The First Click: Re-thinking a Homepage

Our goal, the first click

All of our SEO efforts to promote the website homepage are useless if we do not think about what we really want from our homepage. What makes a website homepage successful? For the homepage we get clients requests like:

• I want to display a bunch of images in a slideshow!
• I want to show how big my company is, the huge number of employees, and how we are all around the world.
• I want my logo to be in the middle of the page because it is so nice and expensive.
• I want a Flash animated intro (yeah, still some people ask for this… so 90’s!).

Think about the most successful websites in the world, like Facebook, Wikipedia or Amazon. And now think about their homepages.

What guidelines do they follow? Certainly none of them do anything like a flash animation intro. If these sites were not famous, would you say they have a good homepage? Maybe you would say they are not flashy enough! Think, are these the homepages you would ask for your website?

Think about it, what you want from your homepage is actually very simple, all you want is your visitors to think:

"I want to know more!"

And right after that, they will surely make their first click.

This first click is the foundation of any successful homepage, no matter how you put it. If someone lands on your site and they feel they want to click somewhere interesting then your homepage design is done.

The best request for a homepage is:

• I want people to be interested and make their first click.

Now that we know the goal of our website homepage is a first click, we should think about how to get it from the visitors.... and which guidelines to follow for this.

Talk to them (not THEM, the costumers)

You want to tell the costumers what you can offer them. They don’t want to know how many offices you have, or how big and professional your company is, or how cool your new logo is; they want to have a reason to stay.

Guideline 1: Sell it

You probably are selling something, so say what you are selling right away. Many websites start with something like:

"We have various solutions for companies in many fields that want to have a presence online."

"What? I am getting out of here!" says the first nice potential costumer. So, do not be afraid to say what you have right away:

"The best rockin’ Websites for your company!"

This may be a very simple example, but many corporate websites homepages struggle with this. Of course you know what you want to sell, so sell it in the homepage. Don’t be ashamed of showing what you have to offer right away. People will not stay if you do not give them a reason to stay. Imagine Amazon saying:

"Please, browse our website to find something you may need, we have many products of many types in all kinds of prices."

Instead of what they have right now (is just the meta description, but is a good example):

“Online shopping from the earth's biggest selection of books, magazines, music, DVDs, hardware, electronics, etc.; just about anything else.”

Amazon makes very clear exactly on the homepage what they are offering and soon enough they will get our first click. This is an important lesson for your homepage: sell it. And yeah, you can talk to THEM also.

Guideline 2: Make visitors feel related

You probably have some a great business strategy and clear customer segmentation. For example, if you have "potential clients in China" vs. "potential clients abroad", then your page should have links like:

• Are you in China?
• Are you outside of China?

Then it is pretty clear what they should do: give their very first click on the section that is relevant to them. This way they will want to know more. You want visitors to feel related to what you have to offer.

Guideline 3: Tease

Get your click by giving them different teasers of the content you want to promote. Give your users some information but not all. Make them click on see more links.

You probably have various services, products, or sections you want your visitors to go to, and it is impossible to show it all in the homepage. Think of it as newspaper headlines, the full content of the newspaper would never be on the headline, it is just enough so people want to see more about it.

Have the homepage design with:

• Short but attractive text: "Get new pants now".
• Links to latest content you want to promote: "Check my blog about tiny elephants".
• Use only a few paragraphs so that people don't have to scroll down way too much.

The homepage will be much more interesting than 5 paragraphs about your company history, your biography or things like that. No one will read 5 paragraphs about how your company was founded on the homepage.

Finally

You have to think about making it look professional or beautiful: selecting the right pictures, choosing the right colors, creating the most appropriate layout. Also good SEO in the homepage is the first step to any kind of SEO. And do this thinking of your targeted costumer; you probably want a professional homepage design here.

Of course there is much more in homepage design than these few pointers or guidelines, but it is too long to say it on this post. Please give me your comments and opinions!