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Four Critical Keys to Writing a Web Site Home Page
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Writing a website home page.
The challenges when writing a homepage.
Homepages can be tricky, simply because your page not
only has its own job to do but also
has to support a group of second-level pages.
Here's how we suggest you approach writing homepages...
whether a site has a total of 10
pages or a thousand pages.
1. Use your principal homepage headline to communicate
your site's underlying
value proposition
This is job one. When first-time visitors arrive at your
site, they have a purpose in mind.
They are looking for something.
The job of your principal headline is to communicate
quickly and clearly the primary value
proposition of your site.
That is to say, you need to let people know what your
site is about, and why it is better than
all the competing sites that offer similar products or
services.
This is a tough job in the best of times. But it gets
harder when you burden your headline
with extra duties.
So stay focused. Understand what your visitor is looking
for. Communicate your promise
and value quickly and clearly.
2. Use some short introductory text to clarify and
expand on your headline
Not every value proposition can be communicated
completely in 10 words or less.
You may be able to get close. But if you have a business
that offers a number of different
product or service categories, you are better off
keeping your headline simple, and then us-
ing some short introductory text to expand on your
message and clarify.
Place this text directly beneath your headline, so there
is a natural flow from one to the other. Don't make your readers have to search for this
clarifying copy.
In other words, be aware of the eye-path of your
readers. If you want someone to read a
block of text immediately after reading your headline,
place it within the same column, with
the same margins, one following directly after the
other.
3. Help visitors find what they are looking for
Unless you have a single product or single service, you
are going to have to help people find
the second-level page that best matches their immediate
interest.
If 80% of your visitors end up going to just three or
four of your second-level pages first,
make links to these pages easy to find on your homepage.
This sounds obvious, but home pages are often cluttered
with too many featured links.
Use your navigation links to provide access to all areas
of your site. But make a feature of
the links that best serve the needs of the majority of
your visitors.
4. Make your first-time visitors feel comfortable and
confident
When visitors come to your site for the first time, they
will feel unsure about you unless you
are a nationally recognized brand.
They will need reassurance. They need to know they can
trust you. And they want to know
that you really can give them what they are looking for.
There are numerous ways to build trust, including the
use of third-party seals from organisations like the Better Business Bureau Online.
But a major factor in building trust will be the tone of
your headline and other text on the
page.
Your home page is rarely a sales page. The selling will
take place on the second or third levels.
So on your homepage, avoid hype. Write simply, clearly,
and honestly. Make your page and
your text useful and helpful.
Summary and Concluding Thoughts...
Clearly, there is a great deal more that can be said
about writing homepages. But these four
points cover what we consider to be the most important
issues.
Whenever we write a homepage, we aim for clarity and
simplicity. In our mind we stay fo-
cused on helping each visitor.
We want people to quickly understand what the site is
about. We want them to be able to
find what they want without having to work too hard to
find it.
And we want them to feel comfortable and confident that
they have come to the right place.
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