20+ Blog Pages Every Blogger Needs To Have

Written by Michael Dunlop | Posted in Blog Learning, Blog Writing, Blogging | 40 comments

Page views up 50% in 2 weeks

Over the last two weeks, I have increased my blogs page views by as much as 50% – I have been able to do this by doing two things, adding better navigation and directing visitors to the pages that my research has shown to be the most popular.

Any of you who have been following IncomeDiary.com for any time will have noticed major changes in last few weeks – new design, new navigation and also more use of video. I am far from finished with the upgrade – still plenty of pages that need updating, but today I thought I’d just take a little time to highlight what I consider some of the most important pages you need in any blog. (and perhaps changes you need to make)

When considering these most important pages it helps to step into the shoes of your reader and ask what would your reader like to see? What content will assist them most? What content will inspire them to recommend your website?
These things could include:

- Finding out more about the blogger
- Contacting the blogger
- Subscribing to your list / your offer (Opt-in)
- Subscribe to future posts
- Resources that readers need to succeed in your niche

The point is that you need to make sure you give the readers what they want, make life easy for them by putting the links where the expect to see them, in the header, footer and even the sidebar. Also refer back to pages in blog posts and your auto-responder series.

Important:

One point more than any other I could make about Blogging (and indeed business in general) is that the rules are constantly updating and changing. In today’s fast pace Digital World FAST CHANGE is normal – that is why every serious blogger is always looking for ways to improve their Blog on a constant basis. The recent update of this website is just part of an ongoing project – as you will see in future posts I shall continue to test and improve. William Pollard has a great quote about change:

Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable

Another important point: Not every change you make will work out perfectly, indeed for all the great praise the new design here has received there are already a number of things that have not worked out as I expected. (Watch out for a future post on tracking and testing reference this) The point is to measure the changes and the benefits (or not) that they bring.

Hopefully this post will inspire you to make some changes / improvements to your website – please let me know about your own experiences, both good and bad and what you learned in the comments below.

To our Success

Michael

Blog Pages every Blog Should Have

1. About Page

One of the most important pages on your blog, if you look at your Google Analytics, you will see that your about page is probably one of the most visit pages. Your readers buy into who you are, if your a nice, genuine and offer great value, people will follow you.

2. My Story Page

I created My Story page because of the above, if people want to find more about me, then I will give it to them. I created a post exactly how I started my internet business and all the troubles I had. You can do the same for your blog, this is also a great opportunity to build social proof and add in some affiliate links.

3. Press Page

Press can be really important for the success of some blogs, the more press write ups, interviews and mentions, the most traffic you will get. Most people who mention you on blog posts and interview you, do it because they want to be mention backed so having a press page is a great opportunity to give back to people who mention you and also get more press in future because people will see you return the favor.

4. Squeeze Page

This is a page you send people to, so that they sign up for your mailing list. Often one of the most important pages on your website because the more people you can get to subscribe to your list, the better the chance of getting your readers to visit your site again and make you more money. Another great benefit of having a squeeze page on your blog is so that readers/fans can direct link to it – if you simply have an optin box on your sidebar, they will just say go find it and sign up – here they can show people exactly where to go. For collecting and sending emails to my readers, I use Aweber – I highly recommended it, probably the best investment for your business.

5. Thank You For Subscribing Page

Once people sign up for your squeeze page, it’s really important to send them to a thank you page to remind them to confirm their email address and give them further information on what they are about to receive.

6. Confirmation Page

When they go to confirm their email address to be on your email list, they will click a link, that link can either take you to a default Aweber thank you or you can send them back to your site and thank them their. This basically gives you another chance to send them back to your site, perhaps download your gift (if your not using an autoresponder) and mention other great posts on your site.

7. Already Subscribed Page

Now that they are subscribed, for any reason at all, they may try to sign up again, here I give them a message, telling them they have subscribed already and here is your free gift. Remember, the free gift will make you money so make it easy for them to find it, if they have lost it. Here you will notice I have a big copy of my eCover to show some perceived value of the FREE course, something proven to increase conversions. If you want to create your own eCover quickly and easily, check out eCover Creator 3D.

