Wondering what to put on your new blog? Look no further! Learn the 4 important pages to include on your new blog as a beginner.
Are you just getting started with putting together a new blog? If you are a beginning blogger and are wondering what pages to include on your blog, this post is for you. Discover the best pages that should be on your new blog when you’re first getting it set up, so your readers have a place to go, learn about you and what your blog is about, and to find the content they are looking for.
We’re going to dive into the pages that you should absolutely have on your website from day one – and minimize all the extra clutter and content. The more pages and extra stuff that’s on your site, the more people will become distracted and overwhelmed. All that takes away from your core message, making connections with your ideal audience, and getting them to want to read your blog and learn from you.
So what are the absolute must-have pages for your blog?
4 Important Pages to Include on Your Blog
- Homepage
- About
- Blog (or other place people can find your free content)
- Newsletter or free course signup (opt in page)
Let’s go through each of these in a little more detail
Homepage
This is where someone will get a first impression of you and your business. Your homepage can either be your main blog page or a static page giving an overview of what your blog is about and links off to some of your main category pages and other key pieces of content you’d like to point your readers to.
About
This is where people can learn about you, your business, and what your major message and mission are. Your About page doesn’t need to be in depth, but giving people an overview of who you are and why you write about what you do is extremely helpful in letting your readers get to know you a little bit.
You can even add a Contact form to this page so that readers can get in touch with you with questions or just to connect.
Blog
This is the heart of your website as a blogger. This is where all your content will be housed and where people can come back regularly to find what’s new from you. You can set up your blog page in a variety of ways, using blocks or a stream of newest to oldest posts. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, but be mindful of it looking good and being a hub for all the great content you create.
Newsletter or opt in page
This is where you can capture email addresses so that you can follow up with a reader to share more content or blog posts in the future. You can point readers back to this page to sign up to get something in exchange for signing up or you can promise to send them new content as it comes out.
You might be wondering if you should even have a newsletter when you’re just getting started as a blogger, and my answer is and always will be “YES!”
When you have a list of people who are raising their hands to hear form you, you can guarantee that those people will come back to your site again and again. Especially if you intend on monetizing your blog through advertising, those visitors can begin to make up a large portion of traffic to getting you advertising income, as well as getting to you the traffic minimums you need to have in order to even apply for these networks.
We’ll talk more in another post about what you should include in your newsletter and how to get people to sign up to hear more from you. For now, get set up with a great email marketing platform, preferably one with a free option for beginners, like Mailchimp or ConvertKit to capture email addresses from people who are ready and willing to hear more from you down the road.
There’s all kinds of people who say that these 4 pages just aren’t enough and that you’ll need to dive into even more detail, give even more away for free, and just have more-more-more before you’ll be successful at connecting with your audience.
But here’s what I want you to consider – what are the specific actions you want someone to take on your website?
You likely want to have a place where someone can get a first impression of you… your homepage.
You’ll want a place for people to learn about you, your business, and what your major message and mission are… your about page.
You want a place to share free content regularly and consistently… your blog.
You’ll definitely want a place to capture email addresses so that you can follow up with the person later… your newsletter opt-in page.
As you can see, you really don’t need more than these few pages to get your blog set up and feel established. You want visitors to get a glimpse into what you do, learn a few things to get a taste of what it is that you can help them with, and ultimately hope they like enough of what they see to opt in to a free newsletter to hear more from you.
You really can start your online presence with just a few simple, direct pages that clearly and succinctly show and tell people who you are, what you do, and how you can help them.
Keep the extra fluff out and save yourself time and energy getting set up – and get to the REAL work of creating content, helping people with what you already know and are good at, and making money!