| |
| |
|
Web Design Information |
|
|
|
Does Your Homepage Work?
All websites have a homepage. It is the most important page of your site. It acts as the main gateway to the entire site. Most of your prospective customers will enter through it. Its vital to get it right. You dont want them to just turn around and go away again. Take a moment to clear your mind. Now go and look at your homepage and take a minute to evaluate it. Does it work for your prospective customers? Most will arrive at your homepage and quickly scan through the content. If they are interested in what they read and see they'll typically decide to click on a link that takes them to another page where they'll find more information. As they make that decision they'll be asking things like: What do they do?
Alternatively, if the homepage hasnt interested them immediately then they'll leave just as quickly as they arrived, unlikely to return. Your homepage is the gateway to your website and plays a critical part in the prospects visit. First impressions count. The success of your site depends on your homepage. Now, before we look at what a homepage should be, lets look at what it shouldnt be. It should not be a false homepage requiring you to click a link to get to the real homepage. It shouldnt be a page that fails to direct the prospect to further action. It shouldnt contain any content that doesnt serve an immediate and clear purpose. It should never read like a dull brochure, that does nothing to motivate prospects to seek more information or buy immediately. What a homepage should be. It should have a clear message. It should be a dynamic page that instantly conveys a sense of what you do, how you do it, who you are, how you do business, etc. It should start to describe the direct benefits that prospective customers get by buying your product or service. It should create prospect interest and make them eager to find out more. It should provide direction and clearly marked links to get them there. It should focus entirely on serving the needs of your prospective customers and removing their anxieties. The purpose of your website is to sell your products and services to your prospects. To be effective your homepage must meet the needs of your prospects exactly and provide answers to their questions. To do this you must know what your prospects want and how they want it. If you dont already know, find out. Ask them! Also, spend some time looking at other homepages learning what works and what doesnt. Are there features and styles that you could adopt on your site? Once you have these answers design your entire homepage around them. Spend some time getting it right and both you and your prospects will benefit. Dont settle for second best unless you want your website to fail as a result of being ineffective. When you've done it. Take a moment to clear your mind. Now go and look at your homepage once again and take a minute to re-evaluate it. Does it work for your prospective customers now? Good luck! About The Author Peter Simmons is editor of the DYNAMIQ EZINE. GET MAXIMUM RESULTS FROM YOUR WEBSITE! Increase your traffic, prospect conversions, sales, profits, referrals and more... START GETTING RESULTS RIGHT NOW with your $129 WEBSITE EVALUATION ABSOLUTELY FREE at http://www.dynamiq.co.uk/ezine or email me anytime at mailto:peter@dynamiq.co.uk
MORE RESOURCES:
Web-Design - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
9 Ways to Gain Your Visitors Respect The internet is filled with sites and they are good and bad. Some have been known for a long time and some still struggle to get the respect and fame they think they deserve. Creating Your First Website? Your Options Creating your own website is great fun! But how is it done? Well, there are five main options, read this carefully and choose which one you think is best for you!Use software you already have:You may not know this, but you can actually use Microsoft Word to create webpages! This is great, since you can save yourself the cost of buying expensive new software. Just create your document as you would do normally, and then just select "Save As" from the File menu. Web Advertising: 10 Little Known Tricks To Help Convert Your Traffics To Buying Customers You may not believe it, but people still judge things by their appearances.How does your website look?The appearance of your web site text can actually increase or decrease your sales. Custom Website Design - 3 Must Have Tools Creating your own website can be fun and easy, as long as you have the right tools. Fortunately, all the tools you need are available at your fingertips and all you need to know are which tools will allow you to design the best website possible. Should You Bother Learning HTML to Build Webpages? The most popular method to build webpages today is to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software. Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver are prime examples of WYSIWYG software. The Next Marketing Tool: Deisgn Design sells. It's something that all of us know, but few of us consciously acknowledge. Custom Web Site Design Strategies Web site design has certainly, in the past decade, evolved tremendously. More clients now are demanding custom design, as opposed to the 'cookie cutter' sites of yesteryear. Website Creativity: Why It Matters Now More than Ever If one more business owner tells me their website sucks because they're just "too darn busy to deal with it", I'm gonna hurl. That's like saying, "I'm doing business in my dirty underwear because I'm too busy to get dressed. Designing Beautiful Artist Websites - 12 Tips To Showcase Your Art 1. Who needs an artists website?Not everyone! If you are currently exhibiting in multiple high-end galleries and making a handsome income, a website may not be for you. A Website Checklist If you've just finished building your new website (or revamping your old one), how can you be sure it's "ready for prime time"? Or maybe your site's been around for awhile and you think it may be due for a makeover. Because Web technologies, techniques and standards change so rapidly, even a website that seems "cutting edge" when it's built can look obsolete a year later. What Happened to My Website when I Deleted the Home Page by Mistake? There is a widespread confusion among lots of new website designer concerning the home page.If you get any book, any course, or ask most web page designer how to build a website, they will advise you to build your home page first. Design Your Site For Your Customers The most important person that you need to please when you design your site is your potential customer. I can not stress that enough. Why You Should Use CSS It seems more and more webmasters are using CSS for the design and layout of their sites rather than depending on tables and HTML mark up. As well as being more efficient in terms of page size and reusing CSS templates many webmasters believe that it also contributes towards search engine friendliness. Effective Website Design In this era of ultra-sophisticated internet marketing and web design, there is no excuse for an e-business to suffer with an ineffective website. Whether your goal is to present a basic business website that briefly introduces and describes your company and product, or you endeavor to develop a fully-functioning cash-cow storefront, there is a wide array of design choices to cater to all of your needs. 3 Tips For Writing Content That Will Make You Sales Content is king. Without content your website is an empty shell, a skeleton with no flesh, an empty vessel. Website Design: 10 Smart Tips To Improve Your Ad Copy Your website design may be affecting your sales in ways that you may not believe.Here are a few website design tips to help you improve your website and ad copy for greater profitability:1. Moving Things Around How often, men, have you come home to find the living room furniture in different places? Your wife said she was ready for something different, so she moved some things around. It may have been inconvenient at first, but deep inside it felt good to have things a little different at home. TEN Answers That Turn Your Visitors Into Your Customers You know.. Be Inspired to Create Better Websites Being a writer, when I was asked to do some research into what makes a good website, of course I straightaway went to check out all of my favorite authors. After sifting through a few standard sites I remembered to look at one of my all time respected writers-Paulo Coelho. Plugging the Dreaded World Wide Web Black Hole is Just the First Step You have created your custom error page so now all of that traffic that use to go into the World Wide Web black hole now stays on your web page. But if you don't do the following 15 Minute exercise once or twice a month you are not Maximizing those Lost visitorsCustom error pages are a crucial part of your web page but they are just not enough.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
