There’s a story told by James Hetfield of Metallica about their first visit to my home country, Poland back in 1991 or so. I can only recall it from memory now but basically they didn’t even get a chance to leave their plane when a journalist run to them saying “Welcome to Poland, how do you like it?”. “We’re here less than a minute, what do you expect us to say?” they replied stunned adding a few f-words so typically for them.
I bet similar situations happen to many celebrities when they arrive to a place they haven’t visited before but what’s worse they also happen to website visitors.
How often are you welcomed to the site by an exciting statement such as “welcome to our site, we are pleased to see you. we are a company established here and there and based here and there blah blah blah” with graphics screaming “how do you like our site?” at you?.
Great, but what is it exactly that you do?
The whole idea behind the home page is to inform the visitor entering your site for the first time what the deal is and if he is in the right place. The aim should be to answer his basic question: “Am I likely to get what I am looking for?”.
This can be done by simply placing two most important pieces of information on the home page:
1. A short description of services you offer
Practically a one or two liner describing what you do or specialize at.
2. Benefits of using your services
What makes you different and why would I buy from you.
Also, in order for the visitor to see them and get them this information has to be made prominent on the page, this can be simply achieved by making those two elements:
1. Positioned in the main area of the page:
the info should be high up the page, so the visitor sees it first, and understand that it’s important.
2. Big:
the most important information should be made bigger and more visible than less important stuff.
3. Contrasting in Tone & Colour:
the things your visitor needs to know first should be laid out in contrasting colors to make them stand out even more.
There are of course more elements and rules that make home pages work but once you use those few mentioned here you shouldn’t have a problem with a visitor wondering what the site is all about and whether he is in a wrong place or not.