gifts for Her
- Gifts for Valentine Day
- Gifts for Geeks
- Gifts for Travelers
- Specials
- Bestsellers
- And so on . . .
Now, before you go ahead and start creating new pages for your website, there are certain things you should avoid. First, make sure you are not putting duplicate content on pages that talk about similar stuff. Secondly, always interlink the pages and make the name of your website or business clickable for your user to return to the home page. Lastly, keep the visual experience smooth and consistent across all pages.