Inner Pages of Your Website

You work hard to make your homepage a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but how about your inner pages?

Your inner pages should also be things of beauty and joys forever. This is not just because you deserve a great website (which you do), but because your visitors may very well come into your site through an inner page.

The example above, designed by Tom Hapgood, uses the same background and navigation throughout, and puts the content of the various pages on an overlay that looks like a stack of postcards or a sheet of paper lying on the  surface. Someone searching for "grass-finished beef" who ends up on the products page can readily find contact information or the home page.

A slightly different approach can be seen int his refresh of Hatfield and Associates, designed by Shan Pesaru. The homepage, above, has a different image and a different layout from the inner page, shown below.

The navigation remains the same, though, and the color scheme and the overall feel. On this website, all the inner pages use black and white photographs. The contact information is also prominent on the inner pages as well as the homepage. You don't want your visitors to feel as though they've gotten lost.

We've seen sites that had inner pages with no contact information, no navigation bar, a completely different navigational structure, different colors and fonts, and even a different version of the logo. Bad idea. We've also seen website that made the inner pages identical to the homepage except for the content -- same image, same layout, just new words. Also not good -- okay for people who reach that page first, perhaps, but confusing for people navigating through the website.

Navigate through your own website and make sure it gives a clear and consistent impression. You'll be glad you did.