Homepage

The home page is the most important page on your site!

The majority of your new visitors will enter your site via the home page. Your top priority for the home page is to make sure it gives new visitors a good first impression of your site. If you fail, a lot of visitors will leave, probably never to return. We cannot stress how important this is!

Here are some tips on how to make a good first impression with your home page:

17.1. Make a Good First Impression
17.1.1. First Three Seconds are the Most Important
17.1.2. Site Identity
17.1.3. Site Benefits
17.1.4. Primary Navigation
17.1.5. Direct Links to the Content Advertised
17.1.6. Feature and Content Teasers or Promotions
17.1.7. Fresh Content
17.1.8. Links to the Most Popular Content
17.1.9. Starting Points
17.1.10. Search
17.1.11. Registration or Log-In
17.1.12. Advertisements
17.2. How to Sell the Benefits of Using Your Site
17.2.1. The Tagline or Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

17.2.2. The Welcome Message
17.2.3. The Browser's Title Bar
17.3. Starting Points for Three Types of Users
17.4. Optimizing Homepage Real Estate
17.4.1. Rollover Pop-Up Windows
17.4.2. Pull-Down Navigation Menus
17.4.3. Effective Pull-Down Menus
17.4.4. Rotate Content
17.4.5. Split Run Testing
17.5. Can Homepage Navigation be Different?
17.6. Common Homepage Mistakes
17.6.1. Large banner ads
17.6.2. Too many ad buttons
17.6.3. Too much content
17.6.4. Go away links

Make a Good First Impression >>>