5 Homepage Facts
10 August 2008
Here are some facts about your website homepage, and what it means for you.
Obvious Fact 1. About a third of your visitors will leave your site without ever venturing further than your homepage.
What this means for you:
Your homepage needs to not only capture the attention of your target audience, but draw them onwards to explore other strategically written and crafted content on your site.
Obvious Fact 2. First impressions (and hence subconscious judgements about you and your business) are made within a matter of seconds.
What this means for you:
Having a website that looks dated or doesn’t immediately convey your message to your visitor is like wearing boardies and thongs to a meeting. Unless that’s the image you want to project, don’t do it.
Obvious Fact 3. No one reads your text.
What this means for you:
The less written content on your homepage, the better. Delivering textual information in bite sized pieces and doing it gracefully is the key.
Obvious Fact 4. It’s about them, not you.
What this means for you:
Today, it’s all about me me me. It’s easy to think about what ‘I’ want. I want a blue banner. I want a bigger logo. I want the font smaller.
Stop. Think about what your clients or customers want. Do they really give a damn if your banner is ice blue or sky blue? They want to know how much your product costs, where to buy it and why it’s better and if you don’t give them that, they’ll move on to the hundreds of other options available to them, regardless if your banner looks the right blue.
Obvious Fact 5. Most websites look like crap.
What this means for you:
Seriously. As proof, search any business type on yellow or google, and look at the first 5 results you get. I guarantee you the majority of them look like they were designed in the 90’s.
Which means it’s actually quite easy to stand out. All it takes is some initiative and some idea of what you want your website to do.
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Bluewire Media, on 23 November 2008 said:
Great points – I agree with you!
Also, did you know? … that according to Google, on average, 50% of users bounce of a website within 8 secs.
And that users only read the first three (3) words of any sentence.
Not much time to get your message across is it?
Internet Solutions, on 20 January 2009 said:
Very well said, I agree with you.
Apple Juice, on 9 March 2009 said:
It might be easy to stand out, but not so easy to get your site in the top 30 to be seen :/
ActiveStudio, on 18 March 2009 said:
I agree as well.
Also as important is simplistic and easily accessible navigation – there’s a reason why a person visits your site, if they can’t visualize how to get what they need in the first few seconds, they’re gone.
G Web, on 20 March 2009 said:
I so agree with everything that you have to say. Point 4 is my best its about them no you. People are so trapped into the fact that when they open their site everyday it looks pretty. Analytics is our friend in getting our message accross. Great post, Goran.
Sam Gemmell, on 20 March 2009 said:
G Web shared your link with us in the office this morning and I have to agree with all posts, well said and well put. Agree agree agree! Thanks so much.
Cubicle Ninjas, on 16 April 2009 said:
Good web design template must be needed to build a quality web site. front end is much important. because front end is the part will interact with users.
so the design should be an understandable one also we should give more preference for users friendly.
Thanks,
Cubicle Ninja – Chicago Design|Website Design,
http://cubicleninjas.com
Asif, on 6 May 2009 said:
A very nice templates. I like your efforts.
Website Templates, on 31 December 2009 said:
No doubt, first impression of the website design for the visitors plays vital role and its impression should be everlasting in the minds of the visitors for the successful of the site.
affordable seo, on 13 January 2010 said:
A good layout attract the public.I appreciate your effort.
Rockreative, on 24 February 2010 said:
To create an original & impressive website, you always need custom designed website but yes you need to know some facts while coding it in to a HTML that it should contain a good & original information also as your design.
Templates are always reused & used again & again which mean the website as yours is a website of another company in your field.
So I suggest, never go for templates but for original custom design.
Business Electricity, on 9 March 2010 said:
I think this is one area where small businesses have a distinct advantage over large corporations.
Business Telecoms, on 9 March 2010 said:
I think this is one area where small businesses have a distinct advantage over large corporations.