8. Subscriptions Page

If they love what you are offering, they will want to come back – make it easy for them. Having a subscribe page you can let them subscribe via Feedburner Email and RSS. If you have Aweber you can allow them to sign up for your newsletter and for blog post updates. I would also recommend mentioning your social networking links such as Twitter and Facebook .

9. Comparison Page

Often I promote services and companys, my recommendations are my top picks for my readers to use, however, some readers will also want to look else where for a better deal. This is when the comparison page comes in, here you get to compare you offer to a bunch of other services, they should go for your recommendation, but if they go for a different one, you will still receive a commission for it. You can see one of my comparison page here.

10. Resources Page

So you now have a comparison page, this typically are not your recommendations, just a bunch of different products that readers can compare and then buy. The idea of a resources page is to promote your favourite and highest converting products. I’m slowly working on my Advanced Blogging Resources page, you can see the difference although it’s not finished.

11. Contact Page

For obvious reasons, readers/advertisers/press will want to contact you, make sure you make it easy for them. You want to put the idea into their head, why they should contact you. I also highly recommend you mention other pages such as affiliate login page, FAQ’s, your subscription page and your social networking links.

12. Sitemap/Archive Page

This is required for search engines and usability, firstly for search engines, they must be able to find all your pages, having a Sitemap allows them to crewel your website more easily. When I visit blogs that I have never visited before and I find a couple great posts, all I can think about is finding more and more because it’s benefiting me. Having an archive page makes it easy for new readers to look back over all past posts you have, a great example of an archive page is Glen’s from ViperChill.

13. Advertise Page

If you do offer advertising on your website, you want an advertising page. Not some typical page like everyone else, but something that helps and answers any questions potential advertisers may have.

14. Favourite Posts Page

Like the first 2 pages, people buy into you and if you think a page is great, they will two. Here you can feature all your favourite and highest converting blog posts.

15. Your Questions Answered/Faq’s

Often I’m asked the same question, over and over again, having a FAQ’s page is a great way to save time. When people email you the question, simply link to this page, another chance to send them back to your site and make money.

16. 404 Page

So often I find myself on broken pages on other peoples sites and I’m guessing I’m not alone, having a customized 404 page allows you to tell readers what to do next when they do land on a broken page. You can send them to your favourite posts, have a search or perhaps put up something funny. A great article for those who want to find out more about 404 pages is Practical Guide to 404 Pages by Yoast.

Other Pages I’m Now Using

Tags Page

This is a new trick I’m using, basically I have sub links under each category, to take people to other pages and posts. One thing I wanted to do is show all the interviews in that category, I didn’t want to have posts in two category’s though. So what I did was I tagged all the posts I wanted with “Interviews With Bloggers” then I linked to the tag page and used that as a sort of category page.

Changing Posts into Pages

Top converting posts, turn into pages, another great read from Yoast. Basically in some cases, having an article as a page will destroy it’s link density so you can’t rank as high in search engines, read more here.

Products and Consulting

Some of you have products, services and offer consulting, showcasing this in a blog page can be very good. One of my favourite examples is Sitepoint and how they sell their products through their website, check that out here.

Affiliates & Support

If you are doing the above, then having affiliates can be a real driving force for your business. They basically sell your products on their websites for a commission. Support comes in handy because it makes things more organized and I’m convinced most people use it because it will decrease the amount of emails and requests from readers and customers as it makes it harder for them.

Earnings Disclaimer

Anyone talking about money and how much they are earning needs one of these, just do they don’t get into trouble. Here is a what mine looks like.

About Michael Dunlop

I'm Michael, I created this site back in 2009 and since then it's received over a million visitors from all around the world. We offer tutorials and inspiration for online entrepreneurs wanting to achieve more.

