6 Must-Have Pages for Your E-Commerce Website
Creating a well-designed e-commerce website assists in engaging your intended customer base at all hours of the day to ensure the success of your organization. Regardless of which e-commerce platform you choose, having an effective online presence is critical to a business' profitability. While the home page, checkout page, category pages, and product pages constitute some of the most important pages for an e-commerce website, there are many more pages that are critical.
This article outlines six must-have pages for your e-commerce website outside of the typical product and product category pages.
Table of Contents
1. About Us
The About Us page should provide information on a company's origin, mission/philosophy, and what differentiates your company from its competitors. You can also use this part to highlight any humanitarian links and background insights about how you aim for success. Additionally, include details about the company’s leadership, community involvement, and area of expertise.
Anything that you can do to increase your company’s credibility via the About Us page is well worth the effort!
2. Contact Us
Including a contact page on your e-commerce website informs users how to best reach you. Therefore, ensure that your contact page contains all the information a customer requires to get in touch, such as the location of your company, its email address, phone number, operating hours, a contact form, and more.
If you include a contact form, don’t forget to set expectations of how quickly you’ll get back to a customer to avoid creating unnecessary frustration.
3. A Custom "Thank You" Page
To express your gratitude to your customers for their business, you should also build a truly customized "thank you" page which will be shown after a transaction. Make the thank you page customized and express your gratitude!
Here are some ideas of content you can add to your thank you page to make it stand out:
- Add a recorded video thank you message from the owner to thank them for being a customer. While the video does not have to be created by a video production company, it should still be professional and genuine. You can use an easy-to-use editing tool like Camtasia to easily record a video and make quick and simple edits as needed.
- Craft a humorous yet engaging thank you note that includes why you appreciate their purchase.
- If your company contributes to a social mission, reiterate the buyer’s impact on that social mission by doing business with you.
- Provide a post-purchase coupon that they can use for a future purchase.
- Integrate client testimonials (either written or video) about the specific product ordered to reaffirm their purchase was the right one and limit buyer’s remorse.
- Include a free bonus gift. This can be something small as a free downloadable guide, or simply stating that you’ll include a small trinket or promotional product in their order.
A simple, but thoughtful, "thank you" can aid in the development of a positive and long-lasting relationship with your customers.
4. Testimonials/Reviews Pages
Typically, with e-commerce websites, you want to display customer reviews directly within the corresponding product pages. This allows buyers to see relevant customer reviews on the product they are considering purchasing. However, it can be helpful to have a Testimonials/Review page where you highlight some of the best reviews.
Additionally, some companies selling completely custom e-commerce products only sell one version of each product. For example, an artist selling their custom paintings won’t be able to have multiple reviews on the same product. Once a specific painting is sold, that product no longer exists on the website. As such, a review can still be collected and added to a dedicated reviews/testimonials page. Check out Firefly Art’s reviews page as an example.
5. FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Page
The owners and management of an online store will be plagued with the same questions, especially as traffic to your website grows. If one or two people ask you a question, think about how many visitors both now and in the future will have the same question.
A robust and helpful FAQ section addresses frequent queries as simply and fast as possible. This also has the added benefit of cutting down on customers service time needed to answer common questions.
6. Policy Pages
It is essential, and often a legal requirement, to have various policies displayed prominently on your website. These policies define how you conduct business and what consumers can expect when interacting with your website and company. The following are common policy pages found on e-commerce websites:
- Privacy Policy
- Cookie Policy
- Terms of Use
- Acceptable Use Policy
- Refund Policy
- Shipping Policy
Of course, you should consult with an attorney to ensure you have the necessary policies in place that abide by all applicable laws and regulations.
Don’t Forget About Design and User Experience
Having these additional pages on your website is a great first step. However, it’s important to remember that the layout, design, and user experience of these pages are also critically important. They should be easy to navigate, engaging, visually appealing, and mobile-friendly.
Build with the Right E-Commerce System
Aside from including essential pages on your website, it is also important to use the right tool to create your online store to maximize its digital presence and connect with a wider audience. At Igniting Business, we uphold quality in everything we do and, as a result, we highly recommend Shopify for stunning, functioning online stores. Check out these 7 features that make Shopify an exceptional choice for businesses of all sizes.
You can have a professional team like ours build a website for you on Shopify. Or, if you’re tech savvy and willing to get your hands dirty, you can head on over to Shopify to get a free trial to start building your own store today.
Additionally, consider signing up for our free newsletter to learn more about our e-commerce best practices for marketing, SEO, and design.
At no additional cost to you, we may receive a commission if you click on some of the links on this website and make a purchase.
About the author
Ben Seidel is the CEO and Founder of Igniting Business. Ben has been serving hundreds of small businesses with web design and SEO services for over 15 years and covering digital marketing related topics since 2012.
Over the years, Ben has been recognized on a local and national level, including entrepreneurship awards from both the NFIB and NASE and being featured in publications such as CNBC Universal, Yahoo News, Intuit Small Business, CIO.com, Mizzou Magazine, and Fox Business.