Everyone knows you need a blog about page, but what about the others? Check out the best blog pages all blogs need, both for brand new blogs and for intermediate ones. Blogging is intimidating enough without reinventing the wheel, so keep reading before you create pages that require more work than they’re worth.
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Best Blog Pages All Blogs Should Have
While this post describes 8 different pages your blog should have, we’re going to start with the 4 that you need if you are starting a blog right now. That being said, do not feel like everything has to be perfect before you hit publish on a blog post. The first 4 pages are those that you should have before you make the second 4 pages.
If you’re not a new blogger and just want to make sure that you have all the pages you need, keep reading! You (hopefully) already have the first 4 pages, and you might just be missing the second 4. And if you need some tips for creating these pages, go to the last section of this post for my tips.
About Page
This is the most basic blog page. It’s your chance to tell people what your blog is about and who you are.
Tell people what they can expect to find, what you’ll be posting about, and the key information they should know.
Tell people who you are, both in general and beyond the blog. What do you do in your spare time? What is your favorite color?
This page helps to show people not only what they can expect to find on your blog but also that you are a real person with a life beyond the blog.
Keep in mind that you should not share anything on your blog or on social media that you would find weird for a random person on the street to know. For example, I tell people that I’m from Maine, live in Boston, and spend a lot of time at MGH. More than once, I have walked into MGH wearing a Maine flag t-shirt with Maine flag mittens in my pockets. It’s pretty obvious that I’m from Maine.
How To Start Blogging for Beginners
Work With Me Page
If you want to make money from your blog, you should make it easy for people to reach out to you. Affiliate links are one way to make money, but sponsored posts are another way. My work with me page includes many possible ways brands can work with me, including product placement, along with how to contact me.
If you already have an audience from somewhere like Instagram or TikTok, this page could be much bigger than the page of someone who doesn’t already have an audience. This is partially because a blog page has much more available space than a social media bio that has a limited number of characters. But just because it could be bigger than “reach out to my x for partnerships” doesn’t mean it has to be huge.
A work with me page is a great way to note what you will not do. For example, my page notes that I do not accept permanent guest post contributors. I also say that I will only promote a product that I believe in.
I have turned down many, many more partnerships than I’ve accepted. While some of this is because I don’t believe in it, the bigger reason is that I’m not going to promote a product that I can’t use. I can’t run; I’m not going to promote a running product. I can’t eat several foods; I’m not going to promote a food that I can’t eat. I don’t drink; I’m not going to promote alcohol.
(Note: I once did drink, and I did promote an alcohol product then. But since my medications + many, many health issues makes drinking a bad idea, I don’t now. So if you come across a remnant of that time, just know that I’m not lying.)
How To Use Social Media Effectively for Your Blog
Policies
Unlike some of the pages in this post, this page is primarily for covering your legal bases.
As Blogging Unlocked says, “If your blog collects any kind of personal data – email addresses for a free recipe e-book, names on a parenting newsletter, or analytics data for your finance content – you’re already handling information that privacy laws care about. Even tiny blogs can fall under privacy rules like the GDPR (European visitors), CCPA/CPRA (California), and similar regulations in other countries, especially if you use tools like Google Analytics, ad networks, or email marketing software” (x).
“But Kate, you don’t live in the EU or California. Why do you comply?” Because I would like for people across the world to read my blog, I want to do what I can to make that easier.
Generally, the plugins that help you comply with these laws will also ask you to link to your privacy and disclosure policy pages. That’s where this page comes in; it’s helpful to have them on the same page.
Additionally, blogging successfully generally requires using third party sites, like for your newsletter or ads, and those sites require you have a privacy policy, and sometimes a disclosure policy. Want to use Google Analytics? You need a policy.
When it comes to the Internet, complying with Google is just as important as following laws.
Tips for Successful Blog Posts + Blog Post Prompts You Need
Contact Page
Obviously, you should have your email and social media elsewhere on your blog – like on the sidebar – but you should also have a contact page.
What it comes down to is that you should provide more opportunities to follow you than you think. Make it super easy
Your contact page should have every way to follow you – all social media as well as your newsletter (if you have one) and the email address people can reach you at.
This is also a great place to have a contact form, which is generally provided by every blog platform. This makes it even easier for people to contact you. However, make sure you require someone to include their email address to reduce spam.
Personally, I have combined my Work with Me and Contact pages. This seemed like a good way to cut down on the number of pages I have.
