Structure the smallest useful site

Five pages, or fewer

Most personal sites need these, and nothing else:

• Home: your sentence, your best work, a way to reach you.
• Work: one entry per piece you kept, with two lines each.
• Writing: only if you have at least three pieces, otherwise skip it.
• About: a short story, a photo, what you are looking for.
• Contact: an email address is enough. A form is optional.

A page earns its place when a visitor would miss it. “Services”, “Testimonials”, “Blog” with one post, “Uses”: later, if ever.

Words first

Design comes tomorrow. Today, write the actual text of each page in a plain document. When the words are right, the layout is easy; when they are wrong, no layout saves them.

For each piece of work: what it is, who it was for, and what changed because of it. One line each. A link or an image if you have one.

The home page does three jobs

1. Says what you do (the sentence from day 1).
2. Shows proof (your best two or three pieces).
3. Says what to do next (write to you, read something, see more work).

If it does more than that, cut.

Done when

The list of pages has five or fewer entries, the home page text is written, and every piece of work has its line.