What pages does an e-commerce website actually need?

Why scope the site page by page?

Because a website is a system, and every page in it has a job. When I scope a build with a founder, we go through it page by page before anyone talks about price. That’s how you find out what the site needs to do, and what can wait.

The cheapest version of a store is a list of products and then a footer. It looks finished, but it gives a new customer very little reason to trust you.

Which pages go into a full build?

This is the list I work from:

• A menu built to get people to the products that sell.
• A full homepage.
• Collection pages that double as landing pages.
• A hero product template for your best sellers, and a simpler template for everything else.
• A slide cart with upsells.
• Brand pages: about, FAQs, how subscriptions work, reviews and a wholesale enquiry page.
• A blog.

The collection page is the one most stores underbuild. We build it so it can be used like a landing page. Keep the product grid, then add an overview section and FAQs, or whatever other block suits the brand. Shoppers often land on collection pages straight from ads and search, so give them the context to buy right there. It also gives Google more to read.

Why do brand pages matter so much?

Because every question your site answers is one your team doesn’t have to. We try to answer all of the questions on the website so the humans don’t have to do it.

Even a small brand should have all the pages you’d expect a big brand to have. Customers want to know who you are, how delivery works, what happens if something goes wrong, and whether other people liked it. Put the answers where they’ll look.

One client told us their complaints and support tickets dropped sharply after their rebuild. That’s time your team gets back.

Why build a blog before you have any posts?

Because you’ll want one, and it’s easier to have the structure from day one. We always develop a site with blogs in mind, because we know that’s what we have to do to future-proof it. Even if it sits empty for a while, it’s ready the day you start writing.

What if you can’t afford all of that?

Start with the product page. It’s where your paid and organic traffic should be landing, so it’s the page that has to earn its keep first.

If you’ve done the basics and you’re just approaching profitability, you probably don’t need a whole new website design. You need one really good product page template that you can roll out across all your products. Use metafields and metaobjects in Shopify to hold each product’s unique content, so the template stays the same and only the details change.

Then add the quick wins:

• Pagination on the product gallery.
• Reviews sitting directly under the gallery.
• Stock status.
• A sticky add-to-cart button.

What order should you build in?

On a tight budget, this is the sequence I’d follow:

1. Build the product page template and send your traffic to it.
2. Carry those design improvements into your homepage sections, like the product blocks.
3. Add collection pages, brand pages and the blog as the budget allows.
4. Leave a full homepage redesign or a replatform until the core buying page is converting.

The homepage can wait. The product page is where people decide.