Research Tips for Health Bloggers
Extra Pages for Intermediate Blogs
While the first part of this post was for everyone but especially new bloggers, the rest of this post is for people who have been blogging for a while. That could be a year, it could be several. I would say that you will need these pages once you have at least 20 blog posts.
Start Here
This is a page to help people who have just discovered your blog – or who are interested in what you provide. This page is like a map to reading your blog and is a great way to link to lots of other pages.
My page is a way for people to get to know me, including my health history, which is relevant to my blog.
I then break down the types of posts I have in each category: lifestyle, health, and writing & blogging. Obviously, you can tell by the category what type of posts are in each, but on my Start Here page, I go into more detail to help direct readers to where they want to go.
I also explain that I have a newsletter and what I send to my newsletter. Then I link my top 10 posts.
11 Things You Need for a Good Health Blog
Want to be an even better blogger? Get my signature ebook for health bloggers, Take Your Blog (And Income!) to the Next Level. It’s just $10 and includes blog and social media ideas, templates, places to grow your blog and income.
Tags
As someone who has posted over 1,000 blog posts, tags are an essential way to organize my content. But if you don’t know that I have a tag, how can you go looking for it?
My Tags & Topics page organizes my tags by category. For example, under Health, I list (and link) my tags, which include chronic illness, mental health, and POTS. But I also include tags that aren’t used anymore; just because I don’t write blog posts about writing fiction doesn’t mean that people don’t want to read those posts.
What I Would Do If I Started a Blog Today
Popular Posts
Having a page just about your most popular posts is a great way to get people to stay on your blog longer. While I have a widget on my sidebar about my popular posts, this page has both the titles and the preview images for the post. Both the images and the text are linked.
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Shop
Okay, you can make this page earlier, but it should be a lower priority than the pages in the first section of this post.
A great way to make money from your blog – either so your blog can support itself or as an income stream – is through affiliate links and selling your own products. While you should be sprinkling those through your posts regardless of your niche, having a shop page is one way to highlight these things all in one place.
My Shop page links to my LTK, showcases my many ebooks, and links to my mom’s Etsy shop (because why not?). My Products for the Chronically Ill page, however, is full of affiliate links for many aspects of living with chronic illness.
Everything You Need for Promoting Your Blog
Blog Page Creation Tips
Write the content somewhere else before adding it to your blog.
For example, I write all of my content in Google Docs before moving it to my blog, both for pages and for posts. I also use Grammarly, which helps to catch grammar and spelling issues.
Writing it elsewhere helps reduce spelling and grammar mistakes, which can make you look unprofessional. It also ensures that the page is not accidentally published before it’s ready.
17 Things Needed for Making a Blog Successful
Keep the content short and sweet.
My blog posts can be as many as 4,000 words long. My pages, however, are only a couple of hundred.
I’m not saying you should give yourself a word limit. I’m saying write only what is needed for that page’s purpose. Some of them don’t even need to be word-heavy; my popular posts page is just a one-sentence introduction, the titles of the popular posts, and the preview images for those posts.
My blog posts are long because “Longer posts (2,000 words+) tend to rank higher and more readily appear in the top 10” of search engine results (x). My pages aren’t designed for SEO; they’re designed for people who already found me – maybe from SEO – to stick around.
Blogging 101: Terms You Need To Know
Add links to other parts of your blog.
You want people to stay on your blog longer, so link to other posts and pages. Staying longer:
- Boosts your page views
- Reduces your bounce rate
- Increases the chance people will buy something
Use your pages as ways to direct people to what you want them to see.
The Best Plugins for a Blog in WordPress
You don’t have to make every page immediately accessible from the homepage.
In addition to the pages you can get to by using the menu, I have other pages that aren’t. I have a privacy and disclosure policies page, but it’s linked in pages and not in the menu. I have landing pages for my free downloads that aren’t in the menu. I have a 404 page that exists to direct people to other blog posts if they try to go to a link that doesn’t exist. And, of course, I have a page with all of my free downloads for my newsletter subscribers that can only be accessed if you have the password. (Sign up here!)
Don’t clutter your homepage with all of your pages; it’s not necessary.
52 Blog Post Ideas Health Bloggers Need
Like this post? Share it! Then check out:
How To Brainstorm Blog Post Ideas: 12 Questions To Ask Yourself, Why You Need a Blog Newsletter + What To Send Your Newsletter, How To Improve Your Blogging Skills: 8 Skills You Need, How To Be Good at Blogging: Blogging with Limited Time
Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.
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