- Home
- About
- Best Of
- Newsletter
- Speaking
- Contact
- Etc.
Grab a pen and paper, and write out your list of most important pages. Some people have too many pages on their header navigation. I’ve seen as many as 23 pages (yes, TWENTY-THREE) on a site’s navigation. That’s over-kill (in my humble opinion).
What I’d like you to do, is write out a list of what you believe to be the most important pages on your website. Then, put an asterisk next to the ones you think are most important.
The thing that you need to realize is that although many pages on your blog might be important, some pages are more powerful and effective at helping you achieve a desired outcome than others.
Why does this matter?
Understanding your site traffic makes it easier for you to direct people where you want them to go and take action. For example, I know that when people land on my site, 14.5% of that traffic clicks over to my ‘About‘ page before visiting any other page on my site. Another 6-7% clicks on my ‘Best Of‘ page. And another 3-4% clicks on my ‘Newsletter‘ page. Naturally, I’ve updated my About page to include some insight as to who I am, what my site is about and links to subscribe since that’s what I want people to do: subscribe to my site. My Best Of page serves the same purpose and contains some of the most popular content here on the site. How might you do the same?
What you need to ask yourself is:
- …where is my site traffic going? What pages are site visitors viewing the most?
- …are those pages optimized to have my site visitors take action on what I want them to do?
If they’re not, how can you make them better?
Today’s Challenge:
Spend some time identifying key pages on your blog and give them an update. What pages are really necessary and which ones can you remove from your site navigation? How can you update those pages to give them more umph (text, images, etc.)? As you’re working on updating each of those pages, think about objectives and “Call To Actions”. Are they clear?
Once your done, come back to this post, and share some of your updated pages! Did you create a new “Best Of” page? Are you a Real Estate Agent? Maybe you created a “Featured Listings” page?
Oh man. I've been putting together this article on About pages. It'll be the next Two Hour Blogger post.
This is a neglected subject and I'm glad to see you get into this. Since my blog's about 6 weeks old, all of my stuff is up to date. But we definitely need to keep our pages up to date!
I didn't think too much about it until I noticed my traffic stats. When I look at the most visited page *after* someone lands on my site, it's the “About” page. That said, it's really an opportunity for me to capture and sell people on subscribing to the blog and/or connecting with me for business opportunities (speaking, etc.).
So really, it all goes back to what your goals are and whether you're communicating that clearly through your site.
Look forward to reading your post Martyn!
Yep, after the home page, my most visited is the About page. Funny, I talk about that too in the post! Luckily, our articles are from different angles, so it's all good. 🙂
Hey man, as long as it adds to the discussion it's all good!
Great timing. Today I updated my Press page to add my recent interview with Inman News.
http://www.martawalsh.com/pres…
I recently improved the content of my sellers/ page. I do need to improve both my buyers and about pages they are on the list 🙂
Ah yes, the Press/Media page! I'll have to check out your interview when I'm in front of my computer – congratulations!
Updating your pages is key. And I think it's often forgotten. Heck, just the other day my contact form on my Contact page was broken (big mistake). Hopefully this post serves as a good reminder and also, that it inspires some creativity for making your goals and Calls To Actions more effective on each of those pages!
Thanks for contributing Marta! I look forward to checking out your Press page first thing in the morning!
Thanks Ricardo! I hope you like the interview. You can certainly do a post on using PR to increase traffic I had quite a bump today thanks to the interview 🙂
This is very, very true! I can think of a few agents who've done an excellent job of earning local media attention by publishing notable work and achievements onto a “Media” page.
It's a great sort of media rich testimonials page of sorts…
Thanks for bringing back #31dc. It really rocks! Having said this, I am using Blogger still. I suppose now would be a good time to transition to wordpress and ensure I have pages and learn what pages are the most effective. Bring on #10! And where did all of our old comment counting go? LOL.
Hey Jaclyn,
Have another one for ya tomorrow 🙂
In regards to Blogger, you should have no problem creating new pages on their navigation. I do love (and prefer) WordPress, but like I said, you shouldn't have any problems either way.
As for the comment counts, heh, I'm using the Top Commentators plugin. It refreshes every month! So, new faces on the first of every month 🙂
Worked on my about us page. Had not considered it such an important page. Checking stat counter confirmed i was wrong.Thanks alot for the heads up.
http://tarakilishihub.com/about-us
Hey Duncan,
Good catch!
Same here. At one point I realized that my “About” page is the most visited page on my site after someone lands via a post or search. So it showed me that it’s the perfect opportunity to showcase my work and/or entice people to subscribe.
Now on your page, what I might add is some images to break up the text. It reads well, but people have a short attention span. So cater to those people by either using bullet points or images to break up the text.
Hi Ricardo,
23 pages?! I actually think I’ve seen a blog that tops even that! This blog had a page for every blog post because owner thought they were all important. You’ve touched on a very important issue with Navigation – every page doesn’t need to be in the main nav bar and when in doubt, just use the drop down menu feature for sub pages.
Yikes! That’s just crazy…
That’s totally overwhelming to new site visitors. And for new visitors, it’s like walking into a messy home. If you want to leave a good impression, tidy up a bit. Adding a whole bunch of stuff everywhere just because “you” think it’s important, isn’t going to cut it.
Also, great tip about sub-menu’s Keisha – I forgot to mention that 🙂
The sidebar is my biggest trouble area because of my current theme selection. It’s definitely a bit disjointed…
My goal from this task is to pipe the article tags and create a list of related content. This is important to me as my blog has no central focus, so it’s critical that I keep people on a relevant topic versus letting them spill over to other articles which may not be as useful to that demographic.
Overall, I like how my blog is taking shape. I definitely need to catch up on a few tasks, so it may take me more than 30 days, but it’ll get there in time!
Hey Rick,
One way to compile the articles might be to make a list of your most visited blog posts (number of comments or traffic). Link to those in a “Most Popular Posts” format. Now that I think about it, I used to display that in my sidebar but recently removed it. I can’t say exactly how much traffic it was generating to those older posts but it was generating some traffic.
Now, I have landing pages set up on my navigation to direct people to older posts.
Anyway, when it comes to the sidebar, I’m always of the opinion that less is more. Just think about where you want to guide people…
Keeping an eye on analytics is extremely important. I always check it on a weekly basis (might be too much but I’m an engineer and I love data).
Might be time to focus some energy the about me page and get some fresh content as well some new CTAs. If you get a chance, I would love some feedback on my About Me page. Thanks
Hey Mark,
Nah, (at least) once weekly sounds about right. I get a report sent to me daily (a quick daily digest) at 7:00am. I read it briefly on my phone. I also have alerts set up to notify me if traffic breaks a certain point – I’m looking for patterns so I can replicate my success.
The only real problem with looking at analytics all the time, is that we can easily obsess over them to the point where it does more harm than good.
Anyway, would love to give you feedback! Let me wonder on over 🙂
Does anyone have a website that the number two page isn’t the “About” page. I mean I’m sure they’re out there, but I have yet to set up a blog or website that didn’t have that as the number two most clicked page.
Hey Chase,
I can’t remember what real estate agent I was having this conversation with, but he removed his “About” page all together. He said it wasn’t getting very much traffic. I’m hit or miss on that one, because of my own personal stats and because I think it’s an important page.
But my guess is that if you pick on a handful of agents, their “Home Search” pages might be one of the most visited pages. After all, that’s what consumers want ya know…access to what’s available on the market.
Ah, great point. Maybe I’m just a sucker for knowing who I’m working with, or reading from or engaging with, but I go to the “About” page the first time visit a website. Every time. So, maybe I’m the weird one. Ha!