The Many Home Pages of Your Website

Most companies focus the majority of their efforts when designing their site on the home page. In fact the design process for most web design companies begins by designing the home page – it’s the natural place to start. But guess what, not everybody who visits your site will start with your homepage.

Every page on your site is referenced by Google and, therefore, can appear in the search listings.  (And that’s great, that’s how you want it to be: as many routes into your site as possible all generating traffic.)  So, each page of your website that is referenced by a search engine means that it can be accessed directly – this is known as a Landing Page.  This means that your visitor can ‘land’ on that page without having to go to the home page first.

Just imagine for a second how your visitor will react if they land on your product page, or your About Us page first or how about a plain old information page?  Because they haven’t followed the natural route from the homepage they may well have lost the context of your message.  Plus you very often find that homepages contain links to special parts of the site the company wants to ‘push’ which you never see on any other page.  A special offer is a classic example.

Ok, so your customer is coming to your site from any page, they can’t all look like the home page so what to do?

Well, let’s step through the checklist…

1. Remember that the copy (words) on each of the pages should be welcoming, friendly and set the same tone as your homepage.

2. If you have areas (offer boxes, case studies, pictures, etc) on the home page which drive people to specific parts of your website consider reusing them on your landing pages.

3. Make sure you have a clear call to action somewhere on the landing page so your visitor knows what you want them to do next.

4. Imagine that your visitor knows nothing about you and hasn’t had the benefit of the introduction that your Home Page offers.  Use your copy to provide reassurance and clarity.  For example, clearly demonstrate the benefits of your service/product, back it up with testimonials, guarantees, etc, describe the value of your business.

The acid test is to take a print out of a few of your web pages down to the local pub and ask your friends for their reaction.  Best to do this before the heavy drinking begins and don’t show them the home page until the end.

So, remember, you’ve got a lot more homepages on your website than just your home page – make sure you’re making the most of them!

Until next time…

The website consultant