40 comments so far… Leave a reply

Aurélien
June 2, 2010 9:26 AM

As always incredible advices ! Merci depuis la France ! ;)
Albert
June 2, 2010 9:49 AM

Well. Thanks for the inputs.. I'm having most important page in my blog. But past 2 years I didn't updated my contact and about us page. Basically I'm the top ten lazy blogger of the Year 2010. lol :)
James Dyson
June 2, 2010 10:10 AM

Good tips Michael, good to see the advanced page is coming together - those buttons look familiar ;) I'd definately also agree that you need to ensure your blog is making pages for your tags, I'm getting a lot of SEO traffic from my blog post tags ~James

Michael Dunlop
June 2, 2010 10:15 AM

Oh your going to call me out on my design? I think I could easily match that with a whole list of things. Lets face it though, if something works, you might as well copy it, that's why so many people copy parts of my design and I'm sure you get the same for your landing pages - it's proven to work. Mike

TheDebtHawk.com
June 2, 2010 10:23 AM

Great post Michael. Would you mind answering a few questions the this post raised for me? 1. Who did you blog design? How much should I expect to pay for a design like this? I love all of your custom graphics. 2. How did you create the table on this page - http://www.incomediary.com/domains/ ? I love how it looks. 3. At times I have been tempted to re-publish some of my older posts to allow new readers to read them on my homepage again. Do you think that this could hurt the Google ranking of these posts to republish them using the WP scheduler feature? Thanks for your help

Michael Dunlop
June 2, 2010 11:10 AM

Hello, James Deer Design did my design work, UK based. Typical rate is around £30 a hour and design can take around a day followed by 3 or so working days for programming depending on how must work you get done. As for the table, I got my designer to create that as well. If you are republishing this will not be the best thing to do, either feature your posts at the top of your homepage or edit post date to the time right now so they are seen as most recent posts when people visit your site. Hope that helps, Michael
Shaun @ IMA
June 2, 2010 7:57 PM

Hi, for question number 2 you should use css to create that table type layout. If you want me to do it for you for cheap contact me via the contact page on my site.

Aaron Darko
June 2, 2010 10:27 AM

Comparison page is on its way, the Archive page is a great idea and one I've never thought of. The Subscribe PAGE is interesting and I will be looking to add a link to that in after every blog post. I absolutely agree with what you said about the Contact Page, you want to be putting that idea of why they should contact you in their head. A Squeeze page is a must too. I am also going to change my resources page to include the highest converting products too. Thanks Michael, this has helped so much :)
Dev | Technshare
June 2, 2010 11:27 AM

Hey Awesome Post man. ! Exactly right bro "Every Blogger needs to have these pages". Currently i am working on Faq and comparison page. ! Last week i created resources page. Thanks for sharing this great post .!!
John Paul Aguiar
June 2, 2010 12:19 PM

Nice list. I have most of these and I can say as of today I am at about 8 pg views per visitor.. the right pages makes a difference.
innocriss
June 2, 2010 12:41 PM

Hey Micheal, great post . You've got all sorts of marketing strategies. Keep up
Rob Rammuny
June 2, 2010 1:08 PM

Great post you got here Michael. I never thought about it before, but having a "My story" page could draw some great inspiration to your readers. And like you said in a previous blog post you wrote inspiration is a way to encourage people to get out there and buy your stuff because there motivated.
Robby G
June 2, 2010 1:25 PM

That's a very impressive post and I haven't even thought about incorporating some of those pages until you mentioned it. Also, it helps improve some of the pages I already have.
Robert J
June 2, 2010 1:43 PM

Another great post, very informative, I consider this and will apply it to my blog. Is it necesarry to separate the "My Story" page or just incorporate it to "About Me" page? Great job Michael
Michael Anderson
June 2, 2010 2:01 PM

Lots of great common sense stuff Michael - yet so easy to overlook. Thanks Michael
Lisa
June 2, 2010 2:09 PM

Michael, as always a pleasure to read your posts. The info that you give is priceless.
Moon Hussain
June 2, 2010 3:08 PM

Michael, very detailed post. I'll have to 'print' this and see what I can take away from it, esp. while I design my site.
Sally K
June 2, 2010 4:08 PM

Thanks for this! Had an idea about some of these, but there are some that are new to me. Makes so much sense!
jill
June 2, 2010 4:10 PM

thank you for this great post! I"m 3 months into my blogging and find this information to come at a valuable time for me. I always find success when I implement your strategies.....thanks so much!
Asif
June 2, 2010 7:43 PM

Again A nice one. I have got almost all the pages you mentioned. Maybe one or two are missing. Will work on it. thanks.
Nick Tart
June 2, 2010 8:51 PM

I think the press page is one of those pages that should come hand and hand with your "About" and "Contact". Very few people have them and it would make it a lot easier for me to share their stories if I had access to a press page with their logo and professional photos. I'll be making mine sometime in the next few weeks ;) Another superb post, Michael! Keep it up.
Showcase WP
June 2, 2010 11:08 PM

Your blog is very cool right now; I remember that just a few weeks ago it was pretty different. But I think that a lot of pages, a lot of information not always are the best choice, because this can make people confused with so many information sources. Remember, sometimes less is more.
Kimberly Wagner
June 3, 2010 1:32 AM

I am thankful for your consistently providing quality information for the new blogger. I will be bookmarking this article and making these improvements.
Felix Albutra @ Blogging Access
June 3, 2010 8:27 AM

You always did great post Micheal. It's bad for us blogger who don't building our list because we can't use those squeeze page. Thanks for sharing this. - Felix Albutra
andrewbenardski
June 3, 2010 9:04 AM

Nice topic, thanks for sharing Michael!
Sofia
June 3, 2010 9:13 PM

Hi Michael, Thanks for this great post, I have bookmarked it and will come back to this page a few times while I am learning. I think this one is one of the most reliable source for blogging and ideas for getting the most out of blogs. Thanks again.
blogging tips
June 4, 2010 9:03 AM

Great post Michael. Your new theme and style looks cool too. happy blogging
Karol K.
June 5, 2010 10:59 PM

That’s a really valuable list Michael. It’s going straight to my bookmarks. The only thing I would add is a "guest post guidelines" page.
David Stillwagon
June 6, 2010 5:29 PM

Wonderful advice, I definitely need to work on a lot of them on the list.
Lynn
June 7, 2010 3:07 AM

Thanks Michael for the informative post. It's a great reminder as sometimes we are so engrossed with creating the content that we missed out these pages. They should be equally as important as the content. I''m curious how come you didn't include privacy, disclaimer and disclose pages, aren't they important if you are affiliate marketer? They come in handy when come to legal issues.
Manuel
June 8, 2010 10:34 AM

Thanks Michael, I enjoyed this one yet again. Informative.
Geno Prussakov
June 19, 2010 9:06 PM

Michael, I'm somewhat confused whether the above has been written for websites/e-businesses that have affiliates (hence, the good recommendation to have an affiliate program bio page), or for those that are acting as affiliates themselves (hence, the fully appropriate "Earnings Disclaimer" page also mentioned above). I think it'd be good to clarify that it's gonna be and "either, ...or", as opposed to "both, ...and" scenario.
Thiago
July 13, 2010 2:13 PM

Great list of pages that every blogger must have! We also can't forget about constantly taking a look at our blog analytics to see what posts our readers find particularly interesting. That can also give us some insight on the types of posts to continue with in the future.
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July 20, 2010 8:23 AM

[...] sales funnel for your business, I recommend you check out Michael Dunlop’s post covering 20+ blog pages every blogger needs to [...]
Dean
July 26, 2010 12:11 PM

Hey Michael great post and some good advice to learn from. Do you ever delete old content from your blog? also backing linking should you just use the main url or use the extended url that takes people to that page? many thanks
jessica
August 16, 2010 8:31 PM

Great post you got here Michael.having a “My story” page could draw some great inspiration to your readers. And like you said in a previous blog post you wrote inspiration is a way to encourage people to get out there and buy your stuff because there motivated.
Shreedhar
September 3, 2010 4:39 AM

Well Michael, You amaze me. I happened to come across your blog and this one really made me rethink about blogging. Thanks
Andy
November 10, 2010 2:27 AM

Brilliant tips & advice Michael. Will bookmark and revisit as much as I can to remind myself everytime I create a new site.
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Fazal Mayar
March 18, 2011 10:57 PM

Great stuff, I was wondering how to increase my page views! I dont have the traffic i wish